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Pt Swapan Chaudhuri - Live At Darbar Festival |  |
Tabla solo - In tribute to Bhai Gurmit Singh Virdee
Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri - Tabla Ramesh Mishra - Sarangi
CD 1
1 Lehra/Uthan/Mukhra
2 Palta Theka
3 Lucknow Qaida
4 Qaida Rela
5 Qaida
6 Qaida Rela
CD 2
1-4 Rela
5 Gats
6 Paran
7 Tukra
8 Rela
9 Tukra
10 Chakradaar
Between the 3rd and 5th of March 2006, a unique gathering of some of India's greatest musicians took place in Leicester to celebrate the life of Bhai Gurmit Singh Virdee, who sadly passed away on 3rd April 2005. A packed audience assembled at the Peepul Centre witnessed three days of exhilarating performances involving over 50 Indian musicians, a fitting tribute to Gurmit Ji's love of life, his musical talent, his spiritual endeavours and his selfless contribution to the music scene. Since the early 1950s, Bhai Gurmit Singh Virdee had been playing, promoting and teaching tabla. Respected throughout the Indian classical music circle, he performed with world-class artists and taught hundreds of students, many of whom are now renowned performers and teachers in their own right. Gurmitji developed Taal - Rhythms of India (1987-1996) the world's first dedicated organisation for promoting Tabla. Performances included Zakir Hussain, Swapan Chaudhuri, Anindo Chatterjee, Shankar Ghosh and many others. Tablaonline launched in May 2005 world's first portal percussion website. The 2006 Darbar Festival proved to be a landmark event on the UK Indian Classical Music scene and the largest of its kind in Britain to date.
Among the main attractions of the festival were the performances of three giants in the field of North Indian Tabla playing, Swapan Chaudhuri, Anindo Chatterjee and Kumar Bose.
Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri is a true master of North Indian music who has devoted his life to the art of tabla playing. The poetic style, clarity and elegance of his music, both as a soloist and accompanist, have earned him the highest respect and appreciation from fellow musicians as well as audiences around the world. His parents, through their passion for music, initiated his formal tabla training under the tutelage of Pandit Santosh Krishna Biswas of Calcutta, a close family friend. Although Swapanji's training has been rooted in the Lucknow gharana, his teacher encouraged him to be learned in the whole field of tabla playing and not to be restricted in his outlook.
He first gained public acclaim in Calcutta in the late 60's through his concerts accompanying Sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, with whom he developed a unique relationship over the next thirty years. Since then he has shared the stage with all the great maestros of Indian Classical music.
In 1981, he was invited by Ustad Ali Akbar Khan to teach at the Ali Akbar College of Music, near San Francisco, where he has been based ever since. His musical endeavours have been rewarded with several awards including the prestigious Sangeet Natak Academy Award from the Government of India, and the American Academy of Artists Award, both of which are reserved only for those artists who have attained the highest level of artistry. He has received the Excellence in Performing Arts Award from the Global Indian Congress in San Francisco, and has been nominated to the esteemed International Percussive Arts Society's Hall of Fame.
CD1
1 . Lehra/Uthan/Mukhra : The tabla solo is played in a rhythmic cycle of sixteen beats, or teentaal. The tabla is accompanied by a cyclic melody played by Ramesh Mishra on the Sarangi. This lehera (or nagma) is not simply the repetition of a fixed melody; it also serves to maintain the soloist's mood and temperament by inspiring the main performer. The subtle ornamentations play a significant role in the success of the tabla recital. Ramesh Mishra is a master in Sarangi playing, performing as a soloist and a popular accompanist for some of India's greatest vocalists.
The performance starts with small introductory compositions in the form of uthan and mukhra. Uthan may be fixed or improvised, its role being to portray an impression of acceleration. Uthans generally incorporate a great variety of tabla syllables, including open bayan strokes and both loud and soft dynamics, giving the audience an early indication of the player's skills.
2. Palta Theka: A sequence of variations and improvisations based on and evolving from the prescribed syllables that make up the theka, played in the style of Lucknow gharana.The theka is a prescribed pattern of syllables for any specific rhythmic cycle, or taal.
Theka of teentaal
1 2 3 4
dha dhin dhin dha
5 6 7 8
dha dhin dhin dha
9 10 11 12
dha tin tin na
13 14 15 16
na dhin dhin dha
3. Lucknow Qaida: Kayida is a theme and variation composition type, which often forms the main body of a solo. The main kayida is fixed and acts as a theme for improvisations, which are essentially permutations of the main syllables and phrases of the original composition. The extent of the soloist's imagination and musical skill is demonstrated through the improvised paltas which follow the kayida.
4. Qaida Rela: A composition popular in the Lucknow gharana repertoire which features aspects of both Qaida and Rela.
5. Qaida: Qaida demonstrating great dexterity of left hand bayan strokes.
6. Qaida Rela Famous Lucknow
gharana composition.
CD 2
1-4 Rela: Has the same structure as kayida and follows the same rules, but is composed around bols which have the capacity to be played in fast speeds. This is a sequence of rela compositions based on tabla syllables 'dine gine', 'terekite' and 'dhire dhire'.
5. Gats: Gats are prized compositions within the tabla community. For example, there are many stories of gats being exchanged in dowry gifts at the time of marriages between musical families.
6. Paran: Parans are adapted onto tabla from the Pakhawaj repertoire, pre-dating tabla. They use bold, open sounds of the tabla played in a style known as 'khula baj', literally 'open playing style'. The Pakhawaj is a barrel shaped drum used predominantly in dhrupad accompaniment.
7. Tukra: Tukra is a short fixed composition which combines a wide range of colourful tabla syllables with varieties of dynamics.
8. Rela: Rela based on 'tirekete'.
9. Tukra: Swapan Chaudhuri has played several rare tukra composed inherited from old tabla masters.
10. Chakradaar: Chakradaar is a fixed composition which is essentially a tukra played three times reaching the first beat of the cycle (sam) with the final tehai stroke.
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. The bayan is often said to be where the soul of the instrument lies. 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 orally transmit compositions through the ages. Bols making up popular phrases such as 'dhage tina gina' and '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 Chakradaar, many of which have been inherited from great masters from generation to generation and are therefore highly prized by tabla players.
© John Ball 2007 - John Ball is a freelance writer, musician and teacher based in Sheffield specialising in Indian Music.
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