George Howlett – musician & writer
Articles | Recordings | Lessons
raga: ‘to colour the mind’
George Howlett is a South London-based musician and writer. I play guitar, tabla drums, and santoor (Himalayan dulcimer), and write about topics loosely related to jazz, rhythm, and global improvised music. Currently I’m Darbar’s part-time Indian classical musicologist, alongside teaching for Guitar World and releasing music as Rāga Junglism. Hit me up to collaborate! george@ragajunglism.org
Recent Projects
- Living Traditions: 21 articles for 21st-century Indian classical music – in-depth collection exploring how music with ancient roots is adapting to a modern, interconnected world [Darbar]
- Guitar tuning in fine detail: the ‘impatient meditation’ – devising a fresh approach that also enhances dexterity, ear strength, cognitive focus, and fretboard awareness [Guitar World]
- No Kanjira (with Jesse Bannister) – musical collaboration with the Indo-jazz sax master: microtonal guitar loops, chopped horn melodies, sampled drums, & low, broken tabla [above]
Selected Articles – more here
- Ustad Shahid Parvez: ‘What you play spontaneously should be perfect’ – discussing intuition, bounded innovation, and hyper-discipline with the world’s leading sitarist [Darbar]
- What is it about drummers? Rock mythology vs. tales of the tabla – why have disparate societies of the East and West built such similar stereotypes around their percussionists? [RJ]
- Curious cultural interchange: Indian music in Bristol – anatomy of a fascinating, scattered micro-scene, featuring jazz-funk jams, temple chants, and apocalyptic prophecies [The Wire]
Selected Lessons – more here
- West African rhythmic ideas for the fretboard – reworking Ghanaian polyrhythms and Malian kora music, and learning about the people and cultures that created them [Guitar World]
- Jazz walking basslines: making them really groove – turning to the low end for harmonic and melodic inspiration, and adapting some ‘bassistic’ inflections [Guitar World]
- ‘Alankar’: Indian melodic ornamentation – learning some of India’s unique ‘singing’ bends, slides, vibratos, and legatos, and examining the guitar’s physical limits [MusicRadar]
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