Ali Akbar Khan - Master of the Sarod

The Sarod originally came from Afghanistan and was developed during the 19th century. It has a small wooden body covered with skin and a fingerboard covered with steel. It is fretless and has twenty-five strings of which fifteen are sympathetic strings. A metal gourd attached to the top end acts as a resonator. The strings are plucked with a triangular plectrum.

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Indian music has been carefully and consciously designed to produce specific emotional and spiritual states. It isn't like Western music: Da-da-da-da Dumm! It doesn't lead the listener in a linear fashion from one place, to another: From a beginning, to a middle, to a climax at the end. Indian music is cyclical. It starts at one point, explores that according to very strict rhythmic rules, rises higher, circles around to the beginning, rises a bit more, explores some more, circles back, going around and around with the psyche, leading the listener inside and up, into higher levels of consciousness. The purpose of Indian music is to invite the divine into the room and into one's soul. It's not about getting high-- it's about getting to who one really is-- and what reality really is. And the bliss of the divine, the bliss of the inner world is just there, waiting to come to you. Pierce the veil, and there it is. Is Ali Akbar Khan the world's greatest living musician? Concert violinist Yehudi Menuhin thought so, calling Khan "an absolute genius... the greatest musician in the world." Many have considered him the "Indian Johann Sebastian Bach." And they certainly think well of Khansahib in his native India, where he is a Living National Treasure. He's won so many awards in his homeland and around the world, from the BAMMIE, the Bill Graham Lifetime Achievement Award of the Bay Area Music Awards Foundation, all the way to the Padma Mibhusan-- the highest honor given to an Indian civilian. And he's been given honorary Doctorates, Grammie nominations. You name it.

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The Official Ali Akbar Khan Web Page: http://www.ammp.com/

Downloads from RapidShare:

Raga Darbari - Ali Akbar Khan, with Jan Ul Hassen & Tafu
15m:06s - 192kbps

Raga Des, Chanchal Tal - Ali Akbar Khan, with Jan Ul Hassen & Tafu
11m:39s - 192kbps

Raga Jai Jai Wanti (Teen Tal) - Ali Akbar Khan, with Jan Ul Hassen & Tafu
15m:11s - 192kbps

Raga Mian Ki Todi - Ali Akbar Khan, with Jan Ul Hassen & Tafu
15m:59s - 192kbps

Raga Darbari Todi - Ali Akbar Khan
23m:15s - 320kbps

Raga Nat Bhairav - Ali Akbar Khan (highly recommended!)
18m:55s - 128kbps

Raga Lalit Gauri - Ali Akbar Khan
26m:01s - 192kbps

password, all files = orek