Journey
I am listening to Ali Akbar Khan's crossover/world/fusion album, Journey on my iPod right now. It is a revelation.

In 2004, at Northern Public Radio's CD/Album sale in DeKalb Il, I was startled to find a copy of this album on CD and snapped it up for $5. If I recall correctly, I uploaded it to my laptop (was using RealPlayer then. because I didn't know better!), burned a copy for myself and gave the original away to someone in my family. (I think. or did I keep the original and give away the copy? I don't remember.) Anyway, I didn't really listen to it much on my laptop. Then in 2006 I received an iPod for my birthday and started using iTunes to manage music on my laptop; some time subsequent to that, possibly as recently as this September I downloaded software to convert .wma and realplayer files into mp3s so I could import them into iTunes. In that process I discovered that I had Journey on my laptop, converted it to mp3s and brought them into iTunes, and copied those files onto my iPod.

I've listened to it a couple of times on my laptop, but today possibly for the first time I am hearing it from my iPod and as I said above, it's absolutely a revelation. Like when you see the restored version of a classic film. For the first time, I am hearing the western instruments used throughout: piano, trap set, synthesizer, guitar--clearly and distinctly! Before I could only occasionally make them out, and I am sure I never noticed the guitar or synthesizer before.

And so, for the first time, I can hear and compare the Indian and Western elements overtly, rather than having the vague experience of its not being completely traditional and feeling that the 3-minute drum solo (drums, not tabla etc.) sticks out like a sore thumb. Actually hearing the synth or piano chords at various points in fact reinforces what thought and musicality must have gone into these pieces because (as far as I can tell) the Indian instruments are tuned to their own normal scale, which includes "quarter-tone" differences not found in the Western 12-tone scale, whereas the Western elements are tuned in the Western scale, and nevertheless they play together tunefully and harmoniously. The idiomatic articulations and rhythms in the Indian instruments are there, but when you listen behind them Western rhythms and accompaniment styles (as in the guitar bits) can be heard.

I always love listening to music though headphones, and especially with the sound quality and equalizer options my iPod gives, and for exactly this reason--it makes a close listening possible, as when you do a close reading of a text. Anything that was recorded, you can hear, should you choose to focus on it. You can zoom in and out with your mind's ear and follow only the tamborine, or harmony vocals, or hear the melody in a new way when it's all crystal clear and in stereo and going directly into your head.

And of course, one thing that remains the same in this experience and my original 1994(?) encounter with the album (on cassette tape!) is Ali Akbar Khan's playing. It's evocative, lyrical, intimate and virtuosic. Like...I don't know, Eric Clapton on guitar crossed with Itzakh Perlman on violin. Amazing at any sound quality. Reminds me, I would like to hear some of his straight-up classical stuff since I've enjoyed this hybrid album so much.
- posted by k @ 8:22 AM