Archaeology is one of my favorite subjects, and often what’s understood is based on the tangible evidences one gets from the trenches – coins, artifacts, shards of pots, construction material, hieroglyphs, broken figurines, bones, etc. But what we can’t get (with as much surety – of course with new techniques, a lot is possible) are intangibles – language, culture, music, food, stories and so on.
Thus, there’s this entire field of music archaeology – combining musicology and archaeology – to understand how the people of yore enjoyed their evenings. Who wouldn’t want to be part of the concert around the crackling fire on the banks of River Saraswati 5000 years ago or be with the Pharaohs when they ascended to the thrones?
So, with much of prologue let me introduce you to Peter Pringle, a Canadian musician who often shares his renditions of the old songs on the as old instruments. As intention of these posts is to point at one direction which can later be explored if found interesting, here’s his rendition of the epic of Gilgamesh.
There are many more, of course that you can explore, such as ‘My lyre sings only of love,’ ‘Ancient Egyptian love song,’ and ‘the oldest song of the world.’
If you are interested in the ancient instruments, I can recommend Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. They would not disappoint!
About the India section this week – I’m going to talk about an American! Shankar Tucker is not a new name of course – several of his early videos have given rise to today’s stars including Vidya Vox. But what may touch you is how used right, there’s vast area to explore how Hindustani and Carnatic classical music can blend with an array of ‘foreign’ instruments.
While this guy’s entire range of videos is a must listen, I would leave you with one of my all-time favourites
With the last day of Navratri celebrated today, I often wonder that apart from a few Bollywood attempts, the Garba songs have not much peaked despite its tunes that can force someone to shake a leg or two – would love to see some interesting interpretations.
Happy YouTubin!
Parth Shastri Archive 