There was a quiet night in Rakvere, small town in Estonia. The Orion belt gazing down over frozen city and into the room through large window. It was deadly quiet outside, only the local boiler house puffed out it’s white clouds which froze quickly in freezing air. Seemed like the whole city had falled asleep.
I was spending my nights as i often do – reading, browsing around, listening music from all around the world. The persian music left me truly deep impression, mixed in with some atmospheric ambience, choral music. i stumbled upon this curious video from youtube – Zia Fariduddin Dagar singing raga Bhimpalasi.
This felt like something completely different from what i had heard – it felt like the melody was following my minds contures. I never felt anything like this – the music that has the shape of the thought! It felt direct, honest, revealing, musical. It used colorful rhytmical patterns. It was a child of the awareness – improvised right there, created out of the moment.
By then i had about eight years of history in choral music and about the same on drums. I was not interested in any specific genre, rather kept looking for some rather obscure patterns that seemed to touch something deep inside. I felt myself quite at home with drum sticks – played hours and hours daily until i did not really felt the drum sticks anymore. It was just the internal rhythm that was guiding it all. But now it seemed as if i had found missing link that joins it all together. It felt as if i have been moving toward it for all this time! It was exactly what i had been looking for!
I started using this music for everything. It felt most suitable for morning meditations, long walks, drives. I discovered various ragas, improvised them endlessly on piano, enjoyed their rhytms. It felt like a golden era.
Few weeks later i realized that this is the direction i want to go to. I contacted the gurukul in India and got the invite to come and study!
Things did not went as planned. Not yet. India had it’s own plans for me.