Thursday, October 10, 2013

A Blend of India and Jazz


     As I mentioned in my first image post, three years ago I helped compose and record an album for a group of guys from India.  It was a lengthy but very rewarding process.  The above video is one of the motivations for why I want to research the mixing of Indian and Western music.  We combined jazz elements with Indian musical elements.  As you can hear, we used guitars, an upright bass, piano, and a western drumkit.

     Their band name is Jamta Kya, which literally means "will it freeze?" in Hindi.  I found it to be an odd name until they explained why.  Back in India, at the university where they were at, the term was used as an idiom to express a variety of things.  An example would be as follows; I am carrying a lot of books.  I can look at a door and ask one of them, "Door, jamta kya?", and that will be understood as "Can you get the door for me?"

     This project helped me to gain a better understanding of how music can be similar and different at the same time.

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