KARUNESH

Karunesh is a new age / ambient musician born in Cologne, Germany in 1956. His music has strong Asian and Indian influences prevalent throughout, with liberal use of Indian instruments (like the sitar for example).

Although he had been drawn to music as a child and played in bands as a teenager, he chose to study graphic design as a career. However, after attaining his degree, Karunesh was involved in a serious motorcycle accident. His brush with death prompted him to rethink his life and embark on a spiritual journey of sorts, and in 1979 he travelled to India. His accident also prompted him to choose music as a career instead of graphic design.

In 1987, Karunesh released his first album entitled Sounds of the Heart, which was met with success, followed by Colors Of Light the following year and Sky's Beyond the year after that. As of 2006 Karunesh has released 17 albums (see Discography below).

Karunesh has lived in Maui, Hawaii, since 1992.

Discography

• 1987 Sounds Of The Heart
• 1988 Colours Of Light
• 1989 Sky's Beyond
• 1991 Heart Symphony
• 1992 Heart Chakra Meditation
• 1993 Beyond Body & Mind
• 1996 Secrets of Life
• 1997 Osho Chakra Sounds (Note: Co-artist 'Osho' is sometimes dropped from the title)
• 2001 Wanderer (May 8, 2001)
• 2001 Zen Breakfast (July 10, 2001)
• 2002 Nirvana Cafe
• 2003 Silent Heart (July 1, 2003)
• 2003 Global Spirit (September 2, 2003)
• 2004 Call Of the Mystic (May 11, 2004)
• 2004 Beyond Heaven (June 8, 2004)
• 2006 Global Village (April 11, 2006)
• 2006 Joy Of Life (October 24, 2006)

New Age Music

There is no formal definition of the New Age movement. One academic study suggests that those who sample many diverse teachings and practices from both 'mainstream' and 'fringe' traditions and formulate their own beliefs and practices based on their experiences can be considered as New Age.Rather than following the lead of an organised religion, "New Agers" typically construct their own spiritual journey based on material taken from the mystical traditions of the world's religions, also including shamanism, neopaganism, and occultism.

New Age practices and beliefs may be characterized as a form of alternative spirituality or alternative religion. Even apparent exceptions, such as alternative medicine or traditional medicine practices, often have some spiritual dimension—such as a conceptual integration of mind, body, and spirit.

The term New Age is used in a Western or modern context where the Judeo-Christian tradition and/or Positivism are dominant, so the use of "alternative" in New Age thought generally implies a contrast with these dominant religious and/or scientific beliefs. Hence, many New Age ideas and practices in the West contain either explicit or implied critiques of organised mainstream Christianity—emphasis on meditation suggests that simple prayer and faith are insufficient, and beliefs such as reincarnation (which not all New Age followers accept)—challenge familiar Christian doctrines, like those regarding the Afterlife.

New Age is a wide range of ideas and activities, from which participants in the subculture select their own preferred streams to identify with. The question of which contemporary cultural elements can be included under the name of "New Age" , or what it means, is much contested. New Age channelers, for instance, have many points of similarity with Spiritualist mediums. Many spiritual movements, such as neo-paganism and transpersonal psychology partially overlap with it. Many groups prefer to distance themselves from the possible negative connotations of the "New Age" name, such as the media hoopla and commercialism, while others prefer not to use it at all. For example, key individuals in the New Thought Movement, such as Ernest Holmes, have focused on a more scientific approach and do not share beliefs in reincarnation, magic, or channeling. Major efforts to present the New Age as a values-based sociopolitical movement included Mark Satin's New Age Politics (orig. 1976),Theodore Roszak's Person/Planet (1978), Marilyn Ferguson's Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), and Gordon Davidson and Corinne McLaughlin's Spiritual Politics (1994).

The Music that makes you ROCK...!!

Rock music is a form of popular music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Many styles of rock music also use keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, mellotron, and synthesizers. Other instruments sometimes utilized in rock include harmonica, violin, flute, banjo, melodica, and timpani. Also, less common stringed instruments such as mandolin and sitar are used. Rock music usually has a strong back beat, and often revolves around the guitar, either solid electric, hollow electric, or acoustic.

Rock music has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll and rockabilly, which evolved from blues, country music and other influences. According to the All Music Guide, "In its purest form, Rock & Roll has three chords, a strong, insistent back beat, and a catchy melody. Early rock & roll drew from a variety of sources, primarily blues, R&B, and country, but also gospel, traditional pop, jazz, and folk. All of these influences combined in a simple, blues-based song structure that was fast, danceable, and catchy."

In the late 1960s, rock music was blended with folk music to create folk rock, blues to create blues-rock and with jazz, to create jazz-rock fusion, and without a time signature to create psychedelic rock. In the 1970s, rock incorporated influences from soul, funk, and latin music. Also in the 1970s, rock developed a number of subgenres, such as soft rock, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive rock, and punk rock. Rock subgenres that emerged in the 1980s included synth-rock, hardcore punk and alternative rock. In the 1990s, rock subgenres included grunge, Britpop, indie rock, and nu metal.

A group of musicians specializing in rock music is called a rock band or rock group. Many rock groups consist of a guitarist, lead singer, bass guitarist, and drummer, forming a quartet. Some groups omit one or more of these roles and/or utilize a lead singer who plays an instrument while singing, forming a trio or duo; others include additional musicians such as one or two rhythm guitarists and/or a keyboardist. More rarely, groups also utilize stringed instruments such as violins or cellos, and/or horns like trumpets or trombones.

Summarised:

Stylistic origins:	Rock and roll, ultimately blues (mostly jump blues and Chicago blues), country music and R&B
Cultural origins:	Late 1940s United States
Typical instruments:	Guitar, Bass, Drums, often also Keyboards
Mainstream popularity:	Much, constant and worldwide since the 1950s
Derivative forms:	Alternative rock - Heavy metal - Punk rock

Qawwali

Qawwali is the devotional music of the Chishti Sufis of the Indian subcontinent. Qawwali is a vibrant musical tradition that stretches back more than 700 years. Originally performed mainly at Sufi shrines throughout the subcontinent, it has also gained mainstream popularity. Qawwali music received international exposure through the work of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, largely due to several releases on the Real World label, followed by live appearances at WOMAD festivals. Listeners, and often artists themselves are transported to a state of wajad, a trance-like state where they feel at one with God, generally considered to be the height of spiritual ecstasy in Sufism. Although famous throughout the world, its economic and spiritual hub remains Punjab province of Pakistan from where it gained entry into the main stream commercial music industry and international fame.

The roots of Qawwali can be traced back to 8th century Persia (today's Iran and Afghanistan). However, Qawwali in the form we know it today was essentially created by Amir Khusrau Dehelvi in the late 13th century in India.

During the first major migration from Persia, in the 11th century, the musical tradition of Sama migrated to the Indian subcontinent, Turkey and Uzbekistan. Rumi and his Mevlana order of Sufism have been the propagators of Sama in Central Asia. Amir Khusrau of the Chisti order of Sufis is credited with fusing the Persian and South Asian musical traditions, to create Qawwali as well as the Hindustani classical music tradition. The word "Sama" is used (or is the preferred name) in Central Asia and Turkey, for forms very similar to Qawwali. And even in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the formal name used for a session of Qawwali is "Mehfil-e-Sama".

Content:

The songs which constitute the qawwali repertoire are mostly in Urdu and Punjabi (almost equally divided between the two), though there are several songs in Persian, Brajbhasha and Siraiki. There is also qawwali in some regional languages (e.g., Chhote Babu Qawwal sings in Bengali), but the regional language tradition is relatively obscure. Also, the sound of the regional language qawwali can be totally different from that of mainstream qawwali. This is certainly true of Chhote Babu Qawwal, whose sound is much closer to Baul music than to the qawwali of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, for example.

The poetry is implicitly understood to be spiritual in its meaning, even though the lyrics can sometimes sound wildly secular, or outright hedonistic. The central themes of qawwali are love, devotion and longing (of man for the Divine).

Qawwalis are classified by their content into several categories:

• A hamd is a song in praise of Allah. Traditionally, a qawwali performance starts with a hamd.
• A naat is a song in praise of the Prophet Muhammad. The opening hamd is traditionally followed by a naat.
• A manqabat is a song in praise of either Imam Ali or one of the Sufi saints. Interestingly, manqabats in praise of Ali are sung at both Sunni and Shi'a gatherings. If one is sung, it will follow right after the naat. There is usually at least one manqabat in a traditional programme.
• A marsiya is a lamentation over the death of much of Imam Husayn's family in the Battle of Karbala. Once again, this would typically be sung only at a Shi'a concert.
• A ghazal is a song that sounds secular on the face of it. There are two extended metaphors that run through ghazals -- the joys of drinking and the agony of separation from the beloved. These songs feature exquisite poetry, and can certainly be taken at face value, and enjoyed at that level. In fact, in India and Pakistan, ghazal is also a separate, distinct musical genre in which many of the same songs are performed in a different musical style, and in a secular context. In the context of that genre, the songs are usually taken at face value, and no deeper meaning is necessarily implied. But in the context of qawwali, these songs of intoxication and yearning use secular metaphors to poignantly express the soul's longing for union with the Divine, and its joy in loving the Divine. In the songs of intoxication, "Wine" represents "knowledge of the Divine", the "Cupbearer" (saaqi) is God or a spiritual guide, the "Tavern" is the metaphorical place where the soul may (or may not) be fortunate enough to attain spiritual enlightenment. (The "Tavern" is emphatically not a conventional house of worship. Rather, it is taken to be the spiritual context within which the soul exists) Intoxication is attaining spiritual knowledge, or being filled with the joy of loving the Divine. In the songs of yearning, the soul, having been abandoned in this world by that cruel and cavalier lover, God, sings of the agony of separation, and the depth of its yearning for reunion.
• A kafi is a song in Punjabi, which is in the unique style of poets such as Shah Hussain and Baba Bulleh Shah. Two of the more popular Kafis include Ni Main Jana Jogi De Naal and Mera Piya Ghar Aaya.
• A munadjaat is a song where the singer displays his thanks to Allah through a variety of linguistic techniques. It is often sung in Persian, with Mawlana Jalāl-ad-Dīn Rumi credited as its inventor.

Music Genre of the Day..

Bhangra, in the traditional sense, is a folk dance and not a music form though now it is seen to refer to both to the music and the dance. Bhangra depends heavily on percussion.

Bhangra began as a part of harvest and vaisakhi festival celebrations, and found its way to the performance stage after the division of the Punjab in 1947. The Punjabi dance performed at this time in ecstasy with the beat of Dhol came to be known as Bhangra. The tradition spread slowly to other parts of the region and developed into a unique folk dance form. Bhangra has come of age and is now performed at every major celebration and in clubs etc.

Traditional Bhangra is a fusion of music, singing and the beat of the dhol drum, a single stringed instrument called the iktar (ektara), the tumbi and the chimta. The accompanying songs are small couplets written in the Punjabi language called bolis. They relate to harvest celebration, love, patriotism or current social issues.

In Punjabi folk music, the dhol's smaller cousin, the dholki, was nearly always used to provide the main beat. Nowadays the dhol is used more frequently, with and without the dholki. Additional percussion, including tabla, is less frequently used in bhangra as a solo instrument but is sometimes used to accompany the dhol and dholki.

As many Bhangra lyrics reflect the long and often tumultuous history of the Punjab, knowledge of Punjabi history offers important insights into the meaning of the music. During the last thirty years, Bhangra has enjoyed a surge in popularity worldwide, both in traditional form and as a fusion with genres such as hip-hop, house, and reggae.

Punjabi Bhangra Remixes

Many South Asian DJs, especially in America, have mixed Bhangra music with house, reggae, and hip-hop to add a different flavor to Bhangra. These remixes continued to gain popularity as the nineties came to an end.

Of particular note among remix artists is Bally Sagoo, a Punjabi-Sikh, Anglo-Indian raised in Birmingham, England. Sagoo described his music as "a bit of tablas, a bit of the Indian sound. But bring on the bass lines, bring on the funky-drummer beat, bring on the James Brown samples", to Time magazine in 1997. He was recently signed by Sony as the flagship artist for a new . The most popular of these is Daler Mehndi, a Punjabi singer from India, and his music, known as "Bhangra Pop". Mehndi has become a major name not just in Punjab, but also all over India, with tracks such as Bolo Ta Ra Ra and Ho Jayegee Balle Balle. He has made the sound of Bhangra-pop a craze amongst many non-Punjabis in India, selling many millions of albums. Perhaps his most impressive accomplishment is the selling of 250,000 albums in Kerela, a state in the South of India where Punjabi is not spoken. But Daler Mehndi(Paapa) is not popular among Jat Sikhs of Punjab because of his poor dress sense and his style of singing,dance,music and the lyrics of his songs.

Toward the end of the decade, Bhangra continued its assault on mainstream culture, with artists like Bally Sagoo and Apache Indian signing with international recording labels Sony and Island. Moreover, Multitone Records, one of the major recording labels associated with Bhangra in Britain in the eighties and nineties, was bought by BMG. Finally, a recent Pepsi commercial launched in Britain featured South Asian actors and Bhangra music. This, perhaps more than anything else, is a true sign of the emergence of Bhangra into popular culture.

Post-Bhangra continues to gain popularity in both the UK and US. As mentioned above, artists such as Bally Sagoo offer what was referred to as "Bollywood remixes". This is just one result of the fusion the traditional Bhangra beats and South Asian instruments with that of other contemporary music genres. Other lesser popular offshoots include "Bhangramuffin" and Acid Bhangra. Bhangramuffin mixes traditional Bhangra backgrounds are combined with Ragga; one famous band from this genre is Apache India. As the title suggests, Acid Bhangra combines acid music with Bhangra. An interesting result of its popularity was that post-Bhangra gave rise to a new wave of club culture (ie. Hot 'n Spicy at London's LimelighT nightclub and Manchester's Shankeys Soap). Although much of the popularity was centered around South Asian participation, post-Bhangra expressed a "process of musical cultural hybridization and syncretism that moved beyond a straightforward juxtaposition of dance music genres.