Bringing raga to jazz in an unprecedented way, really simply doing what feels and sounds right, reflecting my diverse orientations, it just occurred to me how the seven saptaks of the piano match the seven chakras.

Now, what to make of the three extra notes at the beginning, the lowest swaras of the keyboard?

Their representing Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma seems apt. You might also say the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Were any of the inventors and developers of the seven saptak (octave) and three swara (tone) range of the piano cognizant of a correspondence to the seven chakras? Who knows...

It may be that I utilize the extreme octaves more than anyone up to now, finding each of the eighty-eight swaras essential for my purposes.

And don't laugh at chakras as some in the Western world sometimes do - not that you were - they are indeed profound.

After writing this, I checked online, and was unable to find anyone else having my insight connecting the seven saptaks of the piano with the seven chakras. That doesn't mean that no one else thought of it before, its just that I personally never heard or thought about this until doing do myself suddenly tonight.

Some Bobby Fischer chess moves come to mind because they were so obvious and basic yet no one had thought of them before because often things are right there in front of us without being noticed.

My Dad drew games against legendary grandmasters Najdorf and Reshevsky, the latter Fischer said was the world's strongest player of the fifties.

- Michael Robinson, December 2022, Los Angeles

© 2022 Michael Robinson All rights reserved

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer, programmer, jazz pianist and musicologist. His 198 albums include 151 albums for meruvina and 47 albums of piano improvisations. Robinson has been a lecturer at UCLA, Bard College and California State University Long Beach and Dominguez Hills.