In the melakarta serie…

As usual, I take a raga (here Kokilapriya) and improvise on the kora on the spot, letting the mic roll whatever happens.
Then I choose a video that matches the mood and loop it…

Today is a big day…
Pr Raoult and his team just published the most promising results with their treatment of the monster.
https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-IHU-2-1.pdf

I dedicate my impro on the kora on the tonigh to these brave researchers and doctors…

Listening to this beautiful song, I tuned my kora in the same scale and started improvising….

I improvised on the kora today cheering myself up during the third day of confinment…

“Opening to the ground”.

Inspired by a paragraph from John Prendergast‘s book “The deep heart” , I improvised trying to find a safe place, melting into Earth and feeling more and more peaceful in the process.

“Where our provisional ground feels threatened, as it often does, we tend to grasp it more tightly. Questioning and letting go of our familiar story is disorienting, sometimes greatly so-it can feel as if our ground is falling away or being pulled out from under us like a rug. Understandably, we resist losing our known foothold. For this reason, self-honesty and vulnerability are critically important qualities on this path. Do we really want to know the truth? Are we willing to give up our most cherished illusions for it? Most of us are reluctant to let go of our familiar identities because we imagine that they keep us safe.
What happens if we lose our chronic grip? The conditioned mind fears a free fall into a terrifying abyss and reflexively projects and resists an imaginary annihilation. The reality is quite different. When we truly relax and let go, our familiar contracted ground softens and melts, and we have the sense of tapping into the source of life itself-aluminous darkness full of pure potentiality unfolds in our awareness. We begin to sense an underground ballast like the keel of a sailboat, and we feel supported by an invisible, unshakeable, and unchanging ground. As a result, we are less likely to “keel over” when challenging circumstances arise. Instead, we sense a fathomless resilience”. from The deep heart p.133 by John Prendergast, PhD

I had a good times using this raga as a start to improvise.
I don’t follow the raga rules, I let myself be inspired by the notes as I discover the scales.
I also usually listen to a recording in the raga to have a feel of it, though I won’t go in the same direction…

This time I listened to this recording:

Here is my impro on the kora: