A 12-year-old boy in my building is taking sitar lessons. Lately, he’s been practicing on the stoop. It’s quite a sight to see him out there sitting crossed leg like Ravi Shankar; his big, ornate  instrument that has  something like 40 strings. I asked him if he knows how to tune it and he said, "No." But his teacher can do that when necessary.  The first song he learned was "Paint it Black," the Rolling Stones song with that unmistakable sitar lick at the beginning.

Our budding sitarist can also pick out other tunes: Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Amazing Grace, for example. This evening, at dusk, he was playing duets with a girl from the building next door who plays the flute. It was an unexpected mingling of sounds: the sitar and the flute. But it really sounded quite nice.

When I went downstairs, I got a better look at their make-shift concert. He was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk in front of our building with his instrument collecting money for Hurricane Katrina relief.

Two children next door were sitting on chairs in front of their buildings; a brother/sister guitar and flute duo.

It looked like both musical acts had raised quite a bit of money – there were lots of  dollar bills in their baskets. A street of music: in my 11 years on Third Street I’ve never seen a concert by children on the street.

I’ve known the sitar player since he was two. He used to play the violin. I think he even took clarinet lessons, too. A few years back he was really into top-40 radio to his parent’s chagrin. He’s traveled quite a bit with his parents and grandmother – to China and Europe, even Korea where he spent a summer with other kids from around the world. It’s amazing to watch kids grow up and see how they evolve. It really is.

An amazing thing.

This morning I heard the daughter of legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar, on National Public Radio. She’s just released a new album of world music and it sounds really interesting. It’s called Rise, and it was composed, produced, and arranged by Anoushka – with a group of virtuoso Eastern and Western musicians on a variety of both acoustic and electronic instruments.

I wanted to mention it to my neighbor, the budding sitarist, but I forgot. I’ll have to remember to do that one day.