I think this review can be added to the list of definitions for the Yiddish word "chutzpah" Considering the fact this review will not just be posted at Blogcritics and my home site, but will also be posted at a site catering to the online South East Asian community, Desicritics, you could say I have nerve. How many other idiot westerners do you know that would dare review a disc of Classical Indian Music on a site like Desicritics; especially when they know nothing whatsoever about the music in question?

I only came to this realization after my first listen to Vishwa Mohan Bhatt's forthcoming release Classics For Pleasure on the Sagarika label. Like other North Americans I became familiar with Vishwa Mohan Bhatt after his Grammy winning collaboration with Ry Cooder back in the 1990s. I'd also run across him in the context of the fact he was the teacher of Canadian musician Harry Manx who had lived and studied for ten years with Prandit Bhatt.

He's not just known in the West for his associations with the famous, but also for the instrument he created; a specially adapted Hawaiian guitar called the Mohan Veena. He broadened the fret board so that it could include twelve sympathetic strings, (ones that resound in response to those being strummed instead of being strummed themselves), three melody strings, and four drone stings to recreate the sound of Indian Classical instruments.

Before he could do that he had to master the primary stringed instruments utilized in Hindustani (the name given to Northern Indian classical music) music: the Sitar, Sarod, and Veena. This he accomplished by spending years studying with arguably the most internationally renowned Indian musician, Ravi Shankar.

With his years of training he is accomplished enough with those techniques that he can bring them all into play when he utilizes his Mohan Veena to perform his interpretations of Hindustani music. Playing it like a laptop guitar, flat in his lap instead of parallel to his body and held in his arms, his picking and slide work have astounded audiences the world over with their virtuosity.

Of course none of this gets me any further ahead in my attempts to understand Hindustani music. So I figured if it was good enough for Prandit Bhat it's good enough for me, and I went to Ravi Shankar's website. Specifically I went to the page where he tries to explain the basics of Indian Classical music in terms that the Western mind can understand. Almost from the moment I started reading I realized I was kidding myself if I expected to be able to learn enough to properly appreciate the music that was being played on Vishwa Bahan Bhatt's disc Classics For Pleasure.