There is great strength in vulnerability, as it takes courage to push through the fear and share one's true self with others. In music, that vulnerability really speaks to listeners as it connects with their own hearts.
Anoushka Shankar
Parenting put music in the right place for me. Touring was always the first priority before, but it isn't any more. And, paradoxically, that has made my ability to make music much easier.
My mother is an amazing vocalist and a lot of my grounding in music has come from her. She was a student of Lakshmi Shankar, my father's sister- in- law.
I suppose if you make enough money with one album, you can relax the rest of your life. I would rather go for smaller and stronger successes.
I had multiple circles of friends around the world. Some circles were really wild and I was affectionately known by them as 'the nerdy one.' And, with other friends, I was regarded as the wild one.
The lockdown, in general, left me with a sense of needing to become more independent and instead of being intimidated, I decided to do the engineering on some of my new releases.
I'm not pretending I can change the world, or to be an expert on social and political affairs. But I certainly have a right to say when something is wrong.
I would say 'Home' is a lot richer and deeper than my earlier classical.
Usually, I really only look at any one particular album at a time when I'm making it. I've never really sat and looked at the journey through all of my albums to see if I could find a thread through them.
On 'Love Letters', I focused exclusively on songs with lyrics, creating a collection of songs that directly address heartbreak and its ensuing emotions in a way that instrumental music can only hint at.
There is no everlasting power in the music of today. Everyone is running after record sales.
When I work on someone else's record, I'm happy to alter the way I approach it, if I happen to like who they are and I'm interested in their music. But I know it's their record.
My father was a pioneer and a leader in the things he did and the way he did them.
I think all kids are creative, so I wouldn't say my kids are geniuses. But they immediately respond to music. And they've got great rhythm!
I have had other offers before but for my first film, I did not want to do anything too big.
I feel 'Love Letters' has been part of a longer journey towards a very simple, international sound in which the sitar is no longer exotic or classical, but simply a tool of expression when juxtaposed with the voice and cross-genre elements.
I love collaborations because they take your music in a different way.
Even though my father had a really successful career before the '60s, that kind of insane pop-culture splash that happened was so massive. People hear the sitar and immediately think, you know, flying carpets and tie-dyed T-shirts and wafting smoke.
As far as using electronics in my music, I have to do that as honestly as possible. Also, I have a broad range of listeners from a classical music base, as well as people, like me, who listen to a lot of different music. So I'm mindful of letting my sitar playing remain at the center of what I do.
I try and approach other music with sensitivity. And, if it's music I don't know, I try and work with other people who are well-versed it in, so that it's done sensitively.
Even though my parents raised me in a very individualistic way, they were also strict and traditional, which was good. It was hard to sneak out! I think I was quite wild, but in some ways quite contained.
I love it that my father is such a classical musician and such a traditionalist, and at the same time has had a wild life and a crazy time.
I live in the modern world, and I appreciate the most cutting-edge parts of it. But I also like to check out as much as I can.
Someone like my father will improvise as much as 90% of the music in concert, but with me it's maybe 10 to 20%. It's sort of the test of how great someone is, the more they can improvise correctly and still be true to the raga they're playing, and still keep it new and fresh the whole time.
But I had a strong reaction to my first three albums and I struggle with them now, as an adult. It's very much the same as looking at your teenage photos in high school.
I feel a lot closer to music and my relationship with my instrument than I did as a teenager. I have an adult perspective now about getting to do something I love for a living.
You know, I think becoming a parent has really changed the way that I feel impacted by what's going on in the world around me.
I think the reason being Ravi Shankar's daughter is not such a pressure to me is that I don't look at myself in that way. Of course, he's the best-known Indian musician there is so, people naturally look to me as the next one, but the truth is there are many other musicians out there as well as other students of my father's.
With 'Peradam', the nature of the project was such that it was deeply immersed in spiritual concepts in India and is based on the works of French poet Rene Daumal.
The Grammys are very wide-ranging but it's still within the Western world of music. So it would be lovely if that opened up more.
I work in the music world in a kind of very multi-faceted way. I work around the world, in different genres.
I think cross-cultural dialogue is something that has hugely impacted the richness of the culture of our world.
I ate Bengali food after my parents married and Dad started living with us, in both Willesden and in Delhi for three years, and then we all moved to California. Dad said he could make a really good dal, but I never saw him cook during the whole time we lived together.
On 'Love Letters' I focused exclusively on sung music, creating a collection of songs that directly address heartbreak and its ensuing emotions in a way that instrumental music can only hint at.
As a disciple of my father's, I was certain I wanted to include one of his own raga creations on 'Home', as they are so beautiful; whilst many of his creations are part of the general classical repertoire for all musicians, many more are only played by those of us who learned from him, and therefore need to be played.
I hope it isn't exclusively true, but I often find that collaboration is the best way... to reach my highest musical place. Because I get so inspired by another good musician; I feed off that.
People are more willing to dislike your music and want to find faults in you when you are given opportunities like in my case. But I think in my case, people love my work and that's why I have to work doubly hard.
Alchemy is one of the good quote-unquote south-Asian experiences in that it has a wide variety of classical to experimental music.
I think we are all individuals at the end of the day. There's nothing about culture that can prescribe who you're meant to be.
I listen to many forms of music. And I come from a very particular style and tradition of music, which has certain elements that are absolutely unique and, therefore, important to the world.
In a studio context, the music becomes greater than the sum of its parts. When you have collaboration, you have other people's strengths that I don't share, so my song can get stronger.
I think I've been lucky to work with so many lovely people. But there's Joshua Bell, who's the world's greatest violinist. We worked together live and once, for his record, but I really would want to work with him on one of my records.
I have been given something really, really special and really unique, and it is not just in and of itself having learned from my father, who is the greatest exponent of this musical style. But it is an oral tradition that is only generally passed on in that manner, and so without the people who continue to... learn it and perform it, it dies.
Home' was a special album for very specific reasons. It is an homage to my father. And it is the first classical album I've released in over a decade. So it really felt like a kind-of coming back to my roots.
I do feel a commitment to this art form and to my father's teaching, and I think the older I get I'm feeling that more and more strongly.
In the last few years in particular, I've found that it's okay to let go of culture rather than hold on to it. And by letting go, you kind of realise that it's there anyway.
I do think evolution is an important aspect of keeping a tradition alive. If it freezes and remains very static in its form, it dies, and so a natural evolution has to occur.
I do feel a commitment to this art form and to my father's teachings, and the older I am getting, the more I am feeling it.
The sitar is a really difficult instrument to play. Physically it's taxing because of the cross-legged sitting position, the length of the neck on the shoulder, the thinness of the strings. There's a lot of pain, especially at the start.
We need more women in positions of power so that women's issues are thought of more, because a room full of men in government and in power don't think the type of things needed to make a change.
