By
Phil Leckman
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Anoushka Shankar takes her father's legacy in stride.
For a typical 19-year-old, fall is a time for midterms, homework and Halloween parties - not an acclaimed tour around the world.
But Anoushka Shankar, the daughter of renowned Indian musician Ravi Shankar and an emerging musician in her own right, is hardly a typical teenager.
Shankar, who will appear with her father at Centennial Hall Saturday at 8 p.m. as part of a world tour celebrating his 80th birthday, said she acknowledges that growing up as Ravi Shankar's daughter played a major role in her decision to seek a career as a traditional Indian musician.
"It was pretty much entirely that," she said. "At the beginning, I just had a lot of exposure to traditional Indian music. It was probably just the fact that it was there - it's what my father did, it's what my mom did.
"So it started that way, the way a lot of kids look up to their parents. But over the first few years I grew to love it. I remember being 12 and already knowing that this was what I wanted to do."
Choosing to follow in her father's footsteps has meant a lot of hard work, Shankar said. Traditional Indian music is highly complex, and learning all its intricacies is no easy task. Since most pieces are improvised, performers must memorize hundreds of scales and basic melodies, then be prepared to shape a new composition from them.
"It's very difficult to learn - our musical tradition is so complicated," said Shankar, who began studying formally with her father when she was nine. "There's lots of memorization at first - lots of very specific rules. You have to learn all of them and know them well enough to be able to improvise upon them without breaking them."
Like her father, Shankar's chosen instrument is the sitar, a complex stringed instrument that has been an integral part of Indian music for almost 700 years. With its twenty metal frets, six or seven strings and sensitive tuning, it is a challenge to learn to play well.
"The instrument itself is very difficult, especially for beginners," said Shankar, who started her career on a smaller "baby" sitar built especially for her. "There's a special position to sit in, a special way to hold it - it's a lot to learn."
Although the current Full Circle Tour marks the first time Shankar and her father have toured together as solo artists, Shankar is already an accomplished musician in her own right. She has a critically-acclaimed solo album to her credit and is the only female recipient of Great Britain's House of Commons Shield award.
Shankar's childhood was spent following her father around the globe, from England to India to California. She regards former Beatle and Indian music fanatic George Harrison as an "uncle" - so it is probably no surprise that she is taking the attention and acclaim in stride.
"It's fun - I love it," Shankar said. "It's amazing to be able to sit up on stage and play music and know that there's that many people out there enjoying what I do. It's very beautiful, very powerful, and to me it's very normal - it's what I was raised with."
