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Anoushka Shankar Melody - Coggle Diagram
Anoushka Shankar Melody
Anoushka Shankar's melodic capabilities: Improvisation, set melodies, techniques
Intro: Anouska Shankar's melodies are the driving force and grounding of the album. she roots the album deep into Indian culture and uses foreign influences to branch off from her melodies
Improvisation
Points
Anouska Shankar created her music through improvisational sessions with her and Kale. These sessions generated the roots for her melodies and riffs and she regularly uses her skills to improvise melodies throughout the album. You can see this in the introduction to "Burn" where a north Indian classical melody is improvised before the electronic instruments come in
Wider Listening: Ravi Shankar's Three ragas. This is a clear example of north Indian classical music and shows the skill of improvisation and its roots in the culture
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Set melodies
Shankar uses set melodies throughout the piece to create a more western melody played on sitar, this embeds the fusion between the two cultures playing one instruments style on another. These western style riffs can be heard in "Easy" where they are used to sound more like a western song
Wider Listening: An example of this can be found in "Norwegian Wood" where the sitar plays western guitar riffs.
Techniques
Shankar uses lots of ornamentations throughout her melody lines to create the traditional North Indian style. These include pitch bending, acciaccaturas and playing in the different registers called (Tar Saphak, Mandra Saphak)
Wider Listening:Ornamentations can be seen on Ravi Shankar's "Symphony" where traditional North Indian sitar Ornamentations can be heard
Vocal Melodies
The vocal melodies are used to create a western contrast to the piece. The vocals are heard sung by jazz singers such as Nora Jones in Easy. They sing melismatic vocal lines. This shows the fusion between the two cultures
Wider Listening "Sea Dreamer" by Anoushka Shankar and Sting also uses western syllabic melodies to create a western contrast
Countermelodies
Countermelodies can be heard in multiple instruments throughout the album to introduce the fusion of western and traditional NI music. For example in the last chorus of Burn the Sitar plays a counter melody to the vocals creating a clear fusion between the two cultures
Wider Listening: Countermelodies can also be seen in "Together" by Singh and Kumar. They use strings and other western instruments to counter the sitar and create a fusion