What are your thoughts on the audience and the students abroad and the way appreciation of Indian classical music has evolved here in the United States?
Whenever and wherever I taught in the world, my sole purpose was and remains to convey the message that in our music you can see and feel the freedom within the discipline. The improvisation is totally different from the way it is done in say jazz for instance. We have a very strict discipline of ascending and descending. Again in western music putting the notes on paper is very important because people write and read music. When I taught a credit course in the University of Chicago the faculty was expecting me to prepare and grade papers and write instructions on the blackboard, but I told the dean, I live in the world of sound. If you want documentation of my work and teaching you can make a video recording of the sessions, so the westerners know how I create my music and how I make others believe that music already resides in you. Every human being is born with sound and rhythm. A heartbeat is an indication of rhythm and what you speak and that may be conversation, recitation, chant
