Experiments with Hindustani Classical Music — The Beatles Journey
Hindustani Classical music has had a great impact on Western songwriting and composition. Here is how it inspired the ever-great Beatles.
In 1965, when Beatlemania was at its peak, The Beatles went on a US tour. Only a little before this, during the UK tour of The Byrds, David Crosby gave the legendary sitar guru, Ravi Shankar’s, album to George Harisson. This was a life-changing moment for the young musician and a gateway into the world of Indian Classical music and sitar.
Hindustani classical music finds its origins in Northern India, as early as the 12th century CE. Hindustani music is raga-based, has elements of the Hindu traditions from religious groups like Vaishnavites, Vedic philosophy, and Persian tradition, and has been influenced by Sufi composers like Amir Khushro and Tansen from the Mughal courts of medieval India.
It later diversified into different gharanas that performed in the princely courts. The ten major styles of Hindustani music are Dhrupad, Khayal, Tappa, Chaturanga, Tarana, Sargam, Thumri and Ragasagar, Hori and Dhamar.
The ragas and talas of Indian Classical music have the ability to serenade their listeners and are like therapy to many. But this music has never been limited to India. It has traveled worldwide with reputed international musicians coming to us to receive tutelage and our own traveling the globe. It is not unusual for music traditions to get influenced by one another.
One such example has been of Harrison.
On the sets of Help!, which was sequenced in an Indian restaurant in London, there was an ensemble of Indian musical instruments sitar, flute, tabla, ghunghroo, tanpura, and possibly a dilruba and surbahar to play a Beatles medley called Another Hard Day’s Night. This is where Harisson’s interest in the sitar grew manifolds. He was known as ‘The Quiet Beatle’ until then; such was the influence of John Lennon and Paul McCartney on the band. But when he brought the sitar to the recording session of Norwegian Wood, it put him on the map. He gave the song an Indian Classical edge, and it was the first Western pop song to feature a sitar. After Norwegian Wood, it was Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones to use sitar for their song Paint It Black in 1966.
A year after Harrison’s first introduction to the music of Ravi Shankar, he met Sitar virtuoso in Bath, who was there for a performance. “It is strange to see pop musicians with sitars. I was confused at first. It had so little to do with our classical music. When George Harrison came to me, I didn’t know what to think,” says Ravi Shankar in Raga, a 1971 documentary about the sitarist. “But I found he really wanted to learn. I never thought our meeting would cause such an explosion that Indian music would suddenly appear in the pop scene.” Harrison spent six weeks learning sitar under the tutelage of Shankar.
Thereafter, he recorded three songs for The Beatles with the Indian classical music influence. They were The Inner Light, Love You To and Within You Without You. The 1967 single Strawberry Fields Forever featured a swarmandal being played by Harisson.
John Lennon also admired Indian Classical music, and The Beatles even visited India in 1968 to learn Transcendental Meditation in the northern city of Rishikesh. Harrison and Ravi Shankar also came together for a concert in New York’s Madison Square Garden in August 1971 to raise awareness about the genocide in Bangladesh, then East Pakistan. Other than Harisson, the concert featured Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, Ravi Shankar and members from Badfinger. He also released a song called Bangla Desh to give the western world an idea about the crisis in South Asia.
Even before lessons and collaborations with Harisson, when Ravi Shankar started touring Europe and the United States in the 1950s, the western audience was awestruck by Indian Classical tunes and the musical instruments. It sounded a lot like modern jazz and Shankar started giving Indian music classes in the 1960s. “Local jazzmen are standing in line to enroll for the class,” noted TIME. He was the one who popularised sitar in the US, and consequently Indian Classical music.
If you want to take your own journey into Hindustani Vocals, check out Habbit’s Hindustani Classical Music class held by Akansha Sethi, a professional singer and songwriter! Find your range, sing better and explore your full singing potential at Habbit.