Category: teaching material

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Creation, Kabir says again and again, is full of music: it is music – Rabindranath Tagore

Kabir was essentially a poet and musician: rhythm and harmony were to him the garments of beauty and truth. Hence in his lyrics he shows himself to be, like Richard Rolle, above all things a musical mystic. Creation, he says again and again, is full of music: it is music. At the heart of the Universe “white music is blossoming”: love weaves the melody, whilst renunciation beats the time. It can be heard in the home as well as in the heavens; discerned by the ears of common men as well as by the trained senses of the ascetic. Moreover, the body of every man is a lyre on which Brahma, “the source of all music,” plays.

Everywhere Kabir discerns the “Unstruck Music of the Infinite”—that celestial melody which the angel played to St. Francis, that ghostly symphony which filled the soul of Rolle with ecstatic joy.

Songs of Kabir by Rabindranath Tagore, p. 19
https://archive.org/details/songs-of-kabir

Listen to Tagore: Unlocking Cages: Sunil Khilnani tells the story of the Bengali writer and thinker Rabindranath Tagore: https://bbc.in/1KVh4Cf >>
The acclaimed BBC 4 podcast series titled Incarnations: India in 50 Lives has also been published in book form (Allen Lane).

“I was moved by how many of these lives pose challenges to the Indian present,” he writes, “and remind us of future possibilities that are in danger of being closed off.”1

  1. Sunil Khilnani quoted in a review by William Dalrymple in The Guardian, 14 March 2016[↩]
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Voice culture and singing in intercultural perspective

Full screen viewing link: https://archive.org/details/voice-culture-and-singing-kalakshetra-quarterly-1983

Voice Culture and Singing by Friedrich Brueckner-Rueggeberg

Peter Calatin (left) and Friedrich Brueckner-Rueggeberg (centre) with students at
Kalakshetra in 1983 © Ludwig Pesch

This course material was originally produced for – and used by – teachers and students at Kalakshetra College of Fine Arts, today known as Rukmini Devi College Of Fine Arts | Learn more >>

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Veröffentlichung von “Raum für Ideen? Zeit zum Spiel! Zum Sinn eines unbefangeneren Umgangs mit der ‘klassischen’ Musik Indiens”

Der Vortrag mit dem Titel “Raum für Ideen? Zeit zum Spiel! Zum Sinn eines unbefangeneren Umgangs mit der ‘klassischen’ Musik Indiens” von Ludwig Pesch wurde in Über Europa hinaus – Indiens Kultur und Philosophie: Disputationes 2015 veröffentlicht. ISBN: 978-3-7065-5522-7
Umfang: 152 Seiten (kartoniert, durchgehend vierfarbig mit zahlreichen Fotos) und ist beim Studienverlag Innsbruck  erhältlich.

Mit Beiträgen von Bettina Bäumer, Heidrun Brückner, Erhard Busek, Veena Kade-Luthra, Karl-Josef Kuschel, Ludwig Pesch, Helga Rabl-Stadler, Claudia Schmidt-Hahn, Walter Slaje, Alarmél Valli, Michael von Brück und Annette Wilke.

Informationen über diese Veröffentlichung und alle hier genannten Autoren finden Sie auch auf Worldcat.org >>

Angaben aus der Verlagsmeldung:

MYTHOS INDIEN
Künstler, Religionswissenschaftler und Indologen begeben sich auf die Suche nach der indischen Spiritualität und ihrer Ausprägungen in Kunst und Kultur, erklären Kunstformen und Rituale und gehen der Frage nach, warum die Vielfalt der indischen Mystik und Ästhetik den Westen seit jeher fasziniert.

Der Bogen spannt sich von der wissenschaftlichen Abhandlung bis hin zum persönlichen Erfahrungsbericht der indischen Tänzerin Alarmél Valli, die ihren Körper als “tanzenden Tempel” versteht. Neben Erläuterungen zur Gestensprache hinduistischer Epen wird die spannungsvolle Wechselbeziehung von Musik, Religion und Lebensphilosophien beleuchtet und ermöglicht einen facettenreichen Einblick in Indiens Kultur und Philosophie. Literarisch wird die Annäherung an den Mythos Indien durch Texte von Stefan Zweig, Hermann Hesse, aber auch von Nietzsche und Beethoven, gewagt, die alle den Mythos Indien mit seiner spirituellen Vielfalt zum Inhalt haben.

Dieser Sammelband umfasst die Vorträge, die während der Disputationes im Rahmen der Ouverture spirituelle der Salzburger Festspiele 2015 gehalten wurden. Diese Disputationes wurden vom Herbert-Batliner-Europainstitut in Kooperation mit den Salzburger Festspielen ins Leben gerufen, um den spirituellen Prolog der Salzburger Festspiele mit Diskussionen und wissenschaftlichen Erörterungen zu bereichern und zur Reflektion über interkulturelle und interreligiöse Themen anzuregen.

Zugriff: 27-2-16

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A Musical Lotus Pond – workshop at ISME 2012 World Conference

Markus_Lotuspond_IMG_5211

Purpose
Probing the depths of Indian sounds and symbols both for their interdisciplinary potential and intrinsic value.

Content
We pool musical, visual and numerical motifs. Sounds, hand gestures and movements link two school subjects within a single session; and more subjects wherever this approach lends itself to being integrated into a curriculum.

Method
The “Musical Lotus Pond” is a biotope where beauty flourishes in unexpected ways. Each participant embellishes a sheet of paper containing numbers and shapes. These form the basis for musical activities. At the conclusion, the sheets are folded into small cones resembling the “school cones” traditionally used to entice European children to attend school. Children will spontaneously share their experiences with peers and family members.

Application for integrated education
Analytical thinking, self-expression and teamwork are cultivated. For this purpose, motifs derived from Indian music are combined with those belonging to subjects as diverse as visual arts, geography, biology, physical education and maths.

Pure maths is a religion and in the East, valued for more than merely its technical application – Novalis (1799)

Background information
Indian culture is permeated by synesthetic associations that make learning both enjoyable and (cost) effective. Moreover it fosters concentration and teamwork. It is therefore no coincidence that the ubiquitous lotus motif symbolizes the aspiration to rise above the ordinary and beyond predictability.
The presenters work with the motto “Adapting Indian Universals in Music Education” (AIUME); and this in response to the needs of children and music students. Contributions to exhibitions (e.g. Museum Rietberg Zürich and Royal Tropical Museum Amsterdam) complement their artistic and scholarly pursuits: one is a singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist; the other trained and performed as flautist in India, and authored The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music.

I surely know the hundred petals of a lotus will not remain closed for ever and the secret recess of its honey will be bared. – from Gitanjali by Nobel Awardee Rabindranath Tagore

Listen to Tagore: Unlocking Cages: Sunil Khilnani tells the story of the Bengali writer and thinker Rabindranath Tagore: https://bbc.in/1KVh4Cf >>
The acclaimed BBC 4 podcast series titled Incarnations: India in 50 Lives has also been published in book form (Allen Lane).

“I was moved by how many of these lives pose challenges to the Indian present,” he writes, “and remind us of future possibilities that are in danger of being closed off.”1

  1. Sunil Khilnani quoted in a review by William Dalrymple in The Guardian, 14 March 2016[↩]