Guy Beck takes time to stop off at UCM and discuss Indian culture.

WARRENSBURG, Mo. -- Personal journeys of American college students in the 1960s and 1970s often led them to places such as California, political protests, Woodstock and even war. Few led to foreign lands, dying arts and unfamiliar religious beliefs.

Guy Beck took one of those uncommon paths which eventually led him to a 30-year career of studying and teaching a culture and art that many Americans today know little about and often misunderstand. Beck’s quest first began in a time of unrest and volatile relationships between different political and social groups in the United States.

“There was a lot of conflict at the university and culturally. I could see things slowly deteriorating and I began to look for some timeless truth to get a new perspective on life. I began to search for some higher meaning to existence,” Beck said.

The connection between the meaning of existence and the music that has filled much of Beck’s life work was not a stretch. Growing up, Beck was very exposed to music composition by his father who was a composer and Broadway player. Once he discovered Indian music, Dr. Beck said he found something in music and life that he had never experienced before.

“I found in Indian music something timeless and something that I could grab on to. Indian music put me out on another plane,” Beck said.

Between the years of 1976 and 1980, Beck lived, learned and practiced in India with some of the great teachers of Hindustani “Sacred Sound.” He explained the attention he received from the Sacred Sound masters while he was in India is something he greatly appreciates and aspires to pass on to future generations. That’s one of the core aspects, he said, that pushed him to continue in his exploration of Indian music.

“It’s a valuable thing that is dying out. There are a few young musicians, but there aren’t near as many great musicians as there was in the olden days,” Beck said. “There were, and are, very few left and my intention was to become a student and preserve their compositions.”

The Indian music he was taught is often recorded only in the mind and not in hard copy, which means that once these musicians are no longer living, their music could disappear forever. Beck said part of the beauty of the music that makes it worth preserving is how it submerses you in its rhythm and language.

“When you learn a song in the West, it’s more like mimicking. In Indian song, it is within you and becomes part of your make up,” Beck said.

Part of this extreme sense of connection comes from the religious influence of the music. Beck explained in Hinduism, the universe itself is God, or Brahman, to those who practice. This is a concept some Americans may find hard to understand because the Western God created everything we see as a separate entity.

“Sound is just something in nature, whether it’s the sound of a horse or the sound of a chicken, and in Hindu philosophy, the connection between sound and design is very central,” Beck said.

Hinduism places strong emphasis on sound and song being a part of the creation of the universe, and also through specific disciplines of music that are meant, and supposed, to bring the practitioner closer to Brahman, Beck said.

“The word Yoga literally means ‘discipline,’ or meditation, and Nada yoga is specific for sound. Even practicing music is a form of Nada Yoga,” Beck said.

Now that he has reached a pinnacle of his adventure, he is concentrating on teaching college students the importance and basics of Hindustani music and the culture of Hinduism.

“I feel as if I have something to pay back because I received such warm attention from teachers when I was [in India],” Beck said. “I enjoy being on the front lines of introducing it to people who have never heard it before.”

Beck has taught several college students his acquired art and will be teaching an online course at UCM next semester on Hinduism. He has won several Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship awards for his research on the births, deaths and works of past artists of sacred sound including his most recent one in 2009-2010, and has received many honors for his musical talent.

He has also written several books on Indian music, including Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound, and has released two CDs of his own, Sacred Raga (1999) and Sanjher Pradi (2004).

During his week-long visit to UCM, he gave several lectures on the topics of Hinduism and Indian music, along with the finale concert entitled “Sacred Music of India,” in Hart Recital Hall. Just before the concert began, Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Gersham Nelson complimented the diversity that Beck’s concert was bringing to the campus. He said there was most likely not a more unique place that the audience could have graced their presence with that night.