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The Tabla Series - Akram Khan . |
Akram Khan - Tabla
Murad Ali - Sarangi
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The Artist
Akram Khan
Akram Khan is the foremost exponent of the Ajrara gharana of tabla playing in India today. His training started from early childhood at the hands of his great grand father Ustad Mohamed Shafi Khan who introduced him first to the initial techniques and concepts of tabla. He then went on to study more intensively with Ustad Niazu Khan who was able to groom young Akram in the subtleties of tabla playing. His father, tabla player Ustad Hasmat Ali Khan has been an inspiration thoughout his career. In recent times, Akram Khan has become one of the most popular accompanists having shared the stage with many of the great musicians of India including Ustad Vilayat Khan. His playing is noted for the beauty and balance of his sound and the marvellously subtle and sophisticated used of the bayan or bass drum.
Tabla
The Tabla is the most popular and widely used drum of North India. Its colourful range of tonal qualities combined with its capacity to express remarkable rhythmic permutations make it a unique percussion instrument which in recent times has inspired and fascinated audiences worldwide.
The pair of drums consist of a high-pitched, precisely tuned dahina (also called dayan or tabla), and a low-pitched, less precisely tuned drum, the bayan. The dahina is responsible for many of the resonant ringing sounds (or bols).The bayan provides the bass and is recognizable for its swooping bass sound, which provides colourful embellishment. It is said that the heart and soul of the tabla is expressed through the Bayan.
Most frequently the tabla is used to accompany classical instrumental, vocal and dance performances, but as all tabla players will remind you, there also exists a strong tradition of tabla solo playing. The history of tabla is shrouded in mystery and mythology; however it is most commonly thought to have developed in the area of Delhi in the mid-eighteenth century. Initially, much of the inspiration for its repertoire was borrowed and adapted from other Indian drums including pakhawaj and dholak. However, over the period since then, tabla players have built up a huge repertoire of material specific to the dynamics of the tabla. This vast range of compositions has been made richer by the evolution of a number of distinct regional performance styles, known as gharanas, of which there are six recognised by the tabla community, namely, Delhi, Ajrara, Farukhabad, Lucknow, Benares and Punjab. These styles have played a major role in the development of tabla playing with regard to technique and repertoire,
The tabla player uses a vocabulary of semi-onomatopoeic syllables to represent the strokes on the instrument known as ‘bols’ (from the Hindi verb bolna, ‘to speak’), a system which has been used to communicate compositions through the ages. Bols making up popular phrases such as ‘dhati dhage tina gina’ and ‘dhati dhatere ketetake terekete’, are recited by the player before playing, in a practice known as Pardhant, a kind of Indian version of rap. While in training a student is typically taught to speak the bols of the composition before actually playing it on the drums.
The solo tabla repertoire consists of a great variety of compositional forms, many of which are featured on this recording. The forms can be divided into two broad categories. Firstly, compositions of the ’theme and variation’ type are Peshkar, Qaida and Rela where a rhythmic theme is expanded and permutated using a variety of improvisatory techniques. Usually featured in the first half of the solo, these themes are pre-composed, but designed in a way to allow maximum potential for improvisation, testing the performer’s creativity to the limit. The latter part of the recital most commonly consists of fixed compositions such as Tukra, Gat and Chakradar, many of which have been inherited from great masters from generation to generation and are therefore highly prized by tabla players.
Ajrara Gharana
The Ajrara style of tabla playing is probably the least researched of all of the prevailing six major tabla gharanas. It is thought to be an off shoot of the Delhi gharana because its founders, brothers Kallo Khan and Miroo Khan, had spent a considerable amount of time in Delhi learning from some of the great Ustads of the time, before returning to their native Ajrara. There they developed this unique style of playing through their original compositions and some innovative techniques.
Ajrara is a small village in the district of Meerut, North of Delhi which was home to an abundance of great tabla and sarangi players from the latter part of the nineteenth century onwards. This style is known for its prized repertoire of Qaidas, which are considered to be amongst the most refined and aesthetically pleasing in the tabla repertoire. A speciality in the gharana is a preference for compositions in triplets (tisra jati) though it is a misconception to think that all Ajrara compositions are in this mode.
The most famous exponent of this style was Habibuddin Khan, who, along with his contemporary Ahmedjan Thirakawa, set new heights in the field of tabla playing during the middle part of the twentieth century.
Akram Khan’s tabla solo is set to a sixteen beat rhythmic cycle called Teentaal, known in North Indian music as ‘the mother of all taals’. This is the most popular framework for improvisation used by tabla players, because of its great scope for elaboration. Throughout the solo, the tempo of the sixteen beat cycle is regulated by the sonorous Sarangi, which plays a repeated lilting melody line known as lehara (or nagma). The word "lehara" is a derivative of the word ‘lahar’, meaning current of a river or a stream. Sarangi is the traditional instrument used for this purpose serving to create the appropriate mood within the soloist. The lehara also helps in highlighting the most emphatic beat in the cycle known as ‘sam’ (literally "equal" or "together"), which occupies the first beat of a taal.
Sarangi accompaniment is provided by Murad Ali who represents the sixth generation of an unbroken chain of illustrious Sarangi players in his family belonging to the Moradabad gharana.
Vilambit Teentaal
1. Peshkar (15.16)
The traditional starting point for a tabla solo recital is Peshkar, an introductory improvisatory form beginning in a slow tempo, concentrating initially on a few select tabla syllables such as na/ta, ge, dha, dhin and tin. The Peshkar gradually expands and unfolds introducing the listener to a wider range of phrases and sounds, playing a similar role in tabla solo to that of ‘alap’ in Indian vocal music, where the soloist progressively acclimatizes to the music and the environment in which he or she is performing. This is Peshkar played in the traditional Ajrara style, building in intensity before climaxing with the fast flowing Peshkar Qaida.
2.Qaida (8.30)
Qaida is an extended composition type unique to the tabla repertoire which introduces a main theme, then proceeds to develop variations (paltas) while also continuing to restate the main theme (rhythm and variation). Two Qaidas are played here. The first is composed by Akram’s father Ustad Hashmat Ali Khan in the Delhi style. The second, created by Ustad Natthu Khan of Delhi, with variations composed by Ustad Niazu Khan.
3 Qaida (5.33)
This is a famous qayida of the Ajrara gharana (dhatrake dhite gine dhati gina) composed by Ustad Tullan Khan
4. Qaida (4.05)
From the Ajrara tradition composed by Ustad Mohamed Shafi Khan
(take dhin)
5. Qaida (2.34)
Ajrara style Qaida composed by Ustad Niazu Khan featuring ‘dine dina gine’ a phrase popularly used in the Ajrara tradition and played in great speed.
6. Qaida (2.27)
A very distinctive Ajrara composition, created by Akram Khan’s great grandfather, Ustad Mohamed Shafi Khan. These compositions are also sometimes known as Qaida-Rela
7. Qaida-Rela (5.05)
Created by Ustad Mohamed Shafi Khan. This composition features the phrase ‘dhere dhere’ a favourite with music audiences. The variations have been created by Akram Khan’s father, Ustad Hashmat Ali Khan
8. Qayida (3.41)
This an old composition from the Ajrara repertoire composed by Ustad Tullan Khan
Drut Teentaal
9. Tukra/ Chakradaar/Gat (2.57)
This part of the solo is played in faster speed and is usually host to more fixed composition types. It is introduced through a tukra composed by Ustad Hashmat Ali Khan. Tukra combines a maximum of colourful stroke combinations with skilful varieties of dynamics in a short space of time. The composition is recited before playing in a tradition known as Pardhant. Chakradar (from charka, meaning wheel, circle or cycle) is a fixed composition which is essentially a tukra played three times in order to reach the first beat of the cycle (sam) with the final tehai stroke. The Chakradar is composed by Ghulam Hussain Khan. Gat is a very advanced level composition in the art of tabla playing. It can include elements of Peshkar, Qaida, Rela and Tukra or Chakradar all in one composition with sudden changes in sound dynamics. It requires a lot of technical virtuosity and dexterity in the hands of a player to execute these compositions skilfully. This gat was created by Ustad Munir Khan.
10. Chakradar (1.21)
Composed by Ustad Kadar Baksh of the Punjab gharana
11. Gat (1.11)
The Gat is preceded by a Rela. The word Rela is said to have probably derived from ‘rail gadi’, which means train. But technically it means a drum roll like effect produced by continuous repetition of one sound syllable. In this track the rela is based on the syllable ‘dhere dhere’. The gat is composed by Ustad Kadar Baksh.
12. Chakradar (1.15)
Composition of Ustad Amir Hussain
13. Chakradar (0.42)
14. Rela/ Tukra/ Chakradar (3.47)
Compositions of Ustad Mohamed Shafi Khan
Notes: John Ball
John Ball is a freelance musician, music teacher and writer specializing in Indian Music and based in South Yorkshire.
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