Today I had one of the best unplanned master classes at the Aaron Copland School of Music. As some of us QC students may know, it’s the year of India. In honor of India, the music school had a special guest: Indian flutist Steve Gorn perform a concert at 10 am, LeFrak Hall.. I was not aware of this performance cause I was in class but I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a few fellow students and faculty who attended the concert. They told how amazing it was, and the percussion professor started gathering people to have a small master class with him!

So I joined a group of 7 musicians to attend a master class, not knowing what to expect. It was wonderful experience. Steve Gorn introduced us to the basics of Indian music. He told us how the music played by instruments, derives from vocal melodies. The instruments are trying to imitate the voice. In order to be able to slide between notes like a voice, the Indian flute is made out of thin bamboo material. One of the scales most commonly used is called Raag. In musical terms, it contains the flat second, flat sixth and flat seventh. He specifically demonstrated (by singing) a morning time Raag called nat bhairava which has a spiral form to it. Here’s an example :

Then we all got to sing and feel the calming sounds that can be created through this indian scale. He turned on this radio-looking like box which made the sound of a lute-like instrument playing a drone. Afterwards he sang to us an improvised phrase using the Raag solfege and we repeated. This whole call and response moment went on for a good five minutes and it was the most relaxing thing I’ve done this whole semester. It was like meditative improvising yet it was beyond musical. I felt connected with him. The sound of this music made me loose all of my technical music thinking which turned this into a very satisfying and pleasurable practice. He then told us that this music comes from the whole idea of yoga and the sound is suppose to align our bodies with our mind in order to create relaxation. This practice is something they call sadina meaning it’s not the progress that’s important, “the path is the goal.”