The Whole Music Experience

World   Vasco Hernández Luz De Otro Manera   Arc Music   From a healing and psycho-acoustic perspective I know that flamenco isn’t the most uplifting music in the world.   However, the music has cathartic potential in the way that blues, or even rock music has and I recommend flamenco music for working through stronger emotions (play this music for your angst-ridden teen).   Besides, the intricate guitar with its thick strums, husky vocals, and complex rhythms entrances us.   Some people find flamenco music romantic as it exudes the passionate life of people who live on the fringes of society.   As we get trapped in our everyday 9 to 5 worlds, wild abandonment possesses an appeal. Self-taught flamenco guitarist Vasco Hernández brings that romantic and primal world to us on his recording, Luz De Otro Manera (Another Kind of Light).   Hearty music burst forth from this CD. And we hear an atmosphere of palmas (hand claps), glob...

World   Ravi Shankar   The Best of...   Arc Music I’m sitting here listening to Raga Mian Ki Malhar which tells a story in a way about the roots of India’s musical dynasty.  Each Indian classical raga corresponds with a season, time of day, or mood.  This particular raga, which moves at a slow to medium pace, represents the rainy season and I’m thinking about the appropriateness of listening to a monsoon raga as I watch late winter rain fall here in the Pacific Northwest.  My mood matches this raga’s sentiments, but at least the late Ravi Shankar gives such a fiery performance on the compilation The Best of Ravi Shankar that by the end of th is raga (which does pick up speed and intensity in the way that a stream picks up velocity to become a raging river), I feel invigorated.     I’m not a Ravi Shankar or Indian classical music scholar, but I'm someone who enjoys international music on a regular basis and who has...