In this investigation Miles Davis' So What and Ravi Shankar's Raga Sindhi Bhairavi are used to find similarities between Modal Jazz music and Classical Hindustani music.
The musical links found in this investigation are
(Disclaimer-The notation used for Raga Sindi's Bhairavi is very crude and imprecise because the slurs, semitones, embellishments and ornamentation played by the sitar are very difficult to emulate in a Western system of notation in western music; the rhythms and pitches I notated are all approximations.)
The musical links found in this investigation are
- an emphasis on improvisation where the harmony is limited which gives the soloist less restrictions as well as well as places a greater emphasis on the melodies created (modes, rather than chord changes are used to dictate the improvisation in modal jazz; the role of the mode is similar to that of the raga used in Classical Indian music)
- similarities between Ravi Shankar's improvisation and the lyrical, slower thematic approach of Miles Davis and the faster, scale-like approach of John Coltrane
(Disclaimer-The notation used for Raga Sindi's Bhairavi is very crude and imprecise because the slurs, semitones, embellishments and ornamentation played by the sitar are very difficult to emulate in a Western system of notation in western music; the rhythms and pitches I notated are all approximations.)
