Hidayat Inayat Khan News
British composer (1917-2016)
- violin
- United Kingdom, France, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- conductor, composer, music teacher, violinist
Last update
2024-03-28
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2023-07-30 10:58:00
Music of the Muslim counterculture
[…] within a rigorous spiritual framework attracted a select group from the 1960s counterculture who travelled to the the Sheikh's tariqa in Meknes. Esoteric religions in their counterculture guise spawned controversial leaders such as Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa. Sufism was no exception to this, with Scottish born Ian Dallas playing a leading and controversial role in the transplanting of Sufism into the West. Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927) had introduced the West to Sufism many years previously. But his strand of Sufism drew on the perennialist belief in the unity of the great faiths and played down the tradition's Islamic roots, while the idiosyncratic version of Sufism advocated by Idries Shah (1924-96) has even less to do with Islam. By contrast, the Darqawi zawiya [Sufi lodge] which Abdalqadir as-Sufi established first in London and then Norfolk strictly observed the prescriptions […]
2020-07-08 13:16:00
Why one-size-fits-all does not work for classical music
[…] quantum consciousness proposes that the audience for music is highly granular, because entanglement and superposition processes are unique to each listener. Classical music's traditional mindset assumes a simple one way flow of music from composer to performer and on to listener. But good musicians will contradict this, saying they can 'feel' the audience. A good example of a musician 'feeling' their audience comes in this anecdote from the great Sufi musician and teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan:You will be amused to hear of a musician who was once invited to play the veena. The musician came and was welcomed. He uncovered his instrument; then he looked here and there, and found some discomfort, some discord, so he covered his veena, saluted, and left. Those present felt disappointed and begged him to play, but his answer was 'No matter what you give me, I do not feel like playing'. Quantum consciousness […]
2020-05-21 18:58:00
Your cat is a music therapist
[…] and many other Overgrown Paths. But drilling down further reveals another level. The power of music to nourish and heal the human spirit and body has been conveniently forgotten in the headlong rush to turn classical music into just another tawdry entertainment. Classical music is about only one thing - sound. Ancient wisdom tells us that Nada Brahma - sound is god. And both science and visionaries such as the Sufi master and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan tell us that sound is about only one thing - vibrations. The article explains how medical research has identified that low frequencies can trigger changes in the human body. This takes us on to themes that will be familiar to Overgrown Path readers, including the overlooked importance of infrasound (very low frequencies), the damaging effect on music of limiting frequency range, the role of bass in connecting with new audiences, and above all […]
2020-04-06 11:12:00
Great composers do not need fifteen minutes of Twitter fame
[…] many great Karajan sessions with the Berlin Philharmonic and also Barbirolli's profoundly moving 1963 Mahler Nine with the same orchestra.) When my recent listening felicitously juxtaposed the Requiem for Larissa with the ambient electronica of Mercurius Presence from Steve Roach's live The Sky Opens album I realised that, yes, classical music can break through the electronic glass ceiling. Jonathan Harvey explained that 'music and the world, everything is oscillation', while the Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan taught more than a century ago that "spirit descends into matter by the law of vibrations. Subsequently Einstein's theory of relativity explained how mass and energy are closely linked, while quantum field theory has identified how vibrating subatomic particles interact. This means our bodies are tuned to resonate with frequencies, as sound ecologist and composer R. Murray Schafer explains:I conducted an interesting test years ago. While working with students around North America and […]
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