Steve Gorn- bansuri

Steve Gorn is a celebrated flutist and Hindustani bansuri player who has been featured on Grammy winning records and worked with a wide array of artists, such as Paul Simon, Glen Velez, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Winter, Krishna Das, Richie Havens, and many more. And I'd like to acknowledge Steve as really being one of the earlier musicians from the West to study deeply in the Hindustani tradition and continue to perform and share that music in the West. In this interview, Steve shares his amazing insight and perspective on life and music. This interview was originally recorded on September 30 2020. 

WM: Welcome everyone. Today I'm really thrilled and honored to have Steve Gorn as my musical guest today. And Steve, where are you tuning in from today?

SG: I'm in the Hudson Valley in New York. Rosendale New York, just a minute from Woodstock. That's a reference point that people usually know. It’s green, lush, with full colors all around. Quite something…

WM: I’d like to begin by just asking what were your earliest music memories? Was it a part of your household growing up and where did that spark for music start?

SG: The spark from music just came from the beginning. My dad was a concert pianist. I grew up in a household that was really drenched in Western classical music. I can instantly hear Brahms symphonies in my ear, my father's piano playing while I was just a kid building Erector Set models under a grand piano. So it's always been there. I would say that in middle school I had taken up clarinet and I quickly went on to saxophone and really took a dive into the jazz of the late 50’s and early 60’s. So this is really the post bebop era where Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane. These were my musical heroes. And I really, I was totally immersed in that music through high school through college, and it was while I was in college, and actually it was around that time that John Coltrane and Yusef Latif and Charles Lloyd who I had some personal interactions with, all became fascinated with what was going on with Indian music. Not only Indian music, but world music in general, there was a movement in not the full jazz scene, but among many jazz musicians to embrace the melodic structures of Indian music, the rhythmic structures of Indian and African, the modal structures of Middle Eastern music. And this was really beginning to be the ground of an exploration that I just went for. I just followed it. And it led me to India in 1969 backpack hippie, clueless.

WM: How old were you?

SG: Twenty-five. Yeah, and that journey just opened up a path for me. I stumbled around as so many people did, studying casually, one teacher and another. And even initially, I wanted to play the shehnai, which is the double reed, kind of wild oboe of India, largely because Coltrane had really been fascinated with shehnai music, it being a horn and I suspect that was really one of his main influences on what he began to do modally. Particularly with a soprano saxophone, but over a couple of months and some traveling around, I began to work with the bansuri bamboo flute. And that became my instrument and through a series of happenstance, total accidents and bizarre circumstances which I think anyone who spent some time in India knows that the unexpected is often where the magic is. I found myself in Kolkata, and was led to a guru, a master of the bansuri pandit Gaur Gaurswami swami who was the disciple of Pannalal Ghosh, who in the Indian music world, was that he was the man who took the bamboo flute, which was really the small folk flute associated with the mythology of Krishna used in folk music used to accompany dance, but Pannanal Ghosh coming from what's now Bangladesh, began to work with these large pieces of bamboo and created an instrument where he felt he could really dig into the nuances that Indian vocal music was all about. And that was the style that I just fell into and loved and still love today and it's become the root of my music in that sense.

WM: Wow. So bansuri, maybe you can share a little bit more about the history of bansuri as a Hindustani classical instrument. And from what I hear it hasn't really been that long that it was considered one of the main instruments of the classical repertoire. Is that correct?

SG: Well, that's absolutely correct. And what I think that I was saying was before Pannalal Ghosh, the flute was really thought of completely as something for light music in India. Which would mean folk music, bhajans, spiritual music, but not Indian classical music. It certainly was not in the mix. It wasn't accepted as an instrument that could really give the nuances of Indian classical music which was really in the hands of either vocalists, or the sitar sarode traditions. So Pannalal Ghosh in a way had to break that attitude and in some ways, there were many people who didn't feel he did but flute and shehnai, with Bismillah Khansaab, a similar situation entered the arena of classical music. To many people, indeed it can capture the nuance and to others it can’t. It’s much more connected to vocal music. As you know, as a sitar player, the percussive nature of plucking strings is not something that was really something that Pannalal Ghosh was trying to emulate. He was more into the kind of sliding meend and what's called gayaki vocal style, which of course is you know, there are sitarists like Vilayat Khanshab who will say “I'm playing sitar in a gayaki tradition”, in fact every I think every Indian musician will say vocal music is my core and I'm using my instrument to extend vocal techniques, which is something we could you know, that I could say more about with regard to flute but that's kind of where it stands. And then with bansuri things began to shift with the great Hariprasa Chaurasia, who living today is the certainly the most well known flutist, and he adopted a style which incorporated more of the percussive aspect of the music in terms of the forms he played, and I think also he had a lot of interest in western flute players and began to use double tonguing techniques that are that are second nature to a Western flute player, and allowed that to be part of his display of the music and within the bansuri world there are kind of two camps about that. I mean, they're the people that lean towards Hariprasad as being a more complete exponent of Indian classical music, and those that feel that this more pure vocal approach is the real deal, but there's never any agreement in Indian music, you know.

WM: As in all human affairs. [laughter] Every realm has its politics. But wow, thank you for sharing that. I recently didn't really know that bansuri kind of came on a little later from Pannalal Ghosh because I'm trained in the Maihar Gharana  originally and he was a student of Allauddin Khansaab.

SG: Now here's an irony I mean, we're getting into more of the intricacies and unexplainable things about Indian music, because Pannalal Ghosh was indeed a student of Allauddin Khan and is part of the Maihar tradition. But then again, so is Hariprasad through Annapurna Devi.

WM: The individual expression…

SG: But I feel that was the genius of Allauddin Khan was when you think of all of the students in the Maihar tradition and the diversity of the way they manifest the music? I mean, Nikhil Bannerjee and Ravi Shankar are playing the same instrument. Yes, they're coming from the same tradition and yet each of them manifested a personal authenticity in the way they treated that music and the aesthetic of what they wanted to work with.

WM: Yeah, yeah, you're touching on a really beautiful part of the music. There's always that individual expressive quality that comes through even if you have the same guru. That's part of the living and breathing timeless qualities to me of Hindustani raga music is that every person will unfold it unique to their own.

SG:  I think that's a really important aspect and I believe a guru has the role of transmitting something, enlivening something, and then I believe that the guru would want you to find your own authentic voice. You know, it's not like you learn initially learn as I'm sure you know, in the oral tradition, you listen and you imitate and that's that's the way we learn this music, but at a certain point, one has to through just the process of riyaz practice and and just some kind of personal ripening, maturing. One has to find one's own voice with the instrument. Otherwise, it's a I mean, a lot of Indian musicians will actually use the term they'll say well, that was rather bookish, was bookish, yes, it was correct. But it was bookish. It didn't have that… You know, I want to get goosebumps when I hear you play the gr in gujari todi, you know, and it's got to come from your own personal integration with that as well as embrace as well as tradition. 

WM: Steve, how many years have you been studying Hindustani classical music for?

SG: [laughter] I think I really started in 1971. So we're talking 51 years.

WM: Wow. That's amazing. And I'm wondering if you could attempt to kind of summarize some of the points of the things that shifted for you on the decade marks for example, in the first 10 years, like what was something that you focused on and kind of overcame or learned and then after 20 years, and then 30… Because I'm at 15 years and I'm like, seeing so much that happens, like I shift my perspective and group. I had a time where I was so fascinated by all the ragas and I got to learn all you know, they're also enticing and beautiful and unique. And now I just want to focus on one raag for a year in like really deep into it. And so this is a pretty, you know, extensive question, but if you could maybe look at the decade marks…

SG: I can, really can. It’s really interesting, because my son just turned 30 this weekend. And when I wrote to him, he's out on the West Coast. When I wrote to him I said, you know, when I was 30, my daughter who's obviously older, was one year old. And I had just been back from two and a half years in India. And what I wrote was that my hold on the music was so fragile. It was so fragile, and I can remember those days of waking up and feeling it's all just going to disappear. It's going to disappear in the air. You know, nothing is really tangible. Yeah, I have notes you know, this raga is sa re ma pa… But I felt so vulnerable to losing what had been kind of poured into me intensely in really only about a year and a half. I mean, it was a very short time really that I had with Gour Goswamii and actually what I'm describing this was when we came back from India, in 72 was before my daughter was born. That's when I really had this fragile feeling. And then a very interesting thing happened. I had, among other raagas, really fallen in love with rag bageshree and we were living in Boston at that time, and I was just playing bageshree day and night and I was really into my bageshree. Now mind you, I'm alone. I'm on my own, and I'm just playing bageshree and then in 74 I went back to India, and I was kind of just so excited to kind of march into my guru’s music room, and you know, “well what have you been doing?” I said “I've been playing, I've been playing bageshree.” “Well, let's hear it.” I started playing bageshree and nobody had the slightest idea what I was playing. I had transformed it into my own bageshree. But I had no reference point of what's the middle road of you're actually playing bageshree or are you just messing around with that scale? I mean, it was like they were all going “Oh, yes. What exactly are you doing?” Or maybe I didn't say I was. I probably didn't say I was playing bageshree I just started playing and of course to me it was clear as day. And I think it was a wonderful moment that I can now look back on in a way of how subtle and intangible that oral tradition really is. And I think the more you study the music, the more you realize how subtle it is. You don't just know you don't just go “oh yeah, I get it” you know, in a western intellectual way. “Yeah, I play this. I do this right. I know that raga.”Aand over the years, I guess, five or six core ragas that I was playing I would put something down and a couple of years later, get back into it and hear so much more. I mean, it seems like an unending dive into the depth of things. I mean, one wonderful anecdote is that we were playing bhairav and I'm following my guru, and he plays the komal re the flat second in the scale and he looks up at me and says “this note is very peculiar.” And I at that time, my totally Western conceptual mind goes, “Oh, yeah, of course.” Like that, you know, and just let it go with that. I think it was 20 years later that I was playing bhairav and I played that komal re in a certain way and I immediately saw him saying to me, “that note is very peculiar.” It was like, “wow, yeah. Yeah, it is.” I couldn't quite tell you how it was peculiar but yeah, that's it. What you just did, that's it. And that kind of thing. That kind of thing is just such a

invigorating moment, and I still have moments like that. I have them with certain ragas where I feel that years and years later I'm playing and I go “wow, that's really it.” With that note, that was the way these two notes are combined. How this combination… I've been involved with Buddhism for a long time and in Tibetan Buddhism, explore what's called the outer inner and the sacred or you could say secret elements of teachings. And you could say that the outer element of Raga is “I'm playing I'm playing rag boat bhairav and here are the notes.” And the inner is to really hear the integration of those notes how they're capsulized in a beautiful composition, for example, but that secret or self secret aspect is that third one of all of a sudden, the essence of a note which just stops time and space, which you can't snap your finger and have it happen. You can't figure it out and say “do this and you'll get that” but it just arises out of the state of some kind of present moment. And that's what you know, and of course for the Indian music listeners, the rasikas, the people that know the music, this has been always gets them vava you know, kya bhate. Well, what just happened, you know, well, but you know, and those are the things that I think over the course of all these years, I’m more and more just in love with you know entranced by, curious about.

WM: Yeah, I I totally relate and just love depth in this side of the music in the sense and you know, there's a saying “one rag is all you need” and the way I interpret that is that one rag is totally infinite and you can never, like it's not like a finished piece, right? Your whole life like we talked about, you can be finding new phrases and new places to move and, and then the other thing that I've interpreted that as is that if you really study one rag in great detail, then you have more access and understanding to other ones. And that's kind of been something I've interpreted from that saying and, and also like the old days, there are guys that were famous for just like one rag like “go hear him sing Puriya Dhanashree” and I just love getting to communicate about this depth of the music. 

SG: This is totally true. Yeah. The idea that one raga… in a way if you study one raga in depth, you're learning the footprint. How, how raga unfolds, how a raga unfolds and then it is applicable to other ones with their own scales and their own motifs. Certainly, yeah. And that sense that you might have, you might have a, I would say like a handle on it or a sense of where the energy is really flowing. And then at another moment, you might feel like you can't find it. There's a wonderful story that Samir Chatterjee, a great great tabla player and dear friend of mine told me he was playing quite often with the late great Pandi Jasraj. And he was in the greenroom with Jarajji before an evening concert and Jasraj-ji says to Samir, “what shall I play tonight? What shall I sing tonight?” And Samirji says “sing rag Yaman” and Jasraj having sung for 60 years, with Yaman, as you know, is like a bulwark of the repertoire, he looks at Samirji and says “I don't have a grip on Yaman at this moment.” 

WM: Wow. There's some perspective. Yeah. Beautiful. Wow. Well, we're talking about raga and this kind of depth and every raga has a time of day or season, for our listeners here. And, you know, as I've learned, my teachers haven't really explained that science but they affirm it and they they stand by it. And I've done some of my own research on the prahars which are these eight divisions of the day and a way that kind of ascribes a rag to its time of day. But when I look at that in the system there, you know, there are always some discrepancies and things and I feel that there's something more intuitive going on behind all of this that really is something almost intangible that is realized on a whole other level than even the the scientific explanations and I'm just curious kind of how you feel about ragas and their connections with time of day and how that was taught to you and what it feels like to you.

SG: Yeah, that's a wonderful topic to explore. I think my approach to it has been, is really that this music, Indian classical music, which is something that evolved out of what we know as nada yoga, the yoga of sound. It's a music which comes from a culture that was completely connected with nature, and was really in tune with nature in tune with the quality of light of different times of day, in tune with the rainy season. So that music became a vehicle to connect with a different time of day. And of course, if we think about living in a climate like India, where indoor outdoor is a lot more fluid, than in in North America, certainly where I live, you know, or when we use electric lights at night, if it's if it's sunset, there's nothing other than the natural world, your connection to that sunset. And sunset is a beautiful example because on the equator, as I think most people know, sunset occurs much faster than it does in the hemispheres further away from the equator, in both North and South. So Twilight in India is this rush of colors. It’s this rush of colors, this bardo, you know it’s this in between space between light and dark or dark and light. It's the experience of if you take a nap and wake up during that time for a split second you don't know is it getting lighter? Is it getting darker? And what do they do with the music you have a raga like Marwa or Shree you have these ragas that are unstable, that have some kind of floating quality they're not clearly black or white, this or that there are this in between state I mean, that's the perfect example of where music evolved and which reflected this state in the natural world. So I embrace it from that point of view. And it kind of just comes about intuitively, I sit in the morning and I play rag bhairav, I mean that happens to be my way of beginning my morning or bhairagi, you know so I try in a way I try to really, I wouldn't say try I just sort of intuitively go along with the the game plan. You know, late afternoon. If I sit down and play my flute, particularly if I’m outdoors, I have this beautiful outdoor space to play where I look over a river and the trees reflected in the water. And something about four or five in the afternoon, madhuvanti, madhukauns, bhimpalasi, they just seem right. They just seem right to me earlier in the morning, todi. So I'm really kind of embracing this tradition. And I didn't get, I mean I've had different gurus talk about it but I think I'm more influenced personally, with my sense of a Buddhist sense of sacred world and presence.

WM: Beautiful Yeah, I feel that there's something kind of deeply intuitive there. And it's nice to talk about that with other musicians that are engaged in this music and yeah, thank you for sharing that.

SG: It's wonderful to play Lalit at 4.30, 5 o'clock in the morning. I've had fabulous opportunities in India to play at all night festivals and play at that time. Or to hear people sing that. I mean, when I was in India, the great Amir Khan Saab was alive and he was famous for his lalit at 430am. and you know, and you'd be at these all night concerts… which is another thing that’s interesting because the the sense of staying up all night to hear music and hearing music at a time of day, when it really is to be played is like a it's a meditative experience. It’s a sense of being you know, falling asleep nodding out or something like that and then waking up into this world, and to hear him sing that music at that time. It's just remarkable.

WM: Now as you became more immersed in the study of bansuri and you were learning more, what were your first steps of entering the performing world as Hindustani Bansuri player? Like where did you kind of find your way to begin expressing this music on the stage?

SG: I would say looking back that I was tremendously just stepping forward rather clueless. I mean, I got a lot of encouragement from people to play. And I think it was perhaps because… and I think a lot of this came from the jazz background I had, that there was something about just sort of, you know, like, I could catch the vibe of a raga. I really did not know all that much when I found myself playing. And I can think of certain circumstances where I'm almost embarrassed that I was playing before people, but for the most part, I got a lot of encouragement from Indian listeners, both in India and in the States. And then particularly, I guess, starting in the 90s, so I've been playing for 20 years, I started going to India quite frequently for usually from a month to six weeks every winter and with the support of a number of Indian musicians and music critics I got invited to play in these festivals and play concerts for people and I think a lot of it was that a lot of those people were supportive, they were just very pleased that someone from the West, someone from the land of milk and honey wanted to come to India and study this music seriously. You know, and there was just tremendous appreciation for that. So that was kind of an entryway that led me into it. I've never been under the I mean, I'm aware when I hear some people that are in their 20’s how much they know and how much more there is to learn what I don't know. I'm really aware of all of that but at this point, I kind of feel that I can show up and play something, I can play it from my heart. I can play it from my heart and this is the way I play it and I know  it's it I know it's still connected to a tradition. And yet I mean a lot of people would say oh I can really hear the jazz in you're playing. I mean the depth of, there's no end to it. But one could study and take it further.

WM: So when you were hearing Coltrane and probably guys like Pharoah Sanders in this kind of more free Indian influenced jazz and did that shift your idea of what music could be or what you thought it was? Or did you sense that devotion as much as before you kind of stepped into the Hindustani tradition and study was that? Do you feel like you were really seeing that? That spark of what we were talking about are kind of these intangible parts of a raga. Was that something that you felt from Coltrane's improvisations, and how did those two relate?

SG: That’s kind of interesting. I’m not sure I really thought about it that much. I think what I began to realize was that the jazz music that I loved, which was predominantly the voice of these African American musicians, it just wasn't  my music. I played it, but it wasn't, it just wasn't my music. It was as simple as that. I listened to Eric Dolphy. You know, I really know that era of jazz very, very well. And I love listening to people who really play it thoroughly. But for some reason I stumbled onto something in India that I felt was more true to who I was or who I am, and as much as I can hold on to that the more the more honest things are. I'm actually playing a little program this weekend. It's been wonderful to have these outdoor events where people can actually come and I'm playing with a fine jazz guitar player and drummer and it's kind of a jazz setting. And I was just telling a friend earlier today that for me, my task when I'm in that situation is to not get drawn into trying to play like a jazz player. Because that's not what I do well. But to find a way to bring into that music this voice that's coming from that's coming from from Indian music. And sometimes that's a challenge because it's very easy to get kind of swept into, you know, all of a sudden, I'm just going dooba dah dah deeba do dah you know, and it is not what I should be doing.

WM: So when you found raga music and Hindustani music, did you kind of ease off on you know, practicing jazz music as much?

SG: Oh, totally.

WM: You were full in.

SG: Oh, yeah. And I've had some wonderful opportunities to play with people that are, you know, just masters in the jazz world. I played with Jack DeJohnette, the greatest jazz drummer alive for two years. But again, my role and my task and where I succeeded and also where I couldn't quite succeed was in bringing to him something that was of this authentic Indian World Music aesthetic. You know, and I can hear where it worked and I can hear where it fell short because I couldn't find that voice in certain situations. You know, it's an ongoing thing. And I'm interested in that. I'm very interested in that it's kind of an important part of the musical opportunities I have found myself in to be able to work with that. I'm certainly not exclusively playing Indian classical music by any means.

WM: And a question I've been asking, this term World Music. What does that mean to you? How do you interpret the term “world music''? What does it mean to you?

SG: That's funny. There was a joking number of years ago that somebody asked somebody in Ethiopia, what's world music and they said James Brown. Yeah, so I mean, it's a very loose genre, but I think that it is the expansion that took place most recently, starting with the in the 60’s and 70’s, where we incorporated music other than the European and African American tradition as it was with jazz and began to really explore other musics and in a way from a from a Eurocentric perspective, like with Western classical music there were a number a number of bursts of world music, you know, Beethoven was the first musician to use Turkish symbols. Turkish music. Debussy heard gamelan at the Paris World's Fair in the 1890’s and that totally became a palette, a tapestry of his. So there are numerous times that this has really happened. The big difference was that in the 60’s, we had recordings. We had wonderful anthologies by Nonesuch recordings and the UNESCO series of music from all over the world. And both western classical composers and jazz musicians who heard those couldn't help but be influenced by it. And that led to the first, you could say explorations with this and things you know, the success is almost irrelevant. You know, you step out and try something that might not work. But the gates opened, you know, the world is multicultural, it's rich with all these things. And at the same time, I can hear the voice of a lot of people that would say, “Well, you know Indian classical music is kind of like a pure form. And if you begin to mess with it, you're just gonna dilute that secret sacred element”, and I can hear the truth in that as well. So I think the two kinds exist side by side. There's situations where you can explore something, you can stretch out. A lot of what's in the so-called New Age, genre is using Indian music in a kind of soft, bud-light kind of way. And some of it is quite beautiful. You know, some of it is quite beautiful, who's to say? But there is also a truth that a raga, holding, cradling a classical raga is unique. And and when it's watered down when chords are added to it. All kinds of things that we've heard. It just ain't the same thing. Simple as that.

WM: Yeah. So you're on tour, and you've got a performance and you only have half an hour to practice. What would you play when you have that limited time? 

SG: I would reframe it and say, you've spent the last two hours arranging the stage and the sounds and schlepping the sound system and there's a cable that doesn't work and you hate the sound that you're getting. And then you have to play, what do you play? I think that's more that's more of an experience I can really relate to, you know. At best. you take a deep breath and center yourself in a contemplative state and in a way embrace the dharmakaya, the emptiness, and that sound is… something's going to arise from that. And I think that I can recall often experiences where I'll start playing, and I'll feel “oh my god, nothing's happening.” You know, nothing's happening, I'm not you know, and I think the most important thing to do is not jump. Not jump and you hear this in a lot of people's music where they're afraid they're going to lose your attention and they start flailing around right away. Rather than just holding steady and believing that, trusting that something will come out of that steadiness and that will be the real thing. Rather than oh, I just started prancing around you know, running through hoops.

WM: Yeah, that's definitely one of the challenging parts of performing.

SG: I mean, I'm a little jealous of you guys who can spend a fair amount of time tuning. You know, you can spend ten minutes you know, sometimes the audience goes “come on already” but your tuning is more than tuning the instrument, you're tuning your mind as well. And this is very different with a flute, where, if you haven't had a chance to really play in the green room, you've got to really try either find it on the spot, or be willing to be patient with finding it.

WM: That gives me a broader perspective of the tuning. I appreciate that. I'm going to use that as an opportunity now. Well, we're always jealous of the travel friendly qualities of a flute but I guess everybody's got their up and down of their chosen instrument. Well, you know, the world is going through a lot right now. And you know, we're in interesting times and maybe for our listeners, if you can share what is really the role and potential of music right now for, for people and maybe for your own self. I'm assuming that a lot of tours and performances have been canceled and, you know, you are still accessing music and how can you kind of share some of that inspiration with the broader world and in our listeners,

SG: I believe that music and I would say the arts in general, are vital, absolutely vital to the well being of us all and to this fragile planet that we live on. And that music has the possibility of individually synchronizing our mind and our heart. Our mind and our body. And on a social level, offering something which cuts the aggression of speediness, a sense of what's going to happen next. Music has that ability to allow you to rest in your true nature. And that true nature is not the world of hope and fear. It gives us a moment of sanity. And so much of the energy that we're being bombarded with, I mean, we saw the man who is leading this country politically just ranting, like a spoiled child. I have a if I have a goal, if I have a desire, if I have a mission, it's to play music, which allows people to just breathe, feel their own goodness, and be able to extend that goodness out to others. To feel that we are more connected than we are different. The great composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein made a comment during World War Two where he said that our response to violence will be to play music, more passionately, more honestly, and with more integrity than ever. And that these things actually do work. They really work on people. I've had the satisfaction of knowing it on a personal level one when someone will just say “wow, I just… you played something and I just stopped it stopped my fear. It stopped my anxiety. It allowed me to just breathe and feel the warmth of this day”, whatever. So that's my aspiration with music.

WM: Well, it's been just such a pleasure. Steve, going into such deep topics about music and life and I feel kind of a breath of inspiration here as with your final thoughts and also I'd love to share with our listeners how they can find more of your music and your work.

SG: I have a website, SteveGorn.com. And on the website there are actually quite a few video clips that you can just click on and hear a variety of things, some Indian classical music, it's rather old actually, I've been lazy about updating that but it also includes a number of interesting things in this world music genre. And then there are some CDs, those relics of another era that are available, quite a few of them I think online and then there are some physical copies around.

WM: Is there a project that you are currently working on that we can look forward to?

SG: I've got a talk on my website, which people might find interesting. It's called “the transformative power of music.” And it's a it's an abbreviated version of a talk I've been giving at universities for the last 10 or so years, where I really explored this notion that I mentioned before of the power of music, what music is as a vehicle for transformation on the personal and on the social level. And it’s about a 20 minute piece where I speak about that for a bit and then talk about how that works for me when I play.

WM: Yeah, I watched that one and I recommend that to any listener who wants to kind of hear more about some of the things we talked about, you know, this power of a raga, what is it? what's really happening? and Steve kind of demonstrates as he's playing his bansuri, different qualities of how a raga unfolds and just music in a broader context of what it's here to serve and do. Wow. Well, I just thank you for your sharing and your devotion to music. Enjoy that beautiful fall day there and hope one day we can sit with instruments again.

Connect with Steve via his website www.stevegorn.com