Ravi Shankar Quotes

18 quotes in 254 categories

• Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature.
• 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…
• In our culture we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God.
• I have always had an instinct for doing new things. Call it good or bad, I love to experiment.
• 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…
• 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,…
• I was admired by all these hippies, and it was wonderful playing at Monterey and Woodstock, performing for half a million people.
• My music has a very spiritual background, a sanctity that is almost like worship.
• 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…
• I think musicians and actors have all these problems, because of the popularity and the opportunity.
• When people say that George Harrison made me famous, that is true in a way.
• One single raga can be performed for two hours, three hours.
• I started out as a dancer, but gradually became more interested in music.
• Many people, especially young people, have started listening to sitar since George Harrison, one of the Beatles, became my disciple.
• I believe in one thing: that anyone who is able to do something good for someone, I mean, should be praised.
• To me, you know, from my childhood I always had a fascination for United States.
• I was invited for the first Woodstock. Actually, I started the programme.
• 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…

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