I've been told on multiple occasions that the music I like is repetitive. I shrugged off such disparagement until Pandora Radio, an algorithm which selects music based on the qualities of songs I already like, identified "repetitive phrasing" as one of those qualities. Apparently, I do like repetitive music. And I love this album.
I hesitate to describe Pilgrim Heart as "Hindu chanting with folk percussion accompaniment", even though that's what it is. All but a few of the tracks consist of a few Sanskrit devotional lines sung over and over with little or no variation, sometimes for several minutes at a stretch. The occasional melodic or instrumental liberties do little to interrupt the flow. Yet in the very repetitiveness there is a channel for trancelike, mystical experience, and it is entirely by design. This is one of the traditional means of worship in Hinduism, which boasts one of the oldest and most robust traditions of mysticism in the world.
There are two copies of this CD on my shelf, and neither is home-burned. It happens that I borrowed the first copy when I was a child, and loved it so much that I was reluctant to return it; eventually I forgot even who I borrowed it from, but felt bad about the accidental theft and bought another copy to restore some sense of balance. (If you're the owner of the first CD and know who you are, feel free to come forward and claim it.)
When I first began listening to it, this album and its explanatory liner notes were my first detailed introduction to Hinduism. Although I never adopted it completely (even continually-trendy hatha yoga never held my attention long), Hinduism's polytheistic monism was influential to my developing spirituality. To this day, meditation and music remain my two central means of experiencing spiritual oneness, and the trance-inducing music on this album perfectly combine the two.
Then, as now, my favorite track was the first, Namah Shivaya. Consisting of six Sanskrit lines sung repeatedly over seven minutes, it is typical of the rest of the album. But there is a subtle complexity in the interaction of voices with the mixed percussion, and with a gradually-increasing presence of electric guitar playing under it all like the flow of water visible beneath the slats of a bridge. Unexpected vocal harmonies appear like a gust of sudden wind, propelling the music forward joyfully. When I play the track through from beginning to end, and give myself over to the experience, I find myself leaning closer to god.
Next: All One
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