The experience of the sitar performance was moving — to close your eyes in that resounding space and hear the passage of melody and the underlying drone beneath, as though, like any music, you were being carried along on a river of sound. It is a great protective space, music masterfully played, even if the mastery should be of human feeling and not technical proficiency with an instrument.

In this case it was both. What played in the heart, however, also played in the mind, and it was fascinating to look into the grammar of this musical language. It has phrases which do not begin or end as our western phrases do, with strikes and strums which are unpredictably and beautifully placed. The flow of sound seemed intellectual, seemed to wind around from heart to mind to hands, but was at the same time anti-intellect: and the interjection of deep tones or calls of the resonant strings followed a sensibility completely consistent with place and culture… highly controlled with how many generations of artistic development behind it, yet in some way unchained. Beautiful.

The same river seems to run through the streets. Makes me wonder how square our heads-down, straight-ahead rock-and-roll really is, and what it says about the water of our hearts?

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