Ravi Shankar Quotes

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Ravi Shankar

Profession : Musician

Birth : April 7, 1920

Everybody has a right to like or dislike anything or anyone. From a flower to a flavor to a book or a composition but it is very sad that in our country we actually fight over such things in an unseemly manner.

Ravi Shankar

In our culture we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God.

Ravi Shankar

The music that I have learned and want to give is like worshipping God. It's absolutely like a prayer.

Ravi Shankar

My secret ambition was always to provide music for animation films: something with an Indian theme, either a fairy tale or mythological tale or on the Krishna theme. I still have a very deep desire, but these sorts of chances don't always come.

Ravi Shankar

'Ravi' means 'sun.' It's a Sanskrit original word. And 'Shankar' is another name of Shiva, one of the holy trinity god that we worship.

Ravi Shankar

I have my own spiritual guru, and I'm so happy, and I feel so satisfied that I might appreciate many other famous gurus, but, you know, I am not attracted that way because I have found the person.

Ravi Shankar

I try to give to my music the spiritual quality, very deep in the soul, which does something even if you are not realizing it or analyzing it - that's the duty of the music.

Ravi Shankar

In the U.K., classical music is composed by individuals and written down. Indian music is based on certain sequences called ragas. When I perform live, 95% of the music is improvised: it never sounds the same twice.

Ravi Shankar

There are thousands of ragas, and they are all connected with different times of the day, like sunrise or night or sunset. It is all based on 72 of what we call 'mela' or scales. And we have principally nine moods, ranging from peacefulness to praying, or the feeling of emptiness you get by sitting by the ocean.

Ravi Shankar

I appreciate very much Vilayat Khan, the sitar player, and Bismillah Khan, the shehnai player; and among the tabla players, of course, Alla Rakha, Kishan Maharaja, and all these people.

Ravi Shankar

My music has a very spiritual background, a sanctity that is almost like worship.

Ravi Shankar

In India, I have been called a 'destroyer.' But that is only because they mixed my identity as a performer and as a composer. As a composer I have tried everything, even electronic music and avant-garde. But as a performer I am, believe me, getting more classical and more orthodox, jealously protecting the heritage that I have learned.

Ravi Shankar

Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature.

Ravi Shankar

I have great difficulty sitting in the middle of the night and writing. Everything I do comes spontaneous. Sometimes it takes a long time; sometimes it comes just like that.

Ravi Shankar

I will keep playing as long as my body lets me, and as long as I'm wanted by my listeners. Because music is the only thing that keeps me going.

Ravi Shankar

I think musicians and actors have all these problems, because of the popularity and the opportunity.

Ravi Shankar

When people say that George Harrison made me famous, that is true in a way.

Ravi Shankar

In the olden days, I believe Mozart also improvised on piano, but somehow in the last 200 years, the whole training of Western classical music - they don't read between the lines, they just read the lines.

Ravi Shankar

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

Ravi Shankar

I started out as a dancer, but gradually became more interested in music.

Ravi Shankar