I am paving the way through 5th century BC world, India, Greece, Egypt, Silk Route, Persia, and gradually am getting involved with the wide range, scope and dimension of Migrating Music.
I have come to believe that Migration is almost synonymous to Civilisation. Some other things are surfacing also that made me believe that migrants actually are the pillars of civilisation, and they can only be the true agents of global bonding, or global harmony and peace.
After I shared this conviction during my recent performance along with my two-member cross border band Indus at IMRF2022 housed at the headquarter of the United Nations in New York, I experienced a very inspiring, encouraging and blissful feedback from the audience present and from the organisers as well.
The journey now takes the next course, and with the dream of seeing it and believing it, the dream of Global Harmony. Tying the world musically, that we do in Indus.
I dreamt almost, during my growing up days, these ethereal elements of humans, olden earth, lives, untreaded paths, hopes, despair, love, losses, aspirations, convictions, journey. I had a chance to peep into the early dawns of Rhik Veda or Upanishads, of mount Sinai or of Kapisayana while a young human.
I picked up those prized pebbles while otherwise life took a scattered shape during walking along the high and yet higher ways of mundane life. This time as I looked at them closely they showed a vague chance of interacting with each other. They started changing colours in other’s company, they started making patterns. I kept on looking at them fascinated, charmed, bewildered. This is the time I found the trace of the golden thread, and I started contemplating a quantum of bonding among them, a bonding sans bondage which oozes out from love and harmonious feeling.
I am quivering with impregnated possibilities. I am out to the path unknown, with a mission to find that peace within that we feel after uniting with a long lost family, with a dream in my core to find our ancient wise counterparts in present time frame and see them in place in a world proficient and profound.
Megasthenes Mania is taking shape. This is going to be the expression that has music and much more into it. This is all nuances of Migrating Music. An intriguing one for myself.
Now in this world of apparent lovelessness and cruelty in social scenario, somehow these two forms, i.e., Mystical Music and Migrating Music, are gradually and immensely being popular. Be it Sufi Songs or Flamenco or Jazz, however high-sounding the philosophy is the future generation is finding solace in these forms of soulful music. For, our sweetest songs are those that spell out our saddest thoughts. We cry in the same note. That has been the basic note. And to pine for the Ultimate Being or for our root finally transcends us to a sense of positivity, beauty. Why not then? If the world can cry together, can go through a sense of catharsis, and finally can feel the togetherness this way, and can reach out to a better world, therein lies the keynote of all aestheticism.
CONCEPT: Human migration since the dawn of civilization, and the migration of music with them is as ancient as the history of civilization itself.Migration of music, with the migration of humans is also that ancient. It involves numerous cultures involved in the course, and is celebrating the soul reflected in one another. Now the search for one’s root and identity is the soul of Migrating Music. Migrating Music is the History thriving palpably.
MISSION: The story of migration with its pain and pangs, the legacy of culture that is yet thriving in music of the different places involved, the saga of the ancient civilizations involved which could have a dialogue between them, all these are merging in music to evolve a nascent genre that is being termed as Migrating Music.
DIASPORA: Diaspora, the word is used more broadly to refer to the cultural connections maintained by a group of people who have been dispersed, or who have migrated for that matter, around the globe. Each distinct group or community is different timescales. A key characteristic of Diasporas is that a strong sense of connection to a homeland which is maintained through cultural practices and ways of life. This ‘homeland’ may be imaginary rather than real. Its existence even need not be tied to any desire to ‘return’, and its magnificent outcome Migrating Music.
SILK ROUTE: We need to tread along the paths of the 5th century BC Greece to understand the impact of migration in ancient world, to understand what actually spurred Alexander to move this far with the entire panorama of Hellenic culture. After interactions with many a cultures, it evolved into Hellenistic culture. This path that led Alexander to this part of the world, a very important corridor, to be known as Silk Route afterwards.
Tracing Migrating Music as the outcome of numerous ancient cultures forming a dialect worldwide, delineating the cultural map of a vistas where our souls can speak in one harmonic tone.
 Our sweetest songs are those that spell out our saddest thoughts. Cry has been the basic note. And pining for the Ultimate Being, or for our root, finally transcends us to a sense of positivity, beauty. If the world can cry together, can go through a sense of catharsis, and finally can feel the togetherness this way, and can reach out to a better world, therein lies the keynote of all aestheticism.
The Journey along Silk Route- different races, times, cultures
The different forms of Music involved in Migrating Music, their common threads, notes and ethos
Tracing Migrating Music as the outcome of numerous ancient cultures forming a dialect worldwide, delineating the cultural map of a neighbourhood where our souls can speak in one harmonic tone.
Practical Aspects
The whole session will include –
A) Breathing Techniques
B) Voice Training
C) Knowing Pitch
D) Basics of relationship between Notes, Time and Emotion in Hindustani Classical Music
E) Voice Modulation as per Mood or Emotion of Expression
F) Therapeutic or Total wellness value of Notes
G) Body Postures and Voice Modulation
H) Trance Effect with Music
Methodology:
As this has been all new genre evolving from our classical knowledge and wisdom worldwide, this involves quite different branches of knowledge, like, philosophy, science, art, poetry, and music, we will need a brief introduction involving these.
The second step will be the elaboration of the forms in concern. In this preliminary or introductory training webinar the subject will be introduced with its each component. This can be followed by a series of such sessions for proper understanding of the subject or genre for that matter.
This has been a performance oriented subject, hence, will need effective demonstrations further. As a form of music it already created a sensation throughout different cultures and countries. A full length docu-feature film, on Migrating Music, documenting the research and journey of myself and INDUS, since the beginning, a multinational production, is on the anvil. This just has been deferred for the time being for pandemic.
[After successful completion of online workshops, in both theory and practice, there will be an opportunity to be featured on INDUS tracks.]
On @musiciansomali : Vocalist- MigratingMusic, IndianClassical, ChantMusic,TranceMusic, TagoreMusic, NeoClassical music Founder of Indus Band (indusband.com) Researcher in World Music, Concept Developer of Migratng Music, Author, and Contributor to international platforms, Explorer of SilkRoute and Diaspora Culture. ​
Upcoming Sessions
17 August, from 17-00 IST 1 Day Webinar
From 12 September, Every Saturday 5 Week Workshop, 18-00 to 20-00 IST
More Updates Here
And More Exclusive Opportunities awaitingfor the chosen few participants
The River has ever been the cradle of civilisations. To search for the conglomeration and interactions of the ancient civilisations and culture since the time immemorial, and to search for the human history yet thriving among the culture and traditions, INDUS is on a journey along the tracks of the rivers, especially, the two very ancient rivers that actually cradled a major portion of human civilisation. INDUS is out to sing the saga of these two rivers that told the story of same period, of the similar people, of the similar cultural notes, of the similar hopes and, and of similar despair. They are Volga, the longest river of Europe, and the river Saraswati, the Vedic river. Volga, the river flows through central Russia and into the Caspian Sea, and is widely regarded as the national river of Russia, being an important river for mainly Slavic, Turkic people, Iranian cultures such as Scythians and Sarmatians, Finno-Ugric, and Germanic people such as Vikings and Goths, Greeks, and cultures of Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. As a result of its geographical situation the Volga played an important role in the movement of people between east and west, i.e., from Asia toEurope, as well as south and north.
The Nadistuti hymn in the Rigveda mentions about the river Saraswati between the Yamuna in the east and the Sutlej in the west. Later Vedic texts like the Tandya and Jaiminiya Brahmanas, as well as the Mahabharata, mention that the Saraswati dried up in a desert.
Since the late 19th-century, the Vedic Saraswati river has been identified as the Ghaggar-Hakra River system, which flows through north-western India and eastern Pakistan, between the Yamuna and the Sutlej. Satellite images have pointed to the more significant river once following the course of the present day Ghaggar River. It has been observed that major Indus Valley Civilization sites at Kalibangan in Rajasthan, Banawali and Rakhigarhi in Haryana, Dholavira and Lothal in Gujarat also lay along this course.
However, identification of the Vedic Saraswati with the Ghaggar-Hakra system germinates one more issue since the Saraswati is not only mentioned separately in the Rig Veda, but is described as having dried up by the time of the composition of the later Vedas and in the epics like Mahabharata. The Saraswati had been reduced to a ‘small, sorry trickle in the desert’, as described by Annette Wilke, by the time that the Vedic people migrated into north-west India. Recent geophysical research suggests that the Ghaggar-Hakra system was a system of monsoon-fed rivers and that the Indus Valley Civilisation may have declined as a result of climatic change, when the monsoons that fed the rivers diminished at around the time civilisation diminished some 4,000 years ago.
River Saraswati may also be identified with Helmand or Haraxvati river in southern Afghanistan. The identification with the Ghaggar-Hakra system took on new significance in the early 21st century, with some suggesting an earlier dating of the Rig Veda; renaming the Indus Valley Civilisation as the Saraswati culture, the Saraswati Civilization, the Indus-Saraswati Civilization or the Sindhu-Saraswati Civilization.
Migrating Music 