07/28/2015
Shankar Tucker: Weaving India and the West Together with Filament
“I had heard Indian music before, but I didn't consider it as a musical path until I was at the New England Conservatory,” Tucker explains. “I was into jazz, but I would always struggle to be heard in an ensemble, my instrument just didn't have enough volume. I wanted something where I could improvise and be heard, and I found Shakti.”
That ‘70s group, formed by guitarist John McLaughlin and violin player L. Shankar, offered Tucker a way into something new and different. Very quickly Indian music captured his heart as he began to learn more about it.
“Every morning at college, all of us in the orchestra would arrive 15 minutes before rehearsal to warm up our instruments,” Tucker recalls. “While the others were busy practicing their excerpts I’d be going through the Hindustani composition I was learning and dream of India.”
That dream became a reality after graduation, when a grant enabled him to go and study with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia in Mumbai. During that time abroad, Tucker’s YouTube channel, The Shrutibox was born, catapulting him to surprising Internet stardom.
“I was looking for performance opportunities while I was over there,” Tucker says. “I took my inspiration from other YouTube artists, as well as the music itself and the medium. I’d gone to India to learn classical music, but being in Mumbai, I was also surrounded by Bollywood music. I became fascinated by the parallels between Indian Classical music and the Popular music genres, and the places where they overlap. That's what I tried to capture in my videos.”
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read more: https://www.storyamp.com/dispatch/15157/9NBloqWFV_ud81-exbeu2A
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