walking upstream…
Ravi Shankar
photo: markgoff2972 · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar is the sitarist who, more than any other single musician, opened Hindustani classical music to a global audience — through his 1950s–60s concert tours, his collaborations with Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison, and his Monterey Pop and Concert for Bangladesh appearances. Before any of that he spent his teens as a dancer in his brother Uday Shankar's globe-touring company, then gave up the stage in 1938 to spend seven and a half years as a live-in disciple of the sarod guru Allauddin Khan in Maihar, absorbing the Senia-Maihar gharana's long, dhrupad-rooted alap style that became the foundation of his own playing.
the sound in question
1956
Raga JogRavi Shankar
walk the tributaries ↓
Allauddin Khan1920s–50s · Hindustani classical / Sarod
This is the central relationship of Shankar's musical life: he gave up dancing in 1938 to live inside guru Allauddin Khan's household in Maihar for seven and a half years, drilled in ragas, dhrupad, dhamar and khyal, and in the been-ang (veena-style) technique Khan grafted onto sitar and sarod alike — long unmetered alap built from intricate meend (glides) rather than showy speed.
listen: upstream & heresource: BBC Music Magazine / Classical Music ↗
Sarod – Raga Hem (All India Radio recording)Allauddin Khan
1956
Raga JogRavi Shankar
listen forSet Khan's own unhurried, dhrupad-toned alap in Raga Hem next to the opening minutes of Shankar's Raga Jog: both let a single phrase unfold and bend for a long stretch before any pulse enters — that patience is the Maihar gharana signature passed teacher to student.
Uday Shankar1930s · Indian classical dance / Modern dance / Choreography
Ravi's elder brother put him onstage as a boy dancer with his touring company from age ten, carrying him through Paris and across Europe and the US and exposing him to Toscanini, Casals, Kreisler and Heifetz along the way; it was Uday who, in 1935, persuaded the Maharaja of Maihar to lend Allauddin Khan to the troupe as soloist — the introduction that redirected Ravi's whole life toward the sitar.
listen: upstream & heresource: Google Arts & Culture / Ravi Shankar Institute (RIMPA) ↗
1948
Kalpana (1948 dance film, written, directed by and starring Uday Shankar)Uday Shankar
1967
Live at the Monterey International Pop Festival (Dhun)Ravi Shankar
listen forWatch Uday's own dance-drama Kalpana for the full-company, theatrical staging of Indian art for a mixed global audience, then listen to Ravi's 1967 Monterey Pop set — both put Hindustani performance deliberately in front of a world stage rather than a purely Indian one, a showman's instinct Ravi absorbed first as his brother's dancer.
Timir Baran1930s–40s · Hindustani classical / Sarod / Film score / Orchestral
Before Ravi ever met Allauddin Khan formally, he was already absorbing music from Timir Baran — sarodist, Khan's own first disciple, and the resident composer for Uday Shankar's Paris-based troupe — picking up Baran's scores by ear and imitating them on sitar and esraj. Baran's instinct for arranging Hindustani instruments within a larger ensemble (he later built India's first symphony orchestra) planted an idea Ravi would return to decades later.
listen: upstream & heresource: Google Arts & Culture / Ravi Shankar Institute (RIMPA) ↗
Sarod – Raga Pilu (from a 78rpm disc)Timir Baran
1971
Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra No. 1 (with the London Symphony Orchestra)Ravi Shankar
listen forBaran's own sarod recordings stay squarely within solo Hindustani convention; the echo shows up instead in scale and ambition — compare the ensemble-building impulse behind Baran's 'Indian symphony orchestra' project to Ravi's own Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra with the LSO, both trying to seat Hindustani instruments inside a Western orchestral frame.