The Grammy Awards ceremony is a week away. When the nominees were announced, a real surprise was found in the world music category. Chandrika Krishnamurthy Tandon is an Indian musician who is as surprised as anyone that her album is nominated for a Grammy. Via phone, she discussed the core of the album, its impact on listeners, and how her circle of love seems to grow a little every day because of this album.
Describe your album for someone who hasn't heard it.
An ancient eight-syllable healing chant set to eight melodic scales or Indian ragas played by world-class Indian musicians. Complex percussion layers with 30-plus acoustic instruments.
OR
Music that will let you reach your inner grace if you repose in it for 70 minutes.
What is the significance of those eight syllables?
This chant is between 3000 and 6000 years old. The eight syllables are OM NAMO NARAYANAYAN. These eight syllables correspond with the eight vital chakras of the body. What they say is that continuous chanting of these eight syllables is supposed to put a protective armor around the body and the body is going through a regeneration process. The ancient texts say that the body has three processes of cell destruction, cell creation and so on. And while this process is going on, if you chant these eight syllables, it makes the process more harmonious. Do I understand exactly how it works? No, but that is how it is believed to be.
How did it occur to you to create an entire album based on those eight syllables?
I had done something like this before, five years ago, using another set of syllables for my father-in-law's 90th birthday. I didn't know what gift to give him. He liked music. I wanted to give him something for him and my mother-in-law. That was a nine-syllable chant and I composed it in nine different scales. It had a cult following even though it was a gift for them. It was picked up by a label. I just gave it to them and said, "Do what you want with it." It's done very well. This eight-syllable chant...I was working on some other ideas. I keep composing all the time. A friend of mine told me to look at this chant. I thought maybe I will, maybe I won't. And I set it aside. What happened is that early one morning I woke up and all this music was playing in my head. It was like an orchestra. I had to get up and I sat there with my tape recorder and had five songs in outline form. Then I called my teacher up. It was morning here and it was a good time in India. I called my teacher and said, "This is what I've composed. What do you think?" He said, "This is fabulous. Keep going with it." My five or six songs pretty much composed themselves. It must have been brewing in my head.
Over the next few months, I refined it, I would talk to my teachers. I found the same arranger that worked on my previous album.
What were your expectations when you recorded the album? How did you intend to create a circle of love with it?
I wanted to make it simple and a celebration so everyone could sing along. I wanted it to be accessible to people across all demographics, all countries, whether they were trained in music or not. When people can express their own joy through music, they radiate it all around them and the circle of love expands. That is what has happened on our Facebook page...from a trickle two months ago to 22000-plus fans with such profound expressions of their experiences.
What was your response when you learned you were nominated for a Grammy?
Awestruck at the happening. Wondrous at the way the universe works. Utter gratitude for the thousands of musicians who opened their hearts and minds to the music and an unknown musician like me and put me on the ballot. Humbled by the fact that I share the slate with four extraordinary musicians I practically worship!
What would it mean to you if you win a Grammy?
I feel like in a lot of ways, I've already won so much. I don't think of winning or losing. That's not the way I think of life. Even by being able to make a CD like this, I'm so lucky that I was able to have the resources and the musicians, and have the compositions. In that sense, I've won. I didn't compose this for the Grammys. Then to get this nomination is a huge win. Look at the people that are on the ballot (Bela Fleck, Angelique Kidjo, Bebel Gilberto, Sergio Mendes). I'm such an unknown compared to the other candidates. I feel so much gratitude because people opened their hearts and minds. Literally, they heard the music and that's why I'm on the ballot. I feel like I've already won. I'm on a ballot with four people I worship. Sergio Mendes, I grew up with that. I was into Brazilian music for a long time.
It's refreshing to hear that you were nominated because of the quality of the music. With the Grammys especially it seems like it's about who sells the most albums.
The irony is that last week we were number one on the iTunes world chart. We're number 11 on the Billboard world chart and we've had zero radio play. A friend bought 1000 CDs because she wanted to give it to all her co-workers. One hundred precent of the profits go to charity.
What means more to you, the Grammy nomination or the response from fans?
It is a real honor to be nominated. I did not imagine this in my wildest dreams. I certainly did not set out to make an album with the Grammy in mind. I made the album to be a shared celebration of music and finally I felt that my music, the arrangements and production met my own rigorous standards of excellence.
But the Grammy nomination has introduced my music to so many people, crossing so many boundaries, and they are able to touch something deep within themselves and radiate that inner grace all around them. How wonderful is that! And how lucky I feel to be a small part of their journey! The Facebook Soul Chants Music page is full of expressions of people's open, heartfelt feelings. To me that is what it is all about. I am grateful for the nomination as it expands my circle of love.
Why do you think people have responded to this the way they have, in such great numbers?
There are some amazing musicians in this world, so much more amazing than me. But sometimes a piece of music touches people in a way that is inexplicable. People send me photographs and a note saying "I am writing to thank you because my 2-year-old can't. She won't go to sleep without this album." The stories...I'm going to start crying if I talk about all of them. They're amazing. There was a father with cancer and they played the CD for him seven days before he passed away. They played it 24/7 because it was the only music he wanted to hear. I don't know what's going on. I am so grateful.
It takes you a minute to get into the music, but you have to let yourself dive into it. When you dive into this music, you're really diving into yourself. We had a very short recording schedule, only three days to record the tracks. We were working late nights and the recording engineer said, "This is the first time working in the studio where nobody is tired." We weren't tired at all. We were just happy.
How does your musical success compare to the success you experienced in business?
Success is a very complex term and something I don’t measure myself or my life by. Both my business life and my music are driving passions of mine from different perspectives…
In the business world I love serving people and making things better for others. That is what I do with the many boards I serve on. I think a lot about how to make my life have meaningful impact on others in the short time we get to be on this planet.
Music is what I am – it is a big part of me. I dream in music. My happiest moments are tied to music. And here too I wanted to have something that met my own standards of rigor and excellence musically and I wanted to share it with others so they could sing too. The CD is not about me or my virtuosity.
What would you be doing if you weren't making music?
Music is part of my every cell. I would not exist. I would be an unrecognizable shadow of myself.
