I have always had an instinct for doing new things. Call it good or bad, I love to experiment.
There are thousands of ragas, and they are all connected with different times of the day, like sunrise or night or sunset. It is all based on 72 of what we call 'mela' or scales. And we have principally nine moods, ranging from peacefulness to praying, or the feeling of emptiness you get by sitting by the ocean.
The music that I have learned and want to give is like worshipping God. It's absolutely like a prayer.
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.
Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature.
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 more classical and more orthodox, jealously protecting the heritage that I have learned.
I appreciate very much Vilayat Khan, the sitar player, and Bismillah Khan, the shehnai player; and among the tabla players, of course, Alla Rakha, Kishan Maharaja, and all these people.
In our culture we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God.
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.
I love the work of Matisse and Picasso, but I don't have enough millions to own one. And I don't really believe in owning art, anyway.
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.'
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.
To me, you know, from my childhood I always had a fascination for United States.
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 all-time record anywhere.
I have my own spiritual guru, and I'm so happy, and I feel so satisfied that I might appreciate many other famous gurus, but, you know, I am not attracted that way because I have found the person.
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.
I was admired by all these hippies, and it was wonderful playing at Monterey and Woodstock, performing for half a million people.
I believe in one thing: that anyone who is able to do something good for someone, I mean, should be praised.
Everybody has a right to like or dislike anything or anyone. From a flower to a flavor to a book or a composition but it is very sad that in our country we actually fight over such things in an unseemly manner.
My music has a very spiritual background, a sanctity that is almost like worship.
