Part of my Trane’s Ragas: The ‘Scales of India’ Puzzle project [out 2024] – delving into his handwritten musings to identify which ragas he was studying, where he got them from, and what he was doing with them…
—Trane in his own words—
—Quotes about Trane—
“I collect [Ravi Shankar’s] records…and his music moves me. I’m certain that if I recorded with him I’d increase my possibilities tenfold, because I’m familiar with what he does…”
(1961)
“Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I’ll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels…”
(source)
“To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being…When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups…I want to speak to their souls.”
(source)
“I’d like to discover a method so that if I want it to rain, it will start right away to rain. If one of my friends is ill, I’d like to play a certain song and he will be cured; when he’d be broke, I’d bring out a different song and immediately he’d receive all the money he needed. But what are these pieces, and what is the road to travel to attain knowledge of them? That I do not know…”
(1963)
“I’ve been devoting quite a bit of my time to harmonic studies on my own, in libraries and places like that…I want to broaden my outlook, and come out with a fuller means of expression. I’ve got to keep experimenting. I feel that I’m just beginning. I have part of what I’m looking for in my grasp, but not all.”
(1960)
“I believe that man is here to grow into the fullest, the best that he can be. At least this is what I want to do. As I am growing to become whatever I become, this will just come out on the horn. Whatever that’s going to be, it will be. I am not so much interested in trying to say what it’s going to be. I don’t know. I just know that good can only bring good.”
(source)
“The true powers of music are still unknown. To be able to control them must be, I believe, the goal of every musician. I’m passionate about understanding these forces. I would like to provoke reactions in the listeners to my music, to create a real atmosphere. It’s in that direction that I want to commit myself, and to go as far as possible…I would like to discover a method so that if I want it to rain, it will start right away to rain. If one of my friends is ill, I’d like to play a certain song and he will be cured; when he’d be broke, I’d bring out a different song and immediately he’d receive all the money he needed. But what are these pieces, and what is the road to travel to attain a knowledge of them? That I do not know…”
(1963)
“There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.”
(1966)
“Sometimes I’d think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.”
(s)
“I’m very happy devoting all my time to music, and I’m glad to be one of the many who are striving for fuller development as musicians. Considering the great heritage in music that we have, the work of giants of the past, the present, and the promise of those who are to come, I feel that we have every reason to face the future optimistically”
(s)
“When you are playing with someone who really has something to say, even though they may be otherwise quite different in style, there’s one thing that remains constant. And that is the tension of the experience, that electricity, that kind of feeling that is a lift sort of feeling. No matter where it happens, you know when that feeling comes upon you, and it makes you feel happy.”
(s)
“The reason I play so many sounds, maybe it sounds angry, is because I’m trying so many things at one time, you see? I haven’t sorted them out. I have a whole bag of things that I’m trying to work through, and get the one essential…”
(s)
“I start from one point and go as far as possible. But, unfortunately, I never lose my way. I ‘localize,’ which is to say that I think always in a given space. I rarely think of the whole of a solo, and only very briefly. I always return to the small part of the solo that I was in the process of playing.”
(s)
“Over all, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and senses in the universe… That’s what I would like to do. I think that’s one of the greatest things you can do in life and we all try to do it in some way. The musician ‘is’ through his music…”
(s)
“The real risk is not changing. I have to feel that I’m after something. If I make money, fine. But I’d rather be striving. It’s the striving, man, it’s that I want.”
(s)
“In India…particular sounds and scales are intended to produce specific emotional meanings…I like Ravi Shankar very much. When I hear his music, I want to copy it – not note-for-note of course, but in his spirit…I’d heard some Indian records, and liked the effect of the water drum, and I thought another [double] bass would add that certain rhythmic sound…like a drum, but melodious.”
(1962: n.b. the ‘water drum’ is almost certainly the bayan bass tabla, which, while absent of water, certainly sounds like it could be holding some! Also see the ghatam: the Carnatic water-pot drum)
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(s)
—Quotes about Trane—
Reflections from others…
“What a blessed musician he was, John Coltrane! He gave so much – like a magic pot being filled with his golden music, spilling over and feeding his ecstatic admirers…He asked me many questions about the basis of our music: the way we learnt from the beginning, how much was written down, how much was memorized, how much was fixed, how and when we started improvising, etc…He said he had been experimenting with the drone…”
(Ravi Shankar)
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• Trane’s Ragas •
John Coltrane left behind some cryptic, handwritten study notes entitled ‘Scales of India’. Here, I unravel the curious tale of what they are, where he got them, and what he was doing with them… [out 2022-23]
George Howlett is a London-based musician, writer, and teacher (guitars, sitar, tabla, & santoor). Above all I seek to enthuse fellow sonic searchers, interconnecting fresh vibrations with the voices, cultures, and passions behind them. See Homepage for more, and hit me up for Lessons!
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