 Indian music is a major interest of mine. I have been studying sitar under David Whetstone, the American disciple of Ustad Vilayat Khan, for over eight years. Why do I love Indian music so much? Here's my story: I have been studying music since I was young. I played trumpet, both classical and jazz, as well as medieval and renaissance wind instruments such as the cornetto, krumhorn, and recorder. I took years classes of at the Juilliard conservatory before going to college, where I got a BA in music. Yet, I always felt there was something missing in my music education. It didn't strike me what that was until I took a course on the philosophy of education and concurrently, a course in 20th century (Western classical) music analysis. In the education course, we learned how critical thinking skills were a prime goal of education. In the music analysis course, every time we started to study a new modern composer, we had to learn new tools of analysis. That didn't seem right to me -- I was soon to graduate college -- shouldn't I have all the critical thinking tools I needed to understand any piece of music? I went into the music library for some deeper explorations, and there, listening to Indian and Javanese musics, I sat dumbfounded, realizing, after so many years of study, just how far from having those tools I was. Let me back track to a deeper explanation of critical thinking skills. When one is a liberal arts religion major, one doesn't learn to be a good person or how to meditate. Rather, a discipline has been developed around the goal of gaining critical thinking skills. Even in studio art, so comparable to music, one learns the color wheel (among other tools), the full palette of color available, and when a color (or form) is seen by one with such training, the tools for analysis are there, the critical mind has been developed. The study of Western music, utilizing today's standard pedagogical method, does not provide that same benefit. Luckily, the college had just started to offer classes in Indian music, and I enrolled. In readings stemming from those first sitar lessons unfolded the system of Indian music, instrumental in my beginning to develop those thinking skills I had thereforeto sadly lacked. In Indian music, unlike Western pedagogy, the music has been finely systematized, for centuries. This was the root of the "color wheel", the master key, I had been seeking. For an example, take the concept of musical tonality and scale. In my study of Western music I learned but 20 or so scales, and most of those only through study of ancient musics and jazz. In Indian music, tens of thousands of scales are recognized, and hundreds are in common use. Through the study of such a systematized, intellectually rigorous music, one explores the full palettes of scale and melody, rhythm and mood, and thus develops critical thinking skills. Through my study of Indian music, which will surely take me the rest of my life, I am truly beginning to feel as though I understand music, one of my great loves.
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