The Gems of Music

I hate to admit that I conveniently forgot about this little world where I can share what I feel about music. Like most of us, I too have a day job and commitments which have vanquished my passion to play & write.

The personage within thinks in a flaccid state and reprimands that there is no place where he can pour out the feelings. I hence come back to take refuge and pour my heart out.

Being a musician, I feel it’s my duty to introduce to the world some wonderful souls who command their instrument and produce an enthralling magic which sooths ears, mind & soul alike. I‘d like to venture into the deeper parts of Maharashtra to dig out a traditional folk art form called Tamasha.

Tamasha is believed to be derived from the ancient form of Sanskrit drama - the 'Prahsana' and the 'Bhana'. This Marathi folk art form is performed by local or travelling theatre groups within Maharashtra. It has also been the subject of several Marathi films.

Here is an instrument which is used prominently but not limited to this art form. It is by far the most popular symbol of Maharashtrian Rhythm culture known as Dholki. 

For the non-conversant, Dholki literally means “a small dholak”. It’s a bit narrower in diameter and uses tabla-style syahi masala on its treble skin. 

The treble skin is stitched onto an iron ring, which tenses the head before it is fitted. The bass skin often has the same made up as in ordinary dholak but sometimes they may have a kinar and pleated Gajra, as seen in tabla, to withstand the extra tension. The modern variants use nuts and bolt hardware which are easier to tighten & tune.

The rich tone of this wonderful instrument commanded by able player is capable of mesmerizing the best of skilled musicians & common man alike. 

The first video is a small Dholki solo piece. My salute to the fantastic Dholki vaadak Krishna Musale who plays the Dholki with such an ease and produces magic. 

The second video is a jugalbandi. Its lead by a man who's Dholki has mesmerized listeners in India and abroad. 

Vijay Chavan needs no introduction to the people who have seen the marathi blockbuster movie Natrang. The credits section of the movie has a Dholki duet which was played by Vijay Chavan and Krishna Musale. It is said that the audience never leaves the theater till this section is over. 

My namaskar to these wonderful musicians. May their tribe grow.

Musicians of India

While sipping my morning tea today, I was reading an interview of Ranjit Barot.

For those, who don't know him, he is the Son of Kathak legend Sitara Deviji and one of the best drummers in india. Ranjit infuses his western influenced chops with his Indian soul. He creates rhythms that are intricate and unpredictable; yet they groove ferociously and swing effortlessly. He makes odd-time signatures seem as natural as breathing. He is also one of India’s top music producers, and an accomplished composer and arranger. He has written numerous films scores and performed with some of India’s best musicians.

Here is the extract from the interview posted on Abstract Logix :-
Rod: I read where you said that in the ’80s, it was hard to make a living as a drummer.

Ranjit: It was. 1986, I think, is when the electronic revolution hit India; and I got replaced by basically a drum machine. It was heavy, because I was not making any money; and it was kind of scary for a bit. I got a break working in a studio. This piano player, who’s also on Floating Point , Louiz Banks – an old friend of mine – he gave me a break in the studio. I wanted to leave. I said, “Well, I’m gonna go to America. At least there are still drummers there.” I didn’t really know whether they needed drummers, I just felt that any place besides Bombay would be okay.

After reading this paragraph, I asked a question to myself, "Is a musician's life so hard ? Can't a musician survive in india ?".

We belong to a country which has deep musical roots. Our Vedas and Upanishads have transcripts related to music, we worship Goddess Sarasvati for blessing us with musical knowledge. Indian music has a history spanning millennia and has developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as sources of religious inspiration, cultural expression and pure entertainment. Today, it has reached far west where people have started learning and appreciating our stuff. Be it Baisakhi, Durga Pooja, Poongal, Oonam, Navraatri; we have songs for every festival and occasion.

Our history proves that musical performances were a part of our evolution. The Natya Shastra is an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, encompassing theatre, dance and music. It was written at an uncertain date in classical India (between 200 BC and 200 AD). It is based upon the much older Natya Veda which contained 36,000 shlokas. Our Maharajas had Mahasabhas were artists would perform for the king and courtiers. Kucheries, Arangetrams, Tamashas were a part of our history.

How can a country with such musical heritage lack in terms of opportunities for musicians ?

Today, a typical middle class man would want his son or daughter to become a Doctor, Engineer, Programmer or Scientist. He would want them to go abroad and earn a fancy salary. How many of us would encourage our children to become a musician ? Do we even consider B.A or M.A in Music as an academic degree ? Whats the future of a person in india even if he gets a degree from the esteemed institutions like Berklee college of Music or Trinity college of Music ?.

We feel good when an Indian gets 2 Oscars for a single movie score. We feel proud when we hear that an indian received standing ovation at 1967 Monterey Pop Festival in California. We are filled with joy when an indian artist wins a Grammy but at the end, we know that our country lacks opportunities for musicians and we would never want our children to suffer because of this.

The electronic revolution is also responsible to some extent for these changes. We prefer downloading music rather than buying a CD, we prefer to watch TV instead of going out for a concert or drama. We love the so called re-mixed songs which are butchered by a person who doesn't understand anything of melody and rhythm and calls himself a DJ. We spend thousands of rupees at a pub for costly liquor and a pathetically re-mixed track but we never pay attention to the begger who sits at the railway station overbridge and plays an Ektara.

Sure there are many talent hunts which are conducted by our Television channels but most of them are a replacement for family drama rather than a true talent hunt, all of them are for promoting singers or comedians. There are no talent hunts where musicians can show their potential. Ther are hardly few clubs where musicians can play and show their potential. The concert scene is still at an adolescent stage but improving day by day. Lot of playback singers are opting for a band instead of minus one track which in turn is boosting the requirement for live musicians.

Orchestra was a good option for many years during the 90s but now even that has come to a verge of standstill, thanks to the 10 PM deadline by our state Government. I wonder why these deadlines are never considered during a political campaign ? As of today, Classical and Carnatic music are confined to temples. There are hardly any listeners who would like to attend a Mehfil, Tamasha or a kucheri. At this stage, all I can do is crib and pray for my fellow musicians who earn their bread and butter from music. Let things change for good.
I got a video of one of my favorite rajasthani folk songs which I am posting below. My respect to the artist who has sung the song in a beautiful way.

Enjoy the video.

My compositons

I have been thinking of uploading some of my works on the Blog. So at last, here are couple of compositions which I had done.

The first one is titled The Chase

The second one is Aggression.

The third one is Sadistic.

Do let me know your thoughts. I would be uploading many more stuff soon.

Cheers

Sabareesh

Dhvani - Part 3

Note :- If you have come directly to this page, please read the Part 1 and Part 2 of this story.


Unfortunately our band’s flute player Sri Ram (known as Fram) couldn’t join us as he was down with fever. The D-day arrived; judges were Vishal, Shekhar and Luke Kenny. We performed our O.C track and they appreciated it, then the cover was Naresh’s hot favorite “Breathless” and our first round was wrapped up with “Dhoom” from Euphoria.

We made it; we were selected for the final round along with 20 other bands.

Now the competition was tougher, we had to re-mix or rather re-compose a song and present it in our way. Brains started working and we finalized 2 songs. On the D-day, some goof-ups happened. Sri Ram was not allowed to join us for the second round and I was not allowed to play bongos for a stupid reason that I did not play it in the first round. Amidst such loud atmosphere created by metal and hard rock bands, Naresh forgot the tune and we lost it royally.

Yes, we were disappointed and we had every reason to feel unhappy. We lost our first chance to reach fame which was to be given by a prestigious television channel.

Time flew as always and Naresh got busy with Channel [V] Super singer competition. We were happy that his performance was quite well there.

On a Saturday night, Vikram called me up frantically and was the following was our conversation.


Vikram - Hello !
Me – Haa, bol
Vikram – Tujhe pata hai aaj kya hua ??
Me – Kya ??
Vikram – Mera Naresh se aabhi baat hua…
Me – aacha, good… kaisa hai wo ?
Vikram – Aabey who chod, tujhe pata hai, Chanel [V] super singer mein kaun Judge hai ??
Me – Haa, pata hai, Adnan Sami naa ??
Vikram – Nahi yaar, un log ne A R Rahman ko invite kiya hai as a special judge……

That was it!!

The world around me started spinning; I could imagine what Naresh might have felt when he saw Rahman for the first time. It would have been a wonderful moment to meet the maestro face to face. Since the band started, A R Rahman was in the list of gods in our diaries. The entire band was happy and cheering for Naresh’s success.

Somehow, he was not selected in the final round but Rahman told him that soon he would be flying to Chennai.

2 – 3 weeks later, Naresh called us that he was back from Chennai for a day or 2. The maestro had offered him a song from a tamil movie “Anbe Aaruyire”. Then there was no turning back for Naresh. His song was a huge hit and he was a household name in Chennai. Then came Rang De Basanti and Roobaroo, Khalbali, Paatshaala were in the charbusters list.

The rest is known to the world. As a mugshot, I present some photographs and videos of Dhvani from various concerts.

Enjoy

|| Beats for Dhvani ||

P.S – This is my official signature as a Drummer and Percussionist of Dhvani

This photograph was taken after Mysore Yuva Dussera Concert at Maharaja Palace Grounds.
From L - R :- Siddharth, Naresh, Vikram, Pankaj, Aniruddh, Ninad, Aparna, Sriram, Saurabh, Sabareesh

Breathless @ Mumbai Festivel in Powai

Rang De Basanti @ Mysore - Yuva Dussera

Dil Se Re

The good ol' Malgudi Days

An Impromptu Jam durning the sound check @ HOPE 2006

Dhvani - Part 1

It was a boring Sunday afternoon....

I had nothing to do except for watching some drum videos and practicing. While searching for something, I ran into a folder titled "Dhvani”.

Instantly the rewind function got activated and I sailed back to 2002 where it all started.

I was a happy go lucky boy during my college days; studies were of least priority, though I loved physics and maths. Music was always the best friend but it was tough to convince dad to get me a set of drums.

I coaxed, cajoled, begged and finally got a second hand 3 piece Congo set. Dad had a strict condition that I would be allowed to perform only if I get good marks in F.Y exams. That was enough to pump me up and I started taking my studies very seriously. Results came out, I did pretty well and dad was happy.

I enrolled in computer class to get acquainted with nuances of software technology; Co-incidentally, I met a schoolmate who was a student there as well, we got quite well together since we were rookies in the field of music. He had a mini Keyboard while I had my Congo set which we thought was enough for us to compose something and bring down the entire world.

Life went well since then, we were happy with our jam sessions.

14th February was approaching and students of the center decided that we should have a small get together celebration. The musician within us woke up and we proposed a live band performance which was unanimously agreed.

We had to search for a singer and another musician as soon as possible. I thought about a distant cousin of mine who was quite a good vocalist. He doubled up our charts because he had a pretty decent Yamaha Keyboard which would suffice our requirements for the show.

So Vikram (the rookie keyboard player / my schoolmate) was half happy now, his major problem was solved but he had another task to search for a guitarist. To his savior came his college mate who along with my cousin were then the most musically learned people amongst us.

I got hold of an acquaintance who got an Octopad for us on rent.

So all said and done, we accumulated people, instruments and started rehearsing for the event.

Read Dhvani - Part 2

Jai HO

India stands proud at the Oscars...

A man who redefined music, a trendsetter who established his marque in the music industry.


His music crossed continents and made billions of people swing to his tunes. His curiously named Panchathan Recording Inn is a nondescript building tucked away in the thriving film district of Chennai. This backyard music studio of a magical pied piper has witnessed recordings of chart busters like Thiruda Thiruda, Roja, Bombay and many more.

Seventeen years after he began composing scores for films, the jingle maker-turned-musician has finally got recognition as India's first truly global film music composer. A.R Rahman can be called an alchemist of sounds and voices, mixing and matching them in a potion that is usually a joy for ears and soul.


The Oscar jury has awarded Rahman for musical score in Slumdog Millionaire. Though everyone is happy about an Indian winning a golden globe and especially Rahman winning it, many weren’t sure about whether Rahman deserves it for this perticular movie score.

In my opinion, Rahman’s music for Roja, Bombay Lagaan & Water was far better. Is it that the Oscars / BAFTA / Golden Globe jury considered Rahman’s music since it’s directed by a Western director FOR the Western audience?



To me, this man brought a revolution in music making and he will always be in the list of Legends in my Diary. Yet, for the world, Rahman is an acknowledged international talent and the Oscar has drawn the world's attention to his music. He is a marque today and India is proud to have a gem like him.


Another Indian, Resul Pookutty has created a history by becoming the first Indian to bag the best sound mixing Oscar for Slumdog Millionare. His hard work has brought him to a level of well deserved world-wide recognition which symbolizes that even technically, India is at par with the rest of the world.


He shared the award with Ian Tapp and Richard Pryke. Along with the entire Nation, I too stand proud and congratulate them.

Jai HO

Maa Tujhe Salaam

The science behind Music

How does your brain process music? Why do certain tunes get stuck in your head? And why are just a few notes enough for you to name that tune?


Musical learning has additional implications for processes involved in presenting a piece from memory or performing in a play or a dance. Like the universe with its billions of stars, the human brain is a constellation of billions of neural cells which communicate with one another by forming networks that are the basis of human awareness and memory.

Learning a scientific theory is a process of forming connections among these cells. Similarly, learning a piece of music through memory is similar to the clustering of the planetary systems and stars.

But why would humans have evolved to become musical creatures? Among evolutionary biologists, there is great controversy over this question. Making and listening to music is a social activity, and could thus have improved cohesion among members of the species.

Music may have historically served to promote feelings of group togetherness and synchrony in ancient societies. One strong evidence is the existence of music across cultures, and across history. No known human culture now or anytime in the past lacked music.

Clearly though, we don't all find pleasure in the same music; and what determines whether we end up loving is mostly a matter of what we listen to when we're young. Studies suggest that we start listening to and remembering music in the womb, it's in our teens that we choose the specific sort of music that we'll love forever.

Our brains have evolved to respond to music in this way; in other words, it is no accident, and rather it's by evolutionary design that we are so good at processing music.

According to researchers, Listening and participating in music creates new neural pathways in your brain that stimulate creativity. Studies have shown that music actually trains the brain for higher forms of thinking. Music stimulates the mind, encourages creativity and helps to lay a foundation for learning that leads to higher intelligence and aptitude.

A human brain is divided into two hemispheres, the right hemisphere has been traditionally identified as the seat of music appreciation. However, no one has found a "music center" there, or anywhere else. Studies of musical understanding in people who have damage to either hemisphere, as well as brain scans of people taken while listening to tunes, reveal that music perception emerges from the interplay of activity in both sides of the brain.

Some brain circuits respond specifically to music; but, as you would expect, parts of these circuits participate in other forms of sound processing. For example, the region of the brain dedicated to perfect pitch is also involved in speech perception.

Music therapy has been around for thousands of years, since the time of the ancient Greeks. Its popularity has recently increased as its been used more in recent years. It is used to raise spirits and also used in conjunction with anesthesia to alleviate pain. Newer methods of musical therapy used are exposing them to new music and even song writing. Music; the universal language.

After writing all these, I recollect a few lines written by me and my band mates. The song is dedicated to music, we feel that music doesn't belong to a religion, caste, creed or culture. Music is universal and we devote our lives to music.

ना ही सरहद, ना लकीरें
ना ही भाषा, ना दरारें

ना ही वर्ण है, ना है जाति
तुम ही जीवन, तुम ही साथी

तुम हो प्राण, तुम हो ईश्वर
तुम ही आत्मा, तुम परमेश्वर

Homage to Abbaji - A tribute to Ustad Allarakha

In religion and spirituality, a Pilgrimage is defined as a journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a sacred place or shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith. Members of many major religions participate in pilgrimages. A person who makes such a journey is called a pilgrim.

Every year, 3rd February is marked as a pilgrimage trip on my scheduler. A Pilgrimage to pay tribute to a Maestro who's fingers spread the magic of Indian Classical Music worldwide. An uncommon pulsation which went stilled on 3rd February 2000. His wrists, palms and fingers produced a percussion of magical quality which maintained the tenor and tempo of India's uniquely assimilative musical culture.




Ustad Alla Rakha & Tabla are synonyms. This great man introduced Tabla to the Western world and is considered one of the greatest tabla players of the 20th century. He popularized the art of tabla, playing across the globe, elevating the status and respect of his instrument by leaps and bounds.

He achieved world renowned status as Pandit Ravi Shankar's chief accompanist during his apex in the 1960s, delighting audiences in the West with his percussive wizardry. He was not only an uncanny accompanist with flawless timing and sensitivity but also soloist & master of improvisation.

The partnership was particularly successful, and his legendary and spellbinding performances with Shankar at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and the Woodstock Festival in 1969 served to introduce classical Indian music to general Western audiences.

He once said in an interview that when he played outside India, his aim was to teach the Western world about the beauty of Indian music. I had read somewhere that ,when he was requested to say a few words on his 80th birthday celebrations, he played the tabla instead. "This is the language I know," he told the audience. Such was his dedication towards music.

Since his demise, an annual event to pay tributes to Ustad Alla Rakha is organised by his son, Ustad Zakir Hussain, "Homage to Abbaji" is conducted on 3rd February at Shanmukhananda Auditorium Sion.

Many renowned national and international artistes perform at this ceremony to pay their tributes. The pillars of Indian music like Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, Pandit Kishen Maharaj, Ghatam maestro Vikku Vinayakram, Mridangam Maestros Umayalpuram Sivaraman & Sri Karaikudi Mani Iyer have graced this event with their presence.

International Artistes like John Mc Laughlin, Terry Bozzio, Giovanni Hidalgo, Pete Lockett, Bela Fleck, Edger Mayer, Antonio Sanchez & Steve Smith were also a part of the earlier concerts.

This year's barsi was no exception. The audience got a rare chance to witness magic of some awe-inspiring musicians like Charles Lloyd, Eric Harland, Zakir Hussain and many others play together.

Image Courtesy - radioandmusic.com

The morning session titled 'Taal pranam' was opened by flautist Rakesh Chaurasia. This was followed by performances by Ranjit Barot & Sridhar Parthasarathy along with students of Ustad Allarakha Institute of Music. The morning session was concluded by performance by sitar exponent Niladri Kumar with Ustad Zakir Hussain on Tabla.

The afternoon session called 'Taal Tapasya' featured solo performances by Vikku Vinayakram along with his son Uma Mahesh, a solo performance by tabla maestro Puran Maharaj & was concluded by Taufiq Qureshi on Djembe accompanying Ajay Joglekar on Harmonium.

The evening session 'Celebrate Abbaji' was started by the Dhaak players from West Bengal, the band 'Sangam' featured Jazz great Charles Lloyd, Eric Harland, Zakir Hussain. Later Louis Banks, Shankar Mahadevan, Niladri Kumar, Ranjit Barot & Loy Mendonca joined in for a Splendid Jam Session leaving the audience spellbound.

Ustad Allarakha will always be with us, whenever Tabla is played anywhere in the world, his magical fingers will always be remembered.