Ravi Shankar

In India, I have been called a 'destroyer.' But that is only because they mixed my identity as a performer and as a composer. As a composer I have tried everything, even electronic music and avant-garde. But as a performer I am, believe me, getting more classical and more orthodox, jealously protecting the heritage that I have learned.

I enjoy seeing other Indian musicians - old and young - coming to Europe and America and having some success. I'm happy to have contributed to that.

I have great difficulty sitting in the middle of the night and writing. Everything I do comes spontaneous. Sometimes it takes a long time; sometimes it comes just like that.

My music has a very spiritual background, a sanctity that is almost like worship.

In the U.K., classical music is composed by individuals and written down. Indian music is based on certain sequences called ragas. When I perform live, 95% of the music is improvised: it never sounds the same twice.

In our culture we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God.

Many people, especially young people, have started listening to sitar since George Harrison, one of the Beatles, became my disciple.

I love the work of Matisse and Picasso, but I don't have enough millions to own one. And I don't really believe in owning art, anyway.

I was invited for the first Woodstock. Actually, I started the programme.

I have always had an instinct for doing new things. Call it good or bad, I love to experiment.

The music that I have learned and want to give is like worshipping God. It's absolutely like a prayer.

I think musicians and actors have all these problems, because of the popularity and the opportunity.

My secret ambition was always to provide music for animation films: something with an Indian theme, either a fairy tale or mythological tale or on the Krishna theme. I still have a very deep desire, but these sorts of chances don't always come.

In the olden days, I believe Mozart also improvised on piano, but somehow in the last 200 years, the whole training of Western classical music - they don't read between the lines, they just read the lines.

I don't appreciate avant-garde, electronic music. It makes me feel quite ill.

I try to give to my music the spiritual quality, very deep in the soul, which does something even if you are not realizing it or analyzing it - that's the duty of the music.

I will keep playing as long as my body lets me, and as long as I'm wanted by my listeners. Because music is the only thing that keeps me going.

To me, you know, from my childhood I always had a fascination for United States.

Everybody has a right to like or dislike anything or anyone. From a flower to a flavor to a book or a composition but it is very sad that in our country we actually fight over such things in an unseemly manner.

When people say that George Harrison made me famous, that is true in a way.

I believe in one thing: that anyone who is able to do something good for someone, I mean, should be praised.

I started out as a dancer, but gradually became more interested in music.

Pop changes week to week month to month. But great music is like literature.

There are thousands of ragas, and they are all connected with different times of the day, like sunrise or night or sunset. It is all based on 72 of what we call 'mela' or scales. And we have principally nine moods, ranging from peacefulness to praying, or the feeling of emptiness you get by sitting by the ocean.

My brother had a house in Paris. To it came many Western classical musicians. These musicians all made the same point: 'Indian music,' they said, 'is beautiful when we hear it with the dancers. On its own, it is repetitious and monotonous.'

Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature.

One single raga can be performed for two hours, three hours.