Raga Quotes

Indian food is like classical music raga- it takes time to build up to a crescendo. ~ Shobhaa De

Colors sluiced the air with fugal patterns as a shape subsumed the breeze and fell, to form further on, a brighter emerald, a duller amethyst. Odors flushed the wind with vinegar, snow, ocean, ginger, poppies, rum. Autumn, ocean, ginger, ocean, autumn; ocean, ocean, the surge of ocean again, while light foamed in the dimming blue that underlit the Mouse's face. Electric arpeggios of a neo-raga rilled. ~ Samuel R. Delany

The world by day is like European music; a flowing concourse of vast harmony, composed of concord and discord and many disconnected fragments. And the night world is our Indian music; one pure, deep and tender raga. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I've learnt new scales through playing different types of music, like Indian raga scales, gipsy scales and harmonically-based jazz scales. ~ Nigel Kennedy

In its totality, a raga is a combination of musical heritage, technical elements, emotional charge, cognitive understanding and aural identity. ~ T.M. Krishna

उद्यत्भानुसहस्राभा चतुर्बाहुसमन्विता
रागस्वरूपपाशाढ्या क्रोधाकाराङ्कुशोज्ज्वला ॥२
Udyath-bhaanu-sahara-aabhaa Chatu-r-baahu-sama-anwithaa
Raga-swa-roopa-paasha-aadhya Kroedha-aakaara-angusha-o-ujjwalaa
2.
Who enlightens and destroys evil of devotee,
With four arms in all directions destroys evil fully,
She the cause of love and attachment in life be,
She carries stick of anger to destroy all surely.
- 4 - ~ Munindra Misra

I wonder if the story (though not intended as such by my aunt) is a warning for me, a preview of my own life which I thought I had fashioned so cleverly, so differently from my mother's, but which is only a repetition, in a different raga, of her tragic song. Perhaps it is like this for all daughters, doomed to choose for ourselves, over and over, the men who have destroyed our mothers. ~ Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni

When Indian musicians play a raga it's very restrictive. But, in a way these restraints are essential to liberate yourself through them, if that makes sense. I'm very much of this school of rhythm, it's the direction I'm drawn in when I'm writing and improvising. ~ John McLaughlin

One single raga can be performed for two hours, three hours. ~ Ravi Shankar