Costa Mesa Concert : Ravi Shankar’s 3rd Musical Life Suits Him Best

Long before his association with George Harrison of the Beatles gave him the status of a cult superstar, sitarist Ravi Shankar had made a name for himself--and for Indian music in the West.

Shankar, who makes his local debut today at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, had begun promoting Indian music in this country in 1956. “For 10 years,” he said, “I established myself--as well as Indian music--on a very healthy ground, in the sense I was playing full houses at Carnegie Hall or the Royal Festival Hall in London. I was very well known.”

But when Harrison became his student for a short period in 1966, Shankar was catapulted into a new arena.

It was a mixed experience, he said: “I was thrown into that situation. It was like an explosion of sitar and Indian music, Indian hookahs, incense, everything, om, Kamasutra. . . . It was a very superficial period. . . . It coincided with the whole hippie movement, the rebellion of the youth and Vietnam, and the whole drug culture and everything.

“Anyway, it was good and bad: Good from the point of view that it brought young people just like that. Within a year or so, they were all interested in Indian music and Indian philosophy. But it was very superficial because they were not ready for it. . . .

“Because they came from the pop- and rock-appreciating group, they didn’t have that training of the public who listens to Brahms or Bach. . . . These people, they whistled and they were trying to appreciate in the same manner as they would go to a rock concert.”

Surprised by that reception, he was also startled to find himself being attacked on the home front.

“Here I was trying to put my music in the right place, explaining what it is all about, the background, the spiritual aspect of it, the whole thing that we believe in, and back in India, there was all this anti-propaganda that I was selling my music, I was committing sacrilege and becoming a hippie myself!”

It took him several years to come out of that period, as his managers continued to book him into arenas and large stadiums. “Because of contracts, I couldn’t do anything about it,” he said.

Now he is again playing in classical music venues.

“Now I am in my third period--and the best period, I think.”

Some of his fans from the hippie era are still coming his concerts. “But the whole attitude is so beautiful now, and exactly what it should be,” he said. “They listen with much more feeling and understanding as well.”

Criticism in India has also ended, he said: “That lasted for a few years. But now it’s over.”

Well, yes and no.

Controversy still dogs his heel as he pursues two different directions as performer and composer. “Many people get (the two activities) mixed up because as a composer I have been experimenting with a lot of things--with jazz musicians, even pop groups, with electronics, anything, symphony orchestra,” he said.

“Many people can’t accept that or understand that that is an experimental thing because when I perform as a soloist, . . . I’m very orthodox, very classical, a very pure traditionalist. . . .

“But as a composer, I am not afraid to experiment--for films or orchestra or ballet.”

Shankar conceded that “Indian music is very difficult to take in immediately,” but he added that “people who don’t have a classical (music) background” can respond to it more readily “because they’re not regimented in their way of appreciation. We dwell in our music mostly on melody and rhythm.”

The melodic pattern of the music is called raga; rhythms are arranged in cycles called talas.

“Raga cannot be explained in a few words,” he said. “Raga is not mere scale, it’s not a mode. It’s not a key. It’s not a melody. The nearest way to explain raga is ‘melody forms.’ ”

Each raga is based upon one of 72 scales in Indian music.

“It has to have its own ascending and descending structure. It has to have its own important notes. It has to have a little motif . . . which we can recognize. It’s like the face of a man or woman by which, you know, immediately we recognize” the person.

Further, each raga has a fixed association of time, such as early or late morning, or early or late afternoon. There are even seasonal ragas, such as a rainy-season raga.

Why these associations?

“We were so much attuned with nature,” Shankar said. “We followed all the moods and structures of the light, shade, temperature, everything.

“This (system) has been developed through centuries,” he added. “It wasn’t done in one day.”

Shankar said the tradition is “about 1,500 years old” and is an oral tradition: “It is not a written-down music. The heart of it is improvisation.”

Regarding talas, or “rhythmic cycles,” Shankar said that “according to old traditions, we have rhythmic styles ranging from three-beat cycles to a 108-beat cycle.”

The most popular cycles are in three-beat form or in even numbers from four to 16, he said. “But the offbeat talas--like 9, 11, 13, 15 and, going up, 17, 19, whatever--once in a while we perform when we have a small gathering of connoisseurs and people who can keep track of what is happening. Otherwise, it’s no fun.”

While the analysis sounds complicated, Shankar has a simple recommendation:

“The best thing is, let go. Try to hear something with a fresh mind and not rely on the training that you have. Then it becomes easier, and then after some time, it gets you.

“If you try a lot through here,” he said, pointing to his head, “it takes a little more time, naturally.”

Sitarist Ravi Shankar plays tonight at 8 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive , Costa Mesa. Assisting him will be his son, sitarist Shubho Shankar. Kumar Bose will be the tabla player. Tickets: $15 to $100. Student rush tickets for $5 may be available half an hour before showtime. Proceeds will benefit Kaleidoscope, an upcoming county festival of Indian art and music. Information: (714) 974-0222 or (714) 250-1957.