Quotes by Ravi Shankar

About Ravi Shankar:

Ravi Shankar was an Indian musician and composer who was one of the best-known exponents of the sitar in the second half of the 20th century as a composer of Hindustani classical music.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

Ravi Shankar

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.

Ravi Shankar

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

Ravi Shankar

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.

Ravi Shankar

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.

Ravi Shankar

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

Ravi Shankar

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

Ravi Shankar

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.'

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 m...

Ravi Shankar

Ah, 'Pather Panchali' was the most inspiring film that I wrote music for, and it was so spontaneously done. I saw the film, composed on the spot, along with myself and only four other musicians, and everything was done within 4-1/2 hours, I think an ...

Ravi Shankar

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.

Ravi Shankar

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.

Ravi Shankar

Author Bio

  • NameRavi Shankar
  • DescriptionIndiana musician and sitar player
  • AliasesPandit Ravi Shankar
  • BornApril 7, 1920
  • DiedDecember 11, 2012
  • CountryIndia
  • ProfessionComposer; Politician
  • AwardsCommandeur Des Arts Et Des Lettres?; Sangeet Natak Akademi Award; Knight Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire; Padma Vibhushan; Ramon Magsaysay Award; Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; Padma Bhushan; Banga Bibhushan; Bharat Ratna; Praemium Imperiale