Episode 6 — Festive phasing, guitar percussion and Nitin Sawhney
A festive special that manages to be both extremely nerdy and extremely Christmassy. Steve opens with sleigh bells, Robin Ince’s Nine Lessons, 26-hour shows and a vocal take on Steve Reich’s Clapping Music using “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year” as the phasing pattern. From there he dives into a deep conversation with composer, producer and guitarist Nitin Sawhney, using flamenco compás, Indian classical rhythm, modal harmony and guitar percussion to get at a bigger question: what’s the point of music?
They cover soleá, bulerías, Phrygian colours, tāla, Kathak, guitar-as-drum techniques, cross-cultural flow, Nitin’s album Identity and the idea that music might be less a product and more part of the underlying structure of the universe we occasionally tune into.
What we cover
Festive phasing: How Reich-style phasing works, why it’s hypnotic, and how a Christmas greeting becomes a minimalist piece.
Gigging Christmas reality: Sleigh bells on public transport, carol fatigue and finding genuine joy inside repetition.
Flamenco & rhythm: Soleá, bulerías, 12-beat cycles, Phrygian colour and their links with Indian classical rhythm.
Indian classical & Kathak: Tāla, bols, movement and rhythm as storytelling.
Guitar percussion: Rasgueado, golpe and treating the guitar as a full percussion and harmonic instrument.
Purism vs evolution: Why “pure tradition” is a myth and how artists like Nitin navigate heritage, politics and change.
The point of music: Music as communication, resistance, identity and possibly baked into the physics of everything.
Genre Tombola tease: UK hardcore set up as the next absurd research project.
Further listening & links
Full Transcript
Verbatim transcript, reflowed for readability only. No wording edits.
Hello, my name is Steve Pretty. I am a musician, composer and performer from London. Welcome to my podcast, Steve Pretty On The Origin of the Pieces. This is the show that helps you to hear and to understand music in new ways. I hope you're doing well, it's lovely to be back again. Really enjoyed the last episode, and I've had lots of lovely feedback about that. We had a kind of impromptu Nordic special. I talked about some of the young people I've been working with up in Northern Norway, doing that fantastic creative project, creating and composing and performing music up there with them. And we had a kind of audio tour of that beautiful grand piano that was in the studio up there in Northern Norway, courtesy of Birk, who was one of the participants in the kind of master classes I was working on up there. And for the genre tombola section, we had the brilliant Lawrence Francis, aka LK Francis, whose Christmas EP I hope you've been listening to since the last episode. And Lawrence took us through a kind of social history, I suppose, of emo pop, alongside the musical history and the musical elements that go to make up the genre of emo pop. And then of course, he made an amazing emo pop track in collaboration with ChatGPT on the lyrics called The Black Roses, which is a very entertaining tune. A lot of people have been really enjoying that. And some people have asked if they can download that from anywhere, if they can check that track out. And so firstly, I should say you should go and listen to LK Francis and his fantastic Christmas EP, as I mentioned earlier. But also, yes, you will be able to listen to that and lots of other things, including extended interviews, full kind of unedited interviews, and there's gonna be lots more resources as well on my new Patreon page, which I launched last episode. So please head over to originofthepieces.com, that's originofthepieces.com, or go to Patreon and search for Steve Pretty, Origin of the Pieces, and you'll find it. And you can sign up for $5 a month or £4.50 a month in the UK, I think it is, and that just helps to support the show, but in exchange, you get all of the unedited interviews and songs and all that sort of stuff. So if you wanna dive a bit deeper, that's a really, really good way of doing that. There's a lot of really interesting stuff coming up, which I think is gonna be ending up, the unedited stuff is gonna be ending up on the Patreon page, so lots of fascinating deep dives there if you want to. Now, speaking of deep dives, today we have a slightly different format for the show because coming up later on, we have an incredible guest, one of my favorite musicians in the world, actually. Now, you may remember that after our dive into emo pop last episode, I was allocated the genre for this episode of what I called solea, but which I've subsequently learned is called solea, and it is, of course, a flamenco genre. I say of course, but actually I knew next to nothing about flamenco and the different genres, and so I was thinking to myself, who can I talk to? It'd be great to be able to talk to someone if I could, someone who's got a real knowledge of flamenco and world music more
generally, some of the links that it might have with other parts of the world. Someone who ideally plays a flamenco instrument, may say the guitar, for example, a flamenco guitar, that would be handy. And it would be really good if I could get someone who's got an amazing pedigree as a composer, as a music producer. Maybe someone who's recently released an album, which has been all over the radio. Is there anyone who's just done a big Albert Hall gig for his album release? I wonder, hold on a minute. There's one person who fits this bill, and that is Nitin Sawhney, who's a fantastic flamenco guitarist in his own right, and very knowledgeable about that world. So that's right, the one and the only Nitin Sawhney is my guest coming up later in the show. So do stay tuned for that. That's right, the sleigh bells are out. They're in my trumpet case. It can mean only one thing, that it is Christmas time. That's right, you don't need me to tell you that. I know it is everywhere and has been for months. That's just the way things work these days. And as a musician, that can be quite frustrating. A lot of musicians end up doing a lot of Christmas gigs. You can't put these down quietly, by the way. You just, once you pick them up, that's it. And going to gigs on the bus or the train or whatever, people just think you're in a permanently festive mood because they rattle around in whatever bag you're carrying. Anyway, yeah, as musicians, it can be a frustrating time of year because you end up doing the same tunes, playing the same carols, playing the same, you know, hit Christmas songs. And although that music is great, I particularly love the traditional carols. There's some really beautiful melodies and harmonies there, which maybe we'll look at another time, maybe next year. And of course, there's some great Christmas pop songs. RIP. Shane McGowan, of course, Fairytale New York, many people's favorite, mine included. Now I've been very lucky over the years. I've been involved for a very long time with the comedian Robin Ince's fantastic festive shows, Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People, and also some of the bigger shows we do at the Hammersmith Apollo and Royal Albert Hall with Brian Cox and co. They're always really fun shows. They're always really amazing lineups of comedians, musicians and scientists and the like. And yeah, over the years we've done, my friend Steve Thompson played the laser harp for the opening of a couple of them, which is a lot of fun with the band that I put together. We play with The Cure, we've played with Eric Idle, all sorts of things. The astronaut Chris Hadfield, I've done tunes with him several times. In fact, spoiler alert, you might be getting a little bit of a Christmas present courtesy of me and Chris Hadfield before Christmas is here. But what I wanted to do for you today is something that I did in a show that I did with Robin in 2020, which was of course the pandemic year. And that year, rather than doing a big live show, we did one 26 hour long show at King's Place in London to a very small audience or, you know, socially distancing, mask wearing and all the rest of it. And to an audience at home on streaming, which was really interesting. Just me and Robin locked in King's Place for 26 hours
with the producers there. We obviously went slightly insane, but that year, because I was there musically solo, I had to come up with some creative ideas of how to make that work. And I wanted to do a very silly thing, which I've been enjoying dabbling with over the years. And that is the great Steve Reich, wonderful minimalist composer piece called Clapping Music. Now what this is, is music based around something called phasing. Now the easiest way to understand this is perhaps visually. It's quite a simple concept in a way. If you put your two hands together, just fingers touching, thumbs touching, turn them around so that you can see your fingers all splayed out. Now if you just shift your hands, if shift one hand, say the top hand, over by a couple of millimeters, and you can see that then suddenly those five fingers that were on top of one another, then suddenly subtly shift, right? They shift and they fill those gaps. And then you could shift them the other way. And they fill the gaps in a slightly different way. And so that's a very kind of simplistic way of understanding phasing music, which Steve Reich really pioneered in the classical world, which is a big feature of many global music traditions in, for example, Indonesia with Gamelan and all sorts of other cultures across the world use this. I think it's fair to say that Steve Reich didn't invent it, but he probably popularized it for the Western tastes and the Western classical tastes in particular. So it's a wonderful piece, Clapping Music. It's just a very simple pattern, which is this. That's all it is. That's the basis of the entire piece. And then what Reich does is just shift that around. And I realized that this, you can set words to that. And those words could be, for example, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. And out of that, you get these incredible patterns emerging. It's kind of hypnotic. It's kind of crazy. I did this at the 26-hour show I mentioned at about 4.30 in the morning. Solo, I used a kind of loop pedal to loop the first round and then you can hear it evolving from there. So if you put headphones on for this bit, you'll get the best experience, but it'll work as usual from any speaker, of course. So this is my festive take on Steve Reich's Clapping Music. Now it's fairly hypnotic, so I suggest if you're able to just tune your brain into it for a couple of minutes, I'd love to know what you think of it. Do drop me a line on social media or wherever else. Now I did this in one go. I will put the video up online to prove it. As a result, it is not perfect. So for those purest amongst you, well for those purest amongst you, the fact that I'm saying Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, will already have completely ruined it. But for those people listening closely, you will notice I do go a little bit out every now and again, but it was tricky and it was late and I was tired. But here we go, festive clapping music by Steve Reich with lyrics by Steve Pretty. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Happy New Year! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Merry.
Christmas, Happy New Year! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Happy New Year! I hope you survive that. Yeah, I may have gone slightly insane. I think it's fair to say. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Right, on to the next section of the show. Now, if you've listened to the show before, you'll be aware that I often break down the episodes into kind of different chunks. There'll be a chunk called Entertaining Noises, in which I ask the guests in question to give us a kind of sonic tour of their instrument, or to talk about something really particular that's kind of an entertaining noise in some form or other. And then there's another section on some episodes called Music Feary, where I look at music theory and try and demystify it and make it less scary and help people to understand how the nuts and bolts of music work a bit more. And then also I do the genre Tombola, which is where I examine the genre that I've been randomly assigned by the internet that episode. But this episode was slightly different because my guest today is Nitin Sawhney. Now, if you don't know Nitin's work, I suggest that you check it out. He has an incredible back catalog of albums, which were very, very influential on me and many others a few years ago. And his recent work is incredible as well. His current album, Identity, which he starts touring next year and which he did a big Albert Hall show of a few weeks back is really great. I urge you to check it out. He also scores a lot of fantastic TV and films and all sorts of stuff. He's a real musical polymath. And because of that, our chat kind of flowed in a way that was hard to categorize into those different sections of the show. So instead, I'm gonna let the interview pretty much play out because we cover a lot of fascinating ground that goes into a lot of those areas. Now, this chat is perhaps a bit deeper than some of the chats we've had in the past. There's a few musical terms banded around which I didn't have time to kind of stop and explain at the time. I should say the beginning of the interview, there's a few of these, which are then explained later. So if you start listening and you think, oh, I'm not sure I get this, please just stay with it for a little bit and most of those are explained. If they're not, please get in touch and we can cover things in future episodes. A little bit of knowledge about music here is gonna help you. But if you don't have that, hopefully it's accessible enough for you anyway and there's lots of beautiful playing from Nitin on the guitar and lots of fascinating chat about cross-cultural influences and the way that music travels and evolves. So I think there's something here for everyone. As I say, it is a bit deeper than we often go, but I just couldn't resist letting you have all of this brilliant insight from Nitin. So here we go. My fantastic guest in his studio in Brixton, it's Nitin Sawhney. So can you tell me about your background in flamenco to start with?
Well, it's interesting because I grew up with, I've talked a lot about my dad's record collection, which was an amazing kind of smorgasbord of kind of incredible, diverse music from all around the world. And he was really into flamenco. But one particular album I really liked, and it wasn't even a Spanish guitarist, it was a guy called Philip John Lee, who was from Norwich. But he was a brilliant player, and he used to play a lot with Pecha Peña, and to talk a lot with him, and had a great knowledge of flamenco. And I used to listen to that album a lot, and just think, how the hell is he doing that? Years later, a friend of mine, who's passed away now, but we saw that the same guy, Philip John Lee, had advertised in the paper, I think it was The Guardian or something, that he was actually teaching flamenco up in around Earls Court. And so we committed up every week for a while and got some lessons. And it was really interesting, he really got me into understanding a lot more about the form and so on, and all what flamenco is as a musical form. And yeah, from then on, I was kind of hooked into flamenco, and got into later on, got into Paco de Luthea. I remember also kind of being amazed when I, years later when I met flamenco guitarists about how a lot of the flamenco guitarists like Pepe Abituela and José Miguel Carmona, they would actually talk about how flamenco originated from India. And I was like, really? But I didn't really get that until I saw a film by Tony Gatliff from 1993 called La Ciudadron, which means Safe Journey in Romany. And he talks a lot about how the music, the flamenco form originated in Rajasthan. I mean, they even have castanets there. And, you know, with the gypsies from that area and it kind of traveled over through Turkey and picked up more traditions as well and more influences and into Spain. The form that you were talking about, Solia, is actually which means loneliness and solitude. My voice is just gone. It's a beautiful form. It's very emotional and works very intricately with dance as well, which flamenco does. And also with the singers who can improvise and express themselves over that form. But the form itself is a really beautiful form and I've just always been fascinated by all these different beautiful forms within flamenco as a genre of music. And so Solia is one of several. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you have like, for example, I mean, they tend to be in 12-beat cycles. I mean, like bullria, which is similar in terms of the compas. The compas is actually the cycle. In India, we have what's known as the tal. I guess it's kind of the equivalent in Western classical music, called jazz as the time signature. But it's more intricate than that. It has almost a poetic basis to it, you know, or a groove to it, and the structure. Within Indian classical music, I say poetic basis because you can speak the rhythms and you can speak the tal, which is the equivalent of compas. So it's kind of the time cycle within which the form works. And it's interesting because you have, in India, the 12-beat cycle is known as Ekdhal, you know, which is spoken in a certain way and has certain syllables associated with it. And within flamenco, you have bullariya, you have soliyar, and you have quite a few forms which
are in the 12-beat cycle. So that rhythmic structure that you're talking about, yeah, again, the commonality with India, but is it also, that's sort of the case with the melodic cycle as well, right, but in terms of the modes. So again, just to preface this by saying we don't assume anyone's got any knowledge about what modes are or, you know, theory or anything. So would you mind talking a bit about the modes and about the structure of the scales and things within flamenco, and also I guess if that relates to Indian ragas and stuff? Yeah, I mean, it does. And I mean, you have what's known as kind of Spanish phrygian mode, which is where you have them. I mean, to get into a little bit. I mean, you have you have what's known as the minor second, which is very integral to how, you know, forms like soli are and buluria work, where they really establish this sense of tension. And it's kind of between the root and the and the second notes up in the in the scale. So the scales themselves, I mean, when I say Phrygian, you know, to explain that, that's a displacement of a scale, you know, to the third degree. But I won't get into it too much. But in Indian classical music, that's known as rugby, for example, which so it has in India has a very sad connotation to it because of the minor second. So you have certain forms like, for example, there's a romantic form in India, which is called the here. And if you if you know about I mean, if you take Romeo and Juliet, here, Ranjha is a very similar story. It's kind of, in fact, lots of different cultures have this similar story. In in in Ireland, it's Anish Gordon, and there's lots of different, you know, different ways of telling the story across the world. But it's it's essentially the story, the tragedy of the woman heroine in in the story, which is a which is a Sufi poem by Varush Shah. And it's kind of and it has this kind of melancholic feeling to it, which is the same in Soliha as well. That minor second really establishes that and I think the Phrygian mode definitely has a melancholic feel to it. It definitely does. So just a very quick explainer on the Phrygian mode. One way of thinking about it is to think if you look at thinking about a piano keyboard, if you start if you basically start a scale on the E, right? So if you just take all the white notes, you start it on the E rather than on the C. For people who know piano keyboard, you get that. So would you mind just playing the Phrygian mode on the guitar? Well, I've got this tuned here at the moment. But it's kind of like the way it would work. So you rightly said if you started on the E, you would be playing all the notes of C major. And so you can see that there's a minor second, but there's also the minor third in there. So it's kind of, so you would actually have, I mean, at the moment I'm playing because I've got my capo on my guitar. So I'm going to play an F sharp. So if I started here, I would be playing. So, I'm not playing it picado, I'm just doing that, just simply using my finger like a plectrum at the moment. So when you say picado.
Picado is when I play. Sorry. So that's like using two fingers to play, which is alternating when you're playing. The first time I actually just played it like using my fingernail as a plectrum. So it's a different technique, and that's not a flamenco technique. Gotcha, gotcha. But yeah, I mean, that scale, you can hear, I mean. So you have that minor second, like as opposed to in the major scale. So here's the tension. And here's the melancholic aspect of it with the minor third. So that kind of idea is very intrinsic to flamenco and also Indian Classical music, particularly with the ragberri. Because the rags, rather than thinking perhaps so much in terms of chords, where you have one chord moving to another, you think more in terms of melodies and you're working within that mode to create a kind of mood and an atmosphere within that mode. Yeah, I mean, well, to get into it a little bit, if you want to, because I know we're talking about soliya, but I think because it's related to Indian Classical music and it originated from that. I mean, you can talk about the idea of the rag, where rag itself means color, and it's about moods, it's also about seasons, it's about times of the day, but also it's more than a mode or a scale because actually, I mean, I guess like the melodic minor, you know, it differs ascending and descending, but it's also got, there's a lot more to it because you have kind of, you have specific rules relating to how certain notes can be played before and after each other. So, you know, there are lots of rules around that to keep the character of the rag, but also there's a lot of rules around not only how you can play a rag within the notes itself, but also the time signature. So, like flamenco, you have very strict time signatures and then you have to stay within those. Apart from when you play the beginning part, which is called a lap, we know that as rubato within western classical music or within flamenco, that can be, yeah, that can be, you can have a rubato section within a soleil, for example. So although there are these strict time cycles, you have freedom of expression. And within an Indian classical rag, when it's performed, you will start with the alap, which is the exploration of the rag and the exposition of the rag, which is a gradual thing. And you kind of manifest the rag in a way. And then from there you have the lumbit, which is the slowest tempo. From there you go into mudia, which is the middle tempo. And from there you go into druh, which is the very fast tempo you'll hear at the end of a rag. So in a performance, you will hear all of these sections, the alap, and it's kind of a sense of building. Something that I think also exists within flamenco as well, this sense of building tension and building power and excitement within the context of a performance. And before we leave India, can you just talk about the instrumentation of flamenco? And again, I'll see how that relates to India, because I'm right in thinking, am I that it's guitar lead obviously, and vocals, and castanets, or clapping, hand-punch.
And cajon, you know, as well. So yeah, I mean, it's guitar lead, definitely as soliars very much guitar lead. But yeah, you have, so to understand the compass as well, you have the time signature. So the emphasis, I mean, I've got an example here where you have the emphasis is gonna be on the third beat, on the sixth beat, on the eighth beat, the 10th beat and the 12th beat. Now, within bulleria, that's the case as well. But what happens is that they are, the beginning point of the compass is on the 12th beat with bulleria, whereas with soliars on the one. So it kind of differs in that respect. But there are a lot of other differences in terms of the form itself, but yeah, I mean, like for example, if you listen to this, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, just like that. So it goes round like that. So it's just about understanding the way in which the form works around that particular cycle. So that pulse is quite, by standards of the way we think about Western music most of the time, it's quite complex sort of scaffolding to build the rhythm around, right? Yeah, I mean, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't. I mean, you know, within, for example, I mean, it's nowhere near as complicated as Indian classical music is rhythmically. I mean, you know, within Indian classical, I mean, I keep going back to that, but I mean, within a soliare form, you know, the 12-beat cycles, you will have what's known as falsettos. So you will have very, you'll have phrases, I guess, musical phrases that will work within those cycles. Whereas within Indian classical music, you will have much more complicated mathematical structures known as the highs, for example, where they will, you'll have a phrase and it'll be repeated three times landing on the first beat of a given cycle. But the cycles can be 10 beats, 17 beats, 11 and a half beats, whatever, you know, and it gets more and more complicated and the greatest exponents of that are, for example, the doublet players of North India, they're incredible players and also the Carnatic musicians, but it's actually about understanding where you are within the cycle so that you can improvise a mathematical structure from wherever you are in the cycle. It's always gonna land on the one and that is so complicated to do. Yeah, and the people who do that best are phenomenal mathematicians as well as great players. Yeah, absolutely. But coming back to the instruments, so you talked about percussion and the castanets and vocal is a very important part of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But obviously you've got a flamenco guitar here and the guitar isn't an instrument you would immediately associate with kind of traditional Indian music, but there is a lot of commonality. Although there's people like Vishwan Mohan Bhatt or also Ayush Srinivas who's passed away now, but he was very influential on people like George Harrison and so on. Carnatic musicians tend to pick up any instrument and turn it into an Indian classical instrument like Kadhari Gopal Nath with the saxophone. So you have, it's because the form is so powerful in itself and the understanding of it, sometimes you'll have a violinist teaching a Bansuri player,
which is an Indian classical form of flute, which is like a bamboo flute. But so it's kind of in a way, I mean, these are folk traditions that have turned into classical forms like flamenco has as well. I mean, it was interesting because it took time for people like Paco de Luthier to really have, to really get flamenco recognized as a classical form. In fact, in the early days of, I mean, people like Andres Segovia actually said that he wanted to take the guitar away from the noisy hands of the flamenco guitarist. At the time he had a real, he didn't respect flamenco as a form, he just thought it was a noisy folk tradition. Whereas actually, it's been elevated a great deal by people like Tom Petito or Paco de Luthea to being a really respected classical form. Absolutely, and also I'm kind of interested in the journey of more traditional Indian string instruments into the guitar, because flamenco guitar has got that set, it's played quite differently, and it sounds very different from the way a lot of people play guitars. It sounds a lot more like a different Indian string instrument, sitar or the serrata or something like that. Yeah, I mean, there are lots of, I mean, with flamenco guitar, there are lots of techniques that you don't see in any other style of guitar playing. I mean, for example, the way the tremolo works, you know, when you're actually playing a tremolo, it's a five string kind of movement. So if I play a falsetto that's from Soliar, it'd be like this. So you'd have something like that, which is actually kind of like it's, when I say five strokes, it's one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. So we'll just play fast. And it's kind of interesting because you have the similar, you have similar kind of techniques with the santoor, which is a hundred-stringed, or I think it's even more, a mountain instrument played by great musicians, Indian classical musicians like Shivkumar Sharma. But you know, that's one technique of flamenco, but there are so many different ones, you know, the way which you'll tap on the instrument itself. So it's using the full body of the instrument as part of the sound, you know, and technique. Also you have, you'll have this kind of way of strumming, which is kind of like, you know, you'll have kind of very fast strumming patterns and so on, which are, which are unique to flamenco as well. And so there's lots about flamenco and then, like I said, the picado technique, which Paco de Luthier was very famous for, which I showed you earlier, is kind of, you know, just a two finger technique of how you play the scales and so on. So it's kind of, it's, there's a lot that's unique to the flamenco technique that you really don't get in other forms. I mean, like there's, I mean, rumba techniques, so there's different rumba techniques. So you have these kinds of techniques like that, but then you also have, I mean, there's so many different things. I mean, like different ways of tapping as well. Lots of ways in which you're using the word. With the bulleria, you have different kinds of strumming patterns. Yeah So there's lots of things like that, which are kind of
patterns, and that's within 12-beat cycle as well. But like the soli are patterns, they're kind of more. So they're kind of, they differ, you know, but they're all falsettos within the compas, within the timing itself. I mean, with a bulleria pattern is, it will get, you'll be, 12, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So, 12, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, one. So it's like that. And so it keeps you off balance because it starts on the 12. Whereas with the Soliarts, it's the same pattern, but it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. So it starts on the one, but it's kind of, it's the same thing, but it's just how you, how, where the emphasis is. There's a lot, I mean, it's hard to explain it all like this, but all these techniques are really beautiful and I grew up loving them all, kind of like, you know, this idea of even tapping at the same time as playing a string. So it's like, so I guess it's kind of, that's called golpe, where you actually, at the same time as playing the string here, you're actually tapping with that, with your ring finger, whatever. So it's kind of, there's lots of things like that, and like I said, this kind of idea of, you know, your finger's becoming almost like a fan. So to describe that as someone just watching, so you've got your thumb, your right hand, you've got your thumb resting on the bottom string. And now I'm flicking out from my little finger, but then you have, like, you can do the same with your hand, which is the same kind of thing, but it's kind of, that's, that's kind of Rosgarda, so it's kind of a different technique of how you play with your hand and with your fingers. I kind of love all of that because it's actually really using every aspect of what the guitar is, I guess. Absolutely, and that thing, you see even sort of indie singer- songwriter types banging the guitar as percussion. That's caught on now, but it's a different thing, I mean, the way that people are doing that now is quite massively different. But just in terms of understanding the guitar as a percussion instrument as well as a... Yeah, exactly, yeah. And I guess, I mean, that's not what I was playing there earlier on. That technique isn't really strictly flamenco, but what it is is it's very much my own kind of adaptation of it, in terms of how I'm tapping. But at the same time, it kind of works, and it's part of, that's part of a piece by Paco Peña, for example, and sometimes you can improvise and create your own ideas around things, but it's not strictly flamenco what I played. Because flamenco, it's music with real tradition at its heart, right? But it's also, you're talking about it kind of evolving. Yeah. And is that something, is that tension between creativity in terms of bringing new things to it, and also tradition and sort of honouring the tradition? Is there a tension there, or is that? No, well, yeah, some purists would actually say, I mean, for
example, Paco de Lúthia and Tomatito really brought in a lot of jazz harmony in the way they play. I mean, Paco de Lúthia very famously played with John McLaughlin and with Aldi Moeller and was a very experimental guitarist, as well as a brilliant traditional flamenco player. And so it was hard to argue with him because he was so good at the traditional form. I think everyone was in awe of him and same with Tomatito. So I think there were some people who are purists who think, you know, it's about the pure form. But I think since Paco de Lúthia really did his thing, I mean, you know, I remember talking, I mean, sadly, Pappu Bichuel is no longer with us, but he had a lot of classical finesse in the way he played guitar, but combined with incredible technique and speed. I mean, these guys play or practice for like 14 hours a day. I mean, it's, you know, Paco de Lúthia was raised by his father to be the world's greatest guitarist. His dad actually had said to him, I mean, he took him out of school so that he could just play guitar. So, I mean, literally his whole life was spent playing guitar with the intention, deliberate intention of being the world's greatest guitarist. It's a bit like this Mozart story, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So his dad sort of hot housing him, yeah. Yeah, so it's that kind of, that kind of thing. But I mean, you know, it kind of worked because his picado technique was unbelievable at the speed of a pneumatic drill. I mean, it's, and the power, you know. And this is the thing, you know, when you have a great guitarist like that, it's just incredible, incredible technique and power. The tension between the creativity and tradition is that these things have evolved over time. So the show, the podcast is called The Origin of the Pieces, has a sort of nod to, you know, evolution and species. And I think I'm just always really interested in how music evolves from one place. And the geography of it, you know, moving from one place to another, it's going to evolve as it passes through those different countries, different influences coming in. I mean, totally. I mean, the thing is that this idea that there are pure musical traditions, I don't really believe that at all. I mean, everything influences everything, you know, so and everything evolves organically in different ways, you know, but I think, I mean, for me, with Flamenco, it's, you know, this idea that tradition means being intransigent about evolution or just saying, okay, it's going to be static. That's not the case. I think every great tradition is dynamic and constantly is evolving and moving. I think people are scared sometimes to actually interfere with what they see as traditional. But I mean, even Pandit G. Ravishanka, you know, who's considered, you know, by many to be the most famous Indian classical musician, had a lot of stick for, you know, for the fact that he was quite unusual in the way he played. I mean, there are different traditions and styles of sitar playing, for example, there's the kyal style where people like Vilayat Khan, you know, he was an exponent of that, which was a vocal tradition of playing. And it's the same, actually, with flamenco, a lot of players will be
much more into a slow kind of more Moorish tradition of playing as well. So some people will play flamenco very differently to others. There's a track called Teresica Latina, which is actually from Displacing The Priest. Sorry, Displacing The Priest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was, yeah, I was playing a little bit of that. That's actually by Paco Peña, but I actually kind of adapted it. Yeah, I mean that's it. I mean, a little bit of that. But I mean, that's kind of, that's a really lovely little piece. Yeah, I mean, it's just a really beautiful form, but also it was interesting because I played a lot of jazz and jazz piano and classical piano and different styles of piano. And flamenco was a really nice kind of break from some of that because it just had a ferocity and beauty and grace. And it had so many, but it was all about passion. That's what I really felt about flamencos. There's a real passion to the playing. And it's linked with dance, of course. Yeah. It's really strongly linked with dance. Well, I mean, you know, it's also interesting because with Indian classical dance, you have different classical forms like Bharatanatyam and Kathak. And a lot of people say that flamenco is very influenced by Kathak as a form because there's a lot of quite intricate footwork. With Kathak dance, you can see that. And actually people like Akram Khan, who's a brilliant, very highly trained Kathak dancer, I used to work with a lot. He actually has worked quite extensively with flamenco dancers too. So, I mean, like I said, that within the 12-beat cycle that I just mentioned, say, Bullariya, which is, as I said, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. If I were to speak that with a ektal pattern, which is also a 12- beat cycle from India, Din, Din, Din, Dage, Tadik, Tatunna, Katta, Dage, Tadik, Tatunna, Din, Din, Dage, Tadik, Tatunna, Katta, Dage, Tadik, Tatunna. So it's kind of like those kinds of syllables I'm saying are actually how you would strike the doubla, which is the main North Indian classical form percussion. They tell you how to strike it, because it's Noral tradition, and both of these things, Indian classical music and flamenco, are oral traditions initially. So they've just been taught and handed down, and that's why they were folk traditions initially. But as people have kind of finessed how they work and so on, they've become classical forms as well. I mean, it's interesting because piano for me is actually, it's great because it actually allows me to understand the shape and the context of everything. And I think I would recommend to any musician to have at least a basic understanding of the piano, just because it really contextualizes everything harmonically and melodically and rhythmically. It's an orchestra in itself. And that's why I think, I mean, I orchestrate a great deal using the piano. I wouldn't really do that using a guitar. So it's kind of, although Andrei Segovia said that the guitar should be like an orchestra in
itself, but I think in terms of pragmatic thinking, a piano enables you through MIDI and so on to actually create orchestral pieces as well. But also, I think it's a color-coded instrument. So we were talking about it earlier. We talked about the limits of thinking purely in theoretical terms, musically, but also it is really handy to be able to just go, okay, what's this phrygian mode that sounds complicated, the flat and second, and if that, yeah, it's C major starting on an E. Yeah, yeah. And it's good when you say C major because that's probably the easiest way to understand modes is to just play scales and if you just play C and then you go up, you know, starting from the D or the E an octave at a time. So if you're playing, you know, from D just playing on the white notes, then you've got Dorian mode, you've got Phrygian mode, you've got Mixolydian mode, Lydian mode, you've got Aeolian and Locrian mode. So you've got all these modes going up, you know, seven modes going up the scales. And it's easiest to understand that when you look at it in relation to the white notes. Exactly, exactly. And it's all about context, isn't it? Because it's all contained within that one major scale, the seven modes, but it's all about how you contextualize the sound of it. Yeah, and it applies to anything, you know, it applies to understanding, you know, mode or playing. Also, you know, obviously when you're doing that, then you know that within, if you were to go up the notes of the major scale, then you'll come across three minor chords and within each of those, that all the white notes are going to work. And so if you reverse that round, it means that, you know, you've got three possible modes that are going to work against any minor chords. So it's kind of, there's lots you can learn from just looking at, as you said, colour coding and just playing with the white notes. Exactly, so again, we've talked about the limits of music theory and how it's not always the best way to think about music, but it's also this, for this sort of thing, it's an incredible shortcut. So people think of it as a kind of thing that's imposed top down on how music should be. In this case, it's about understanding that actually, this little bit of theory, understanding how modes work and the fact that it's all contained within one scale, can just suddenly, for me, when I was learning as a teenager, the minute I got my head around that, it just unlocked so many things. I mean, I don't think you can really be a jazz pianist, for example, or jazz musician, without understanding modes and understanding how that works and then getting into the relationship between the two. I mean, but it's the same with, you know, there are equivalents as well. I mean, it's the same thing when you're trying to connect up different music from different cultures. You know, if you're making connections, I mean, when I'm working with Indian classical music, because Indian classical music is played in a linear way, I mean, so it's the rugs are played against drones. You know, rather than keeping them, you know, against a rug being played against a drone, sometimes I'll like to shift the ground underneath the rug. So I'll allow somebody to maybe, or I'll invite somebody to play or sing a rug first of all, and then I might
shift notes chords underneath them. And it totally changes the feeling and mood and context of what they're doing. And I think that's really interesting. Decontextualization is only possible through understanding and having an awareness of how different forms work. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Fascinating stuff that the shows are sort of about, again about the origins of music, about where music comes from, why it exists and how it's important. So I guess the question I want to ask everyone is what for you is the point of music, which is a very difficult, open-ended question, but what's the point of music? I actually did a whole TEDx talk about what is the point of music. So I guess, I mean, the point of music, it's interesting this because Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore, many years ago, asked the question whether a particular statue, Greek statue, would be beautiful if no one was around to see it. And I kind of think that music is the intrinsic language of the universe. We happen to have the privilege to be able to tap into it. Even Beethoven talks about this in 1816. You know, it's kind of, it's fascinating when you look at the nature of what music is. I think we are witnesses to it and we discover it. I think music is there, it's part of the fabric of reality. And I think it's one of the things that binds the universe together. So for me, the point of music isn't necessarily the right question in a way. I think the right question is how can music enhance our lives? Which it does. And I think if we then talk about the point of music, I mean, it gives us so much joy, pleasure. And it also does that for the animal kingdom, which I discovered when I worked with Chris Backham, for example, where we looked at whether animals actually could derive pleasure from music as well. We as a human species can derive a lot from music, but music doesn't need us, music's already there. And it's part of what binds the stars together and galaxies together. And it's part of dark energy and dark matter, probably. It's just so much cosmic microwave background, radiation has a sound, has frequency, everything is kind of related to radio waves. I mean, so if we look at sound and music, Johannes Kepler talked about the music of the, well, he talked about Harmoniesis Mundi, which also was derived from Pythagoras talking about music of the spheres. So there was so many ways of looking at sound and music and the point of music. Animals use sound for communication, survival, reproduction, but they also can use it for pleasure in the same way we can do. So I guess it gives us so much, but I don't think that's the point of it. I think the point of it is that it's just intrinsic to the universe and its point is something that we could probably never really understand. I think that's, yeah, fascinating. On the Harmonious Mundi thing, I do a show with the astronomer Chris Lintop. I do a thing called Universe of Music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting to say about, because I think scientifically, in terms of like planetary motion being harmonious and things, actually what's Chris's point is that that's actually not really the case in
many planetary systems. And recent research has been, has revealed that there's exoplanets, so there's planets orbiting stars all over the universe, which is quite, we didn't really realize until the last few years. But there's one system in particular that's about, I think it's about 900 light years away, where they found where it is harmonious. Oh, right, okay. So Chris and I do a thing, which we'll quick, brief plug from the listeners, we'll be doing a Wilton's Music Hall on the 20th of January. Chris is gonna be the guest with me. We'll be talking about this a bit about this exoplanetary movement, where every time planet A goes around once, planet B goes around three times. And so it's sort of the harmonic series basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. In planetary motion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is what Kepler was talking about, but you're right, he was found not to be correct in that respect. And I think Galileo's father actually talked a lot about this as well. But I mean, it's, when you get into all of this, I mean, like I said about Pythagoras, I mean, he talked about music of the spheres, but he also took, he was the one who really, I mean, the reason I can play this is because, you know, guitar is because of Pythagoras in terms of understanding strings and the vibrations of strings and the different intervals that come from, you know, half the length, if you're half the length of a string, then you actually get the octave and so on and understanding harmonics and everything, but also dissonance and consonance and how intervals actually can make us feel uncomfortable or happier and that works even with chimpanzees. You know, they've found that there's part of the brain called acilitary, well, acilitary phase lock where they'll actually become disturbed by dissonant intervals in the same way we do, but probably even more so. So it's kind of, you know, there is this idea that certain intervals actually make us feel uncomfortable. I mean, there's this idea of the devil's interval, for example, in medieval times, where it was the kind of sharp fourth and it's kind of this idea that there is something, there is something inherently good or bad or sad or tragic or whatever or happy in certain intervals is kind of something that's built into our DNA. Could you just play the, so the augmented fourth. So, Yeah, as opposed to the perfect fifth. So, Yeah, so yeah, it does feel quite, it does feel quite ominous to me. It does, but it goes back to what you were saying about the flat and second in the, in Celia, the, Yeah, yeah, tension, yeah. The kind of slight tension. Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the thing. I mean, different, I mean, you know, football fans, when they're singing, well, we'll go, Yeah, they'll kind of, you know, they'll sing minor intervals automatically. And I don't know why that is. It's a tribal thing, you know, sometimes, but they'll go to something quite sad, automatically, as opposed to a happier interval. You know, and I don't know why that is, but, you know, there are certain intervals we gravitate towards in different contexts. But I think something I've talked about quite a lot in the show is
the fact that music is able to express things that we can't necessarily in words. So it's not necessarily always a question of happy or sad, or light, you know, light or dark. Like music is the gray area in between those things, which is what makes it interesting. You know, it's not, if it's purely happy or purely sad, that's, you know, that can work as well, but it's all the stuff in the middle. We can't really, as like complex, emotional beings. And that's where the ROG system comes in because it's actually much more than even the mode system, modal system. I mean, within Hindustani music, you have 72 basic ROGs and you'll have 10 thoughts. But within each of those, there's, there are subtle ways in which the, the intervals will work to kind of express an idea or a feeling. That's brilliant. Thank you so much. Cool. You've got a new record out just briefly. Oh yeah. Well, well, the new album is called Identity. It's out on Warner Music. We've released a few singles from it. It's, it's really a celebration of people's identities. I mean, in the time where I think there's so much said and written about, about people's identities, where it is othering them or judging people for who they are. I really wanted to have a platform where I could invite a lot of artists that I admired or thought had something to say to just come and express their identities without that kind of judgment. And I think it's worked really well. It's fantastic. It's a really great record. Thanks a lot. Thanks again. Okay, cool. So my thanks again to the fantastic Nitin Sawhney. Such an interesting conversation covering a lot of ground. We went quite deep, quite technical in places there. I hope that was all right for everyone. Love some feedback on whether that was too much or whether you'd like even more technical stuff. Of course, if you want to go deeper with any of this stuff, there's the show notes with some links to listening. So a lot of the artists that Nitin mentioned there are gonna be in the show notes. But also there's the Patreon, which you can go to originofthepieces.com or you can find it on Patreon itself if you type in Origin of the Pieces or Steve Pretty. And there, as I say, I'm gonna be putting up all sorts of resources, the full unedited interviews, a lot more in-depth stuff there. So if you want more, if you're hungry for more, go there. But also just generally let me know if that was sort of pitched right or not. I'm really keen to kinda go deep with some of these things, but equally, I don't wanna leave people behind. So yeah, do let me know. Right, it's that time in the show, it's time for the genre tombola. So let's find out what I'm gonna be listening to for the next two weeks over Christmas. So reminder here that I take the list of 1300 music genres on Wikipedia, stick them into a random list picker and see what we get. So I'm gonna put it in now. And we've got nothing more Christmassy
than this. It's UK hardcore. That's right, I'm gonna be spending the next two weeks over Christmas listening to almost nothing but UK hardcore. It's the most hardcore-est time of the year. Woo, hardcore. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Do let me know, as always, sharing is really, really helpful. If you can do that on your social media or better still, in person, do recommend it to a friend who you think might be musically curious. It really helps still if you can leave reviews. So, star ratings and reviews, that really is very helpful for getting the word out. Now, I have this show coming up, Wilton's Music Hall on the 20th of January, and the guests I can announce, the special, special guests that I've just added to the bill are the Filament Choir. An amazing choir of both professional and amateur vocalists coming together. It's a really beautiful thing that they've set up there with Filament Theatre Company. They're gonna be coming along and singing. And again, reminder that we've also got some of the Hackney Colliery band guys there. We're gonna be reworking some of our material, previewing some new stuff. Valeria Clark, the harpist, who was on episode two, is gonna be there. We're gonna be playing our sound box duo. Chris Lintot, who I mentioned in the interview with Nitin, we're gonna be talking about Universe of Music, so planetary systems in musical orbit. It's gonna be a varied and amazing night in I think probably what is one of the best venues in the UK, Wilton's Music Hall on 20th of January. Tickets make very good Christmas presents, so roll up for that 20th of January. Meanwhile, thanks again for tuning in. We'll see you just after Christmas. The next episode is on the 28th of December. I think I might drop a little Christmas treat as I mentioned earlier. There might be a little astronaut music-based treat coming your way just before Christmas, so do check your feeds before then. But meanwhile, thanks again. Stay musically curious and see you next time. Bye! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Happy New Year.