summer vacations 2015 in punjab

>> from the library ofcongress in washington dc. >> yasmeen khan: i'm conductingan oral history on behalf of the american folklife center of two north indian orhindustani musicians. sarod master soumya chakravertyand tabla master debu nayak. previously, they played at thelibrary of congress as part of the homegrown concert series in may during asian-americanheritage month and [inaudible] of the american folklife center,co-sponsored by the library

of congress asian-americanassociation. and now, we'll turnto the questions. and i'd like them to tell me alittle bit about their early life and how they got to the pointof becoming master musicians. and we'll start with you soumya. >> soumya chakraverty:thank you yasmeen. and thank you for the introduction. so, i-- and i could talk a lotabout how i got into music, but the simple answer that comesto my mind, and i think that echoes

with a lot of people of mygeneration from south asia, is they were kind of forcedinto getting to music. and i used the wordforced into, because that-- it seems like a coerciontechnique at that point in time. but then, that coercionunbeknownstly became a matter of love and falling inlove with the art form. just like people are sent toschools and, you know, apparently, i was brought into music. but for me, it's a little bit ofcoercion plus also enticement.

so, i come from a family where i didn't have amusical heritage with me. but, my parents wereboth interested in music. they used to attend concerts,festivals, et cetera. and i have two siblings,both older than me, and also had other extendedfamily members living with us. and everybody was doing somesort of music, playing some sort of instrument or the other. and mostly, it wasstring instruments

like violin, sitar, sarod, vocal. and they were missinga tabla player. so, i sat-- and i wasenticed by the concept of rhythm having heard liveconcerts and as well as recordings. so, i started jumping in andstarted keeping the beat. and how would i keep the beat, because i didn't havetablas with me. so, i had two metal containersof cereal boxes and baby food. so, those are my--the dayan and bayan.

and i use to sit andplay tabla with them. so, that was my initiationinto music. seeing my level ofinterest, my parents decided that maybe i should have a tabla. and so, i was-- i started learningtabla at the age of eight, i think. and also have a brief stint learningwestern violin at school because, you know, i thought it was coolto, you know, go to chapel. i actually studied in a episcopalmethodist school in india. and we had chapel service everymonday and there was music along it.

so, i was very interested in thechorale singing and the violin play. so, my exploration into westernmusic also started at the same time. and i learned tabla forabout a year and a half. and, i can't say if i was verygood at it, but the concept of rhythm came to my mind. and, around 11, i actuallyswitched over to the sarod. how that happened? i don't, again, know. that may have beenan act of coercion.

it's been so many years, ican't quite remember vividly. but, it took me a little bit oftime switching from the tabla to the-- to a string instrument. but when it did happenedover a course of maybe three, four years of just readaptingto learning another instrument. and because of playing the sarod, and i'll say why a little bitlater during the interview, i had to give up on thetabla and the violin. because i, you know,[inaudible] to go play the sarod.

but, so, ultimately, the tablaand the violin both diminished and sarod became myprimary instrument. so, that, in short, is my journey. and how the journey beganalmost, i would say, 37 years ago and it still continues. >> yasmeen khan: that's great. and how-- what's it about thesarod that really attracted you? i mean, what made you give upthe other two and choose this? >> soumya chakraverty: again, atthat point, when you're a boy of 10

or 11 years old, you just dowhat your parents tell you. >> yasmeen khan: ok. >> soumya chakraverty: and,one day it's like, hey, you know, you learn sarod. and then, the other day it is the--or maybe you start with the tabla, and then you learn the sarod. but that being said,there were certain aspects of the instrument that attracted me. i think the sarod and the sitarare probably the most common string

instruments in india, orat least in northern india. and i always felt that there wasa-- the gender gap between the-- those two instruments, the sarodwith its very deep sound kind of sounded like a male, verymacho kind of an instrument. and what-- the ability to do alot of fast runs and, you know, the patterns like thetabla was very masculine. on the other hand, i heardthe sitar beautiful as it is, i just felt more biastowards the sarod. and that may have, you know,

propelled me in that directionplus some gentle cajoling from my parents. always helps. and you devapriya? >> devapriya nayak:where do i start? my mom says that i startedplaying when i was two and a half, three years old. so, i did purposelyasked her this question, but when did you noticed me play?

she said that, youknow, when you're two, two and a half you'vebeen always hitting against one thing against the other. and then, anything you getyou just start drumming on it. so, those days, it used tobe sort of like customary that when the summer vacationcomes-- i grew up in kolkata. and my parents-- my father, was in the west bengalcivil service in bengal. and so, when the summer timecomes, the holiday will start

and we will go to my ancestral home, which is 76 to 80 kilometersfrom kolkata. it's a place called punjab gharanaand it's a small principality, where my grandfather andhis ancestry came from there and it's nothing but music. >> yasmeen khan: really. >> devapriya nayak: so, mymom came from this family and as she put it many timesthat music to me is in my blood. so but, i don't know how thisparticular instrument got ingrained

or i got sort of like,drawn towards it. and then there are so many otherinstruments which i was exposed to. my mother, she is a fantasticsitar player when she was young. and, she played until, youknow, she was in her late 60's. but, coming back to when we usedto visit the ancestral home, i used to see my grandfatherpractice, his brothers are practicing, eithersitar, vocal, surbahar, jaltarang, tablas, pakhavaj and flute. so, all these instruments werebeing, you know, i was exposed to.

and, i have seen my grandfatherwas teaching three things. one, he used to first start themorning with the vocal, and then, as he's playing vocalhe would play tabla, but i was always drawntowards tabla. so, he saw this interestin me and he said-- and while he was playing andsinging, other students gathered around him, and theywere all just singing. and some of them are either doingit on their leg or they're doing it like this or they'rejust doing this.

>> yasmeen khan: right. >> devapriya nayak:just to keep the beat. i got-- i don't know how, buti somehow got drawn into this. and sooner or later, ican't put my finger on it. but sooner or later,a set of drums came into the picture andi started playing. so nobody really taught me, "ok, this is what you do toplay-- do this sound. or this is what you do to dothis sound, or this sound."

it was just-- i mean,naturally came to me. so before you know it, i wasalready playing with them. and this continued for years. i don't know when it stopped. but eventually, theysaw the interest in me, my-- both my parents. more-- so my-- from my mother sideand then, my father was very busy. so she, at some point, when we movedto kolkata from one summer vacation, she introduced me to a maestrowho was teaching close to my home.

his name is radhakanta nandi. and he was coming closeto my home to teach. and i got into that class and,you know, we started learning and there-- so, there are a lot of neighborhood kidstoo learning tabla. but i somehow started excellingin tabla and i would play with different instruments. probably, because i was playingin my ancestral home and bringing that knowledge, playing with otherinstruments as well as vocal,

as well as, you know, theintricacies that goes with it, i'll bring all of thatand then put in practice. so that's pretty muchhow it happened. and, you know, eventually i've--as i aged, slowly, slowly, i was exposed to differentconferences, concerts and so on. so, that also has a lot of,you know, influence on me. >> yasmeen khan: do you continue--how does that work into music? do you follow the schoolof your first tabla teacher or how do you decide whatstyle your tabla play or is--

i mean, when you talk about yourmusical pedigree, how do you-- >> devapriya nayak: yeah. >> yasmeen khan: -- howdo you talk about that? when you're learning it initially,you don't worry about any of that. you just blindly followyour teacher, ok, whatever the teacheris singing or playing. we learned two thingssimultaneously, the vocal part and the rhythm part. so, how does-- in may case atleast, how does, with a song

or how does with-- how does rhythmfit into a vocal piece so to speak. we call it bandish. >> yasmeen khan: yeah. >> devapriya nayak: in a bandish,how does the vocal part goes? what is the rhythmic pattern in it? what is the-- they call it-- inthe tabla term, it's called theka. how does the theka takesshape in a bandish? so, that's how i learned. now, coming back to the questionof schooling, i mean, later on,

i came to know that thereare six schools in tabla. but the school that i was learningwith my grandfather was punjab. >> devapriya nayak: the schoolthat i came to learn later on in kolkata was benares. so, i did not notice thestyle-- stylistic difference, except when certain syllables,much later i realized it, that there are somedifferences in finger techniques. and we-- initially,when we're learning in my ancestral home following itblindly, when i came to kolkata

after the holidays, wewill follow that blindly. so somehow, a style of my own gotcreated and i just ran with it. >> yasmeen khan: and what-- how would you answer thatquestion about, you know, your musical lineagein terms of style? >> soumya chakraverty: yeah. >> yasmeen khan: andhow you, you know, at this point, get to this point? >> soumya chakraverty: so, i--my creating has differed slightly

from debu's that becausei pretty much learned from one person belongingto one school. we also have at least threedifferent musical lineages for sarod, our schools. but because my training, evento this day that if i've picked up nuances, it has stayedwithin our school of-- and our school comesfrom a small village in northern india calledshahjahanpur, named after the emperor shah jahan.

and the shahjahanpur techniqueis very different from some of the other techniques, one beinggwalior, again, named after a place, which the famous maestro ofsarod, amjad ali khan belongs to. and also, maihar, which was amuch later school but founded by the father of, again, thelegendary ustad allaudin khan. so, these schools have differentplaying techniques, but-- and i've heard them andlike he said, as we grow up, when you are learning you justfollow what is taught to you, but as you grow up and as youlisten to different forms of music

and different playing techniques, you start to discernthose differences and either you can invitethem or you can choose to retain your own specific flavor. i think, with the adventof electronic music, what has happened is the knowledgesharing has become more profound. it used to be pretty much, youknow, based on the formal training that one has from a teacher, andsay, if i learn a composition or a particular raag, i would havelearned it from my guru or teacher.

now, i can just go on to anelectronic medium like youtube and can hear some compositions. and if i like it and i have thecapability of picking it up, i do pick it up and i can play it. personally, i still believe in somewhat keeping theformal school lines just because these differences that--the lines would get blurred, but those differences, ithink, existed for a reason. and somewhere deep down ibelieve in preserving that lineage

and being homaged tothe great maestros that founded thosetechniques and kept those. now, as-- if i want to playsomething outside of my school, i can but i should recognize andacknowledge it that this comes from a different school ratherthan what i formally trained. >> devapriya nayak: that's true. >> soumya chakraverty: so, that's along-winded answer, but hopefully, that kind of explains how we kind of respect each other'sboundary in terms of the schools.

>> yasmeen khan: yeah, andit's kind of difficult to do that nowadays becausethere's such a-- >> yasmeen khan: -- the wordfor it in hindi is [inaudible]. it's a-- it is a >> yasmeen khan: it's sortof a mashup that is always-- >> soumya chakraverty:a mismatch, yeah. >> yasmeen khan: -- possible. >> devapriya nayak: with theway zakir hussain described when i was learning from him--

>> yasmeen khan: from zakir hussain? >> devapriya nayak:from zakir hussain, and this is again differentstyle from punjab. >> devapriya nayak: i came backto punjab much later again. in between, i went tofarukhabad also and still do. but zakir hussain explainedthis as cocktail gharana. >> yasmeen khan: cocktail gharana. cocktail lineage. so now, it would be nice tosort of segue into having each

of you talk a little bit aboutyour instruments and sort of situate them in, you know,the history of this particular-- and how it-- musical instrumentand how it is changing. if it's changing or if you adaptit on an individual level if it, you know, how versatile theseare to change and in adaptation. >> soumya chakraverty: so, the history of the sarod probablygoes back about 200 to 300 years. you know, when you consider how oldindian music is, it doesn't seem that old, probably just, youknow, somewhere on the middle

of the british era in india thatthe sarod formally took its place. and there are many theories ofhow the instrument came to being. some said it was adapted fromother indian instruments, some say it has its rootsin persia and afghanistan and even, you know, middle east. and the fact is that, i think, everybody is true toa certain extent. there are certain aspectsof the instrument that when you hear the instrumentor you look at its shape,

you find similarities withother string instruments like the tar, the rubab, the oud-- >> yasmeen khan: could you bespecific about that in terms of-- in terms of the fact that there's ahollow air chamber, that there's a-- you know, ultimatelyat the end of the day, any kind of plucked instrument isa piece of string or some pieces of string that are onebetween two knotted areas. so, you've got a peg, you'vegot a, you know, eye here. but most of these instruments, thetar, the rubab have a similar type

of shape, a very rounded or somewhatelliptical, in certain cases, a drum which has an air chamber that amplifies the musicand then a finger plate. and they tend to befretless instruments. the instruments that weretraditionally developed in india were fretted instrument. most notably was the awhole family of veenas. the veena is a instrument that'smade from two large pieces of gourd which grows abundantly in indiaand that's attached to a bamboo

or wooden finger board andthey have frets in between and with the strings tightenedon both sides or by pegs. now, because of these twolarge gourds, it's kind of held in an upright position and played. now, there are obviously,variances of these but the veena producesa very deep sound that is amplified by the gourds. when there were some afghanmusicians who were the rubabias, the rubab players,they came to india.

the rubab, if you look at a pictureof it and i wish i had a photo to show you, it is actuallyalmost like a miniature version of the sarod, looks very similar. the only difference is the drumis elliptical and doesn't have as many strings, doeshave a few strings and the strings are madeof either gut or silk. and the-- because the air chamber ismuch shallow and also much smaller, the instrument have a verydull, kind of a blunt sound. but i would also say it's alittle bit more earthy in nature.

>> yasmeen khan: wasn't italso an accompany on a-- >> soumya chakraverty: it is. >> yasmeen khan: -- avocal accompaniment? >> soumya chakraverty: it isa vocal accompaniment mainly as a folk instrument. >> soumya chakraverty: and becauseof there was not a lot of sustenance in the note, it had thiskind of dull clangy sound. it was used to-- as almost like tokeep the beat and in some cases, acted like a percussion, althoughnot a percussion instrument.

so, if you listen to a lotof middle eastern music, you'll hear their rubab beingextensively played even today. so, these were therubabias that were like-- they were marching bandinstrumentalists that came to india and they settled downsomewhere in northern india. and they heard cork musicians in northern india playing theveena and also local music. and they got this idea ofexperimenting with the instrument to make it sound more like a voiceand to have build more sustenance.

so in order to do so,they start to experiment, make it a slightly bigger instrument with the expansionof the air chamber. so, you can see this camel hump, aswe call it, to expand this in a way that it hollows out andconnects with the broader drum. now, what that does, itcreates more resonance and also the strings got replacedwith the advent of metal strings when the metal drawing techniquesand metal strings being available for piano and for other instruments.

metal strings becamepopular somewhere, i think, i'm thinking 18th century andeven maybe later at 19th century, and they started to use them on thesarod as well as other instruments. now-- and the cover on thedrum, it's a sheep-skin color. >> soumya chakraverty:because the size of the air chamber being increased and also another additionalair chamber-- this is all-- serves both as the rest as well asa kind of an additional air chamber. the sound of the sustenance

of the string [music]increased significantly. and that allowed a lot ofmelodic work to be performed which we could not doif you played in a-- with an instrument that didn'thave as much sustenance. so, what started to happen-- and then, the additionof these little strings that go underneath thebridge, the main bridge, which are called the sympatheticstrings and they are for resonance. they're not actually plucked butwhen you play a note by, you know,

this-- being in the samefrequency, it starts to vibrate. and by the vibration itaccentuates the melody. >> yasmeen khan: and were thoseadopted from sitar or veena? >> soumya chakraverty: they wereused in the veena, the surbahar and also some of the othertypes of rubabs that existed. the precursor to the sarodwas another instrument called the sursringar. and if you look at it today, itstill is played in some provinces in northern india, mainly thesikh religion, they use it.

the rubab and the sursringar areused for sikh religious chanting and they have sympatheticstrings, and they-- that's where the sarodiasor the rubabias originally, they started to get this idea. so, after a few roundsof metamorphosis, they created an instrument, whichis very different by the way from the sarod that you see today. and the-- so, initial sarods had avery elliptical drum and the depth of the air chamber was not as much.

but over course of time,with more experimentation, there was more resonanceadded to it. and it continue-- toanswer your question, yes, it continues to evolve. there have been manydifferent variations added, like this rounded drum finallycame through the maihar gharana. although, i belong tothe shahjahanpur gharana, i play this round drum instrument,which is an experimentation that was [inaudible] andmade this drum more round,

thereby having a morerounded and deep sound. and, you know, these days withthe advent of electronic music, there's also, you know,experimentation going on with making electronicversions of the sarod, which again, i would call out backif there's difference between an acoustic guitarand a classical guitar. their sound is very differentinstruments, they are both guitars but they are very differentinstruments. and likewise, the electric sarod

and the regular classical sarodare very different instruments. so, that's a bit about my--well this instrument, obviously, there's a lot of technicaldetails i can go into. but i'll see if you haveany other questions. >> yasmeen khan: we'll move on todebu for now and then come back. >> devapriya nayak: ok. so regarding tabla, tabla isrelatively in the annals of history with other indian percussiveinstruments, a relatively young instrument.

it happened-- in other words,a tabla came to india as part of probably the musliminvasion that took place in many times in the indian history. but it came around-- and there areagain, different school of thoughts, it came around between13th and 14th century. and during these invasionsfrom persia to india, a lot of learned men andphilosophers and musicians, they also came and they remained inindia, never went back with them. one of these, i callit saint or musicians

so to speak was amir khusrow. >> yasmeen khan: all right. >> soumya chakraverty:and he was a poet also. >> devapriya nayak:and he was a poet also. and he wrote many-- >> yasmeen khan: many music, yeah. >> devapriya nayak: -- many-- he created many musicalinstruments as well. >> devapriya nayak:so, and there are--

anyway, there are differentschool of thoughts about amir khusrow beingthe creator of tabla or not. so, amir khusrow, one thingthey're, you know, and they do agree on that here is a guy who came frompersia and studied indian music. and how did he do that? by going to different places. and one of the areas that hewent was he used to listen to the hindu chants in the temples. and with the chants came a lot

of the musical chantsthat he used to observe. and he used to observe,not only the chants, the way the melodicstructure was coming through, he also used to observe the musicalinstruments that are being played with these melodies and chants. one such instrumentis called pakhawaj. >> yasmeen khan: yes. i heard this apocryphalstory of that. >> devapriya nayak: yes.

and pakhawaj is knownas the mother of tabla. >> devapriya nayak: why? because pakhawaj used to bepart of the particular type of genre called dhrupad sangeet. and dhrupad used to be calledthe original classical form of vocal music. and pakhawaj used tobe played, still does, and the people playpakhawaj with it. but amir khusrow lookedat that instrument

and he had a different idea. he thought that-- >> soumya chakraverty: maybe youshould describe what the pakhawaj looks like. >> yasmeen khan: yeah,what it looks like? >> devapriya nayak: well, the pakhawaj is a cylindricalinstrument, ok. so, if i put it bluntly,it will look like this. so, if you put it sidewise, itwill have a bigger head to play it

like this in a sidewiseway and played like this. >> soumya chakraverty: andit's played with a slap. >> devapriya nayak: andthe slap, et cetera. but, you know, i will cometo that when i will explain to you the way thefinger techniques evolved. so, what happened was--his idea was, this instrument couldbe played better if we sit in an upright position. now, the geographical location

of amir khusrow atthis point was delhi. and because he came up withthis instrument in delhi, the delhi gharana started. so, delhi school of tablaplaying started and the first guy in recorded history that we knowof, his name is siddhar khan. and siddhar khan belong todelhi and he was living close to where amir khusrow's dargahwas, where he used to live. and siddhar khan picked it up andhe started playing it and sooner or later, a school was formed.

delhi gharana started. and as he was, you know, as theschool was getting older and older, different students came to learnfrom him and then they would learn from him and they wouldfind their own way to tweak the instrument and so on. speaking of the instrumentitself, the first instrument in recorded history as i know itis made of wood as pakhawaj was. he just cuts it into half,put it in an upright position and made it a bassy sortof sound on the left hand

and on the right hand,a sharper sound. the instrument is madeout of rawhide from goat or sheep from-- the same for here. and these straps arealso from the same-- >> yasmeen khan: material. >> devapriya nayak: -- material. however, the chamberin the left-hand drum to create the bassy soundat that point was wood. and then later on, as we--

as it evolved, it became clay because the clay pot wasbeing played in the south. somebody had this idea thatif we change that to clay, the bassy sound wouldbe even more bassier. so, that was experimentedwith, it went on for a while. if you look at the picturesof old like 18th century or 17th century tabla player, you will see they'reeither wood or clay. it is around 1900 something,1902, 1903, around that time,

this experimentationreached in the brass era. so, the brass came to replacethe clay for concert purposes. it makes them look good. >> devapriya nayak: it shines. it shines and the soundgets heavier and heavier. and as-- if you notice the oldpictures, you will see that these-- the drums itself was a lot smaller. >> devapriya nayak: andso, as the metal enter-- as metal entered the picture, youwill notice that it became fuller

and more rounder in shape and thesound also improved along with that. however, in this case, it's stillis wood but they experimented with different types ofwood and they found the teak or neem wood gives the bettersound when you put the hide on top. and the one other thing, thereare lots of experimentation went to get the clearer sound. [background sound] thereare actually three sound. this keenar sound, which is theshadj sound and the middle sound which is called the maidansound, the swara of the tabla.

and then the black ball sound,which is the flat sound. and then, there's a resonatingsound, the conch shell sound. so these four sounds, alsothey're in pakhawaj except that it's played differently. here, we rely most ofthe time on the finger. we don't use the entirehand for the tabla and it's difficult inan upright position. however, when you're playingit like this, you're playing it like this, this technique is used.

>> devapriya nayak: so-- >> soumya chakraverty: slap. >> devapriya nayak: -- this slap-- >> yasmeen khan: that'sstart with the pakhawaj. >> devapriya nayak: yeah,that's the pakhawaj style. and they've come up withthe same sound [music]. this sound [music]and tabla replaced that with this sound[music] and as you can tell that this sound is sweeterthan the pakhawaj sound.

so, in terms of the sound technique, a lot of experimentsare still being made. the zakir hussain has come up with the fourth fingersound, he's in tabla. and just a little bitof detail, in tabla, this is what we call the workhorse,this finger, the index finger. the middle finger iscalled the flat finger, which is used for flat soundalso for the swara sound. the third finger is also used not insome gharanas, not like in benares

for example, they don't use thethird finger, they use three finger. but in farrukhabad andlucknow, these fingers are used, so that the middle and the third. so, zakir hussain hasexperimented with this a lot and so, he now uses this one also. so, there are certain syllablesfor playing fast speed syllable. he used this many times and he showed us thetechnique how to use it. for example, when thereis a super fast speed

of teental or 16 beats cycle going. >> yasmeen khan: yup. >> devapriya nayak:and he is using it and it's creating thesame amount of resonance. of course, it requiresa lot of practice too. but it's producing the same kind oftone and the sound for playing that. and coming back to your questionon the technique part of it that evolved from thepakhawaj to tabla, a lot of changes had beenmade in terms of compositions.

so, the composition thatoriginated in delhi that is played with two finger has now movedeast which we call purab. purab baj means the style of thepurab, the style of the east. composition has evolved. some are used for dance, for dancingfeet, of the court of the maharajas and the, you know, differentprincipality later on. some evolved just forplaying solo purposes. there is an entirerepertoire on play-- for playing tabla solowhich is called peshkar.

peshkar came from the same thingas we understand, you know, the rhythmic formatfollow a vocal format. so in vocal, there is-- whenthe instrument is being played, there is something called alap, there is no rhythmicexpression there. so in tabla, peshkar is avery meditative type movement in the finger of drumming. and slowly, slowly itbuilds it up to kaydas, which is a fixed compositionand then to relas

which is fast composition andthen there are guts which is like a composition that is dividedinto three cyclical patterns. >> yasmeen khan: andthese are just musical-- these are solely for tabla? >> devapriya nayak: the tablas. >> yasmeen khan: andthey have a history. and the history goes from placeto place to place and as you know that those days, therewere no internet, there was no trainsor anything like that.

so, the gharanas grew around delhi. so, from delhi to up, uttar pradesh,which is the next state adjacent to delhi, these arewhere the maharajas and their courts were settledand all the gharanas are around like delhi is the firstthen came the farrukhabad and lucknow, which is the next two. and then, a small village next to lucknow is calledajrara, which is number four. and they all have theirspecial type of techniques.

and they specializeon finger techniques and then they teach their studentshow to go about performing those. >> yasmeen khan: so, it leads-- youknow, it makes me want to ask you to play some of that for us. >> devapriya nayak: sure. >> yasmeen khan: but we'renot going to lose that. i'm going to go back to soumyaand debu mentioned a lot and so, i'd like you, if possible,to talk about how, you know, a bit about the raga structure.

as a musician, how do you approachit, when you're going to play it? the amount of, youknow, everyday talks about how much improvisationthere is in indian music but clearly during the concertthat you gave, you know, you weren't improvising duringthe performance, i would think, because it was a short performance. you have to-- so, can you discuss-- >> soumya chakraverty:i was improvising. >> yasmeen khan: duringthe performance?

such a short performance? yeah. >> yasmeen khan: so, i mean--i'd like you to talk about that-- >> soumya chakraverty:everything about it is-- >> yasmeen khan: andhow do you communicate that between the two of you. so, i would say, in thatwhole performance that we had for about an hour, thereare these fixed, you know, compositions that are almostlike used as motifs both

for tabla and for the instrument. and they have a certain cyclicalpattern, like if you would go back to the pieces that i played,the first composition was based to a seven beat cyclecalled rupak tal. and then the second one was,you know, more faster, 16 beat. but the point is the embellishmentof those compositions as well as the alap piece which is,you know, i am [inaudible] kind of from rhythmic pattern. that's all, you know, improvisation.

and if you ask me toplay it now again like exactly the way i playedit, i would not be able to play that, repeat that. because it was, atthat point in time, how i was thinking andexpressing already. the melody might sound familiarbecause there's obviously the raag. every raag has a differentway of movement. but it's-- this is where, youknow, i've worked extensively with western musicians, indianmusic tends to differ a lot.

maybe somewhat closer to jazzbut the other thing i was going to say at-- too, when debu wastalking about the various schools of music, is our musical traditionhas been mostly an oral tradition. and all of these things that-- he talked about the varioussyllables and, you know, whether it's various melodiesor melodic compositions, up until about 70 years ago therewas no written history of any music. it was all passed orally fromone master to their students then to their students to their students.

it's amazing if you think about it. and for a person to retain thatkind of music, whether it be melodic or rhythmic or whatever have you,in their minds and heads and to able to pass that from generation togeneration without losing it, it's an amazing accomplishment,human accomplishment. but then, you know, when musicwas more formalized and especially after independence of india whenit was being taught more openly in schools, there was aneed to document that. and so, annotationsystem came by but it--

again, so, because it wasan oral tradition, there's-- there was a lot of freedomgiven to both the precautionist, the instrumentalist orthe vocalist to express. it's a way of self expressing,of course, there are boundaries, there's definitely grammaticalnuances of how you move around whether it's araag or a taal scale. but then, it is all up to theartist or artists to find ways of expression withinthose boundaries. and so, if i play a certainraag that has a certain scale,

i liken that to a scalein western music. but it is not like as formalscale like you know it like you're playing a c minor scale. because even within the same scale,there could be three different raags and just the nuances created bythe rest notes and certain ways that you move around creates awhole different experience for-- from an audience perspective. >> yasmeen khan: could you-- doyou have an example of like some-- >> soumya chakraverty: yup.

>> yasmeen khan: speaking ofa couple of different raags that use the same notes butare played in a different-- >> soumya chakraverty: yeah i'm-- >> yasmeen khan: within a differentorder to create a different-- >> soumya chakraverty: absolutely. i can play a few-- and these scales,the basis of indian classical music. so there are these 10 basic scales. we, at least in north indianmusic, we call them thaats. and then the thaats are--

they're composed of like allseven notes in the scale. and the raags when--the ragas as created by picking certain notesamong the seven note scale and then creating somepatterns of movement so you-- the ascending and descendingpattern differ. so, a very common. [ music ] [background music] sorry. i'm just too-- this is like the,actually, electronic version

of a tanpura, which is a dronewhich keeps my basic key. so, i'm in the key of c andthat's where i'm going to-- this matches my sa and his swar. so, we're all in sync together. >> soumya chakraverty: so, whati'm going to do is play something that is in the key of orthe thaat called khamaj. and i'm going to play what thekhamaj that, the notes are. so, plain, do, re, mi,fa, so, la, ti, do. the only difference is thatwhen i came back down the scale,

i used the flatter seventh note. now, using that and just byremoving certain things from-- as i go up certain notesfrom the ascending-- from i ascend and thenpositioning certain other notes, i can create a raag. for example, if i omitthe second note in-- on my way up, which isthe [music] and just play. i've create-- this is raagkhamaj, which is very close to thaat khamaj butit's very different.

so, i'm just goingto play a little-- a few bars then you can getthe essence of this raga. so, that's khamaj. now, what if i use-- instead ofthe-- omitting the second note, i actually going to use the second. i'm going to omit the third note and the sixth noteand let it sound like. that's a very differentmelodic picture as you can well appreciateto a khamaj.

and it's called rag desh. so, using the same scale, i can gofrom rag to rag to rag and then, in some cases, youknow, there are notes-- additional notes that are introducedthat are not natural to the scale, they're called [inaudible]swars or conflicting notes. so, for example, again, stickingto the same thaat of khamaj. now, i've gone into another raag that again has a differentmelodic appeal, it's called raag jaijaiwanti.

and this goes on and on and on. so-- >> yasmeen khan: so,the thaat is the scale? >> soumya chakraverty:the thaat is the scale. so, it's seven notes. and within that, i canlayer in different notes and also the way i amplaying those notes and accentuating certain notes. like for example, thekhamaj raag was based

where there was more accent on the third note [music]and the seventh note. whereas, in raag desh, the accent ison the re which is the second note and the mi which isthe seventh note. so, there you can see that that-- and the two sentimentsof the two raags in the melodies are very different. and that's how theraags get developed. and it's-- these aretraditional raags and of course,

people tend to blenddifferent things and create their ownraags in certain cases. >> yasmeen khan: how doyou decide what kind of-- what drum cycle or thaat isgoing to be played with-- how do you guys decide thatwith the raag if, you know, if you're going to perform? >> devapriya nayak: that depends onthe composition that it's set to. and that comes from theperson who has composed it. it could be him.

it could be his guru-- >> devapriya nayak: -- or itcould be his guru but some raags that are like-- it's always beenlike that that came for ages. and that-- >> yasmeen khan: that it alwayshas a specific beat cycle. >> devapriya nayak:yeah, a specific set. but i mean, technically, youcould play any raag in any cycle. and, often, there used tobe a healthy competition in the olden days whenthe instrumentalist

or vocalist would start playingand would look at the percussionist to catch up and figure out. like-- >> soumya chakraverty: --you need to figure out where. >> devapriya nayak: and thatit's like a hide and seek game. you know, the tabla player, therhythm person is trying to figure out what taal or whatstructure it is set to. >> devapriya nayak: and sometimes,it takes almost three, four cycles-- >> soumya chakraverty:to figure that out.

>> devapriya naya: --to figure that out. >> yasmeen khan: and does thatcreate sort of a healthy tension within the-- betweenthe two players? >> devapriya nayak: it is. it is. it's all playful-- >> soumya chakraverty: -- but the idea is that ifyou're worth your training that you should be ableto figure that out.

nowadays of course, peoplediscuss it and play, you know, beforehand when they were warmingup for that-- before the concert, they'll have a discussion. and so, i would tell him, "hey,i'm going to play sevens," or "i'm going to play 16th." >> yasmeen khan: but would-- so, the instrumentalist wouldalways have a good grounding in the percussion? >> soumya chakraverty:yeah and i think--

>> yasmeen khan: but are youunusual and that you have had-- >> soumya chakraverty: no, no. i think it's part of our training,and it goes the same way with the-- >> yasmeen khan: couldyou turn that off? >> soumya chakraverty:it goes the same way with the percussionist also. he talked about learningvocal music. i think, the total trainingof indian music consists of the vocal component, thepercussion of the rhythmic component

and then if you areplaying an instrument, you learn some other instrument. in some cases-- >> devapriya nayak: actually, what iwas going to say is that, you know, internally, when i'mperforming with somebody, i'm actually singing inside. >> yasmeen khan: oh really? and, you know, and i'm also playingit through my hand but internally, i'm actually doing-- goingthrough the singing part and sort

of layering the rhythm on top ofit, which i could hear internally. >> yasmeen khan: ofcourse, you have. >> soumya chakraverty: andthe melody is very important because not two melody is the sameand the type of theka that he talked about earlier, you know, it variesbased on the type of melody. so, in case we have rehearsed it and he has heard the melody then hewould probably have figured it out. but if we hadn't met each otherand we're meeting first time on stage then it is really upto the percussionist to listen

and that's why it isso important to listen to each other and figure it out. again, i say this goingback to what i said earlier. it's and old tradition. >> soumya chakraverty:it is based on-- and you asked a question asto how do you keep in sync? it's by hearing. we are not looking-- well, sometimes, we make eyecontact but mostly we're-- i'm--

>> devapriya nayak:you're listening. >> soumya chakraverty: -- listeningto where he's coming in terms of his rhythmic cycle and wherei'm at and we're communicating. >> devapriya nayak: and basically,what the music is saying. >> yasmeen khan: so, could we--would it be possible for you to play and you to figure out what the-- >> yasmeen khan: -- cycle is? >> yasmeen khan: canwe-- and see that? >> and you can turn the drum back.

>> yasmeen khan: and you can turn-- >> soumya chakraverty: yes. yeah, of course, i will. >> devapriya nayak: and i just-- i was just going tosay one funny incident that happened two weeks ago. there is a vocalist, i think, isend you guys the invite to that. >> devapriya nayak: thevocalist came from kolkata and she is a young vocalist andi have never heard her before.

i've heard over theinternet and stuff but i've never heardher real concert. and she started singing aparticular bandish, a particular gut in 12 beats, but it'sfaster 12 beats. but the 12 beats soundedlike 16 beats. >> yasmeen khan: becauseshe was singing fast? >> devapriya nayak:she was singing fast. to me, it was more like 16 than 12. and she was singing it insuch a way that it was sort

of to play with me, i guess. >> devapriya nayak:that was the idea. and a lot of time, it's accepted,that we don't know each other. we are playing for the first time,coming here for the first time and then we perform and wehaven't had a rehearsal. so, that happened and i picked up 16 and then she said,"no, no, it's 12." so then-- >> yasmeen khan: and how did shesay that while she's singing?

>> soumya chakraverty: well-- >> devapriya nayak:no, she just whispered. >> yasmeen khan: whispered. ok. but it's all part andparcel of the game. i mean, you're notsupposed to know everything. that's good. >> devapriya nayak: so yeah. >> yasmeen khan: so let--

>> soumya chakraverty: and there'sanother funny story i would tell if we have the time. this is in many, many years ago, when pandit ravi shankarwas a very young man. he and then, there was a very famoustabla player pandit samta prasad. they were playing ina concert in kolkata. and they were in the living room andpandit ravi shankar had practiced with him somethingin 16 beats cycle. when he went on stage--

>> devapriya nayak: he changed. >> soumya chakraverty:-- he changed it to a 15 beat cycle called panchamsawari, the same composition. he played with the same composition,he just pick away one note and, you know, that made itto a 15 composition. now, samta prasad had being heardthis thing-- and this was just, you know, ravi shankarplaying with samta prasad. he took off on a runand without realizing that ravi shankar isplaying pancham sawari.

it's the same composition, andjust think of the brilliance of the man that-- and of course helands on some place and, you know, ravi shankar some-- andthis happened a few times and in front of a live audience. so then, samta prasad just,you know, stopped playing. and then-- and almost ravi shankarwould, you know, smile at him and said, this is panchamsawari and then they continued. but the-- it emphasizes the pointof listening and the concept of listening to each other.

>> i just had a question about-- but then, you can askand they can edit it, about the vocalization you saidthat you sing while you play along. are you vocalizing? are you singing words? are you? >> devapriya nayak: i'mjust singing the melody. >> yasmeen khan: which is-- >> you're singing the--

>> soumya chakraverty: you-- he-- >> devapriya nayak: i'mjust singing internally. i'm not, you know, letting it out. >> but-- >> devapriya nayak: but onthe tabla, i am layering it on that part that i'msinging inside. >> yasmeen khan: areyou singing syllables? are you singing-- >> devapriya nayak:just the melody itself.

>> yasmeen khan: just the melody. >> yasmeen khan: just-- >> and when you would listen toyour grandfather and his students, were they vocalizing--they were vocalizing loud-- >> is that right? yes, and during the rehearsal orduring the-- and it happens a lot. i mean, let's say for example, he's going to play a raagthat is set to 7 beats. and the seven is not always clearor accented, the seventh note,

you know, where it'shitting the very first note. in tabla language, it's called sum. and the sum is notvery clear where the-- in the gut or the bandishis starting. and it's purposely done that way. the composer have that in mindthat i want to keep it that way, i want to create it that way. and that's the beautyof the history. that's the mystery.

and so, when that was being done itis creating confusion in the mind of the tabla player so weclear that up either the end of the learning processor during the rehearsal. but imagine if it is notcleared up in either way, so we clear it up on stage. so that there's no confusion >> and does-- whenyour vocalist came, was she vocalizing with syllables? or was she singing chords?

>> yasmeen khan: yeahthat's the question -- >> devapriya nayak: she wassinging-- vocalizing with the words. >> so you were-- withsome compositions, there are words, poetry-- vocal music has a, you know,obviously has a language. instrumental music does not havea language and, you know, again, there are two syllables insarod and you can create a lot of different patterns with it. but there's no language per se.

>> yasmeen khan: but you dosay [inaudible] for singing? >> yasmeen khan: and then, for tablayou have different vocalization? >> devapriya nayak: phrases. >> yasmeen khan: phrases and for -- >> soumya chakraverty:but vocal music also-- >> yasmeen khan: and for a sarod, do you have differentphrases or different-- so, we have two syllables. so, as i said, the down stroke whichis the [music] and the up stroke

which is the [music] and then,with that, you can create-- -- various types of pattern. [ humming ] but the point is that you canlayer it into any kind of music. and your vocalizations would be-- >> devapriya nayak: my vocalizationin terms of melodic part-- >> yasmeen khan: for the tabla. >> devapriya nayak: --for the tabla is going to see how it is matchingthe melodic part that,

the tabla language is different. >> yasmeen khan: yeah which is? >> devapriya nayak: forexample, if i'm playing a na which is this [music] or na tin tinna [music] or na ton ton na [music] or na te de [music], all of theseis matching the melodic part. so, the melodic parthas sa re ga ma. >> yasmeen khan: right,which is the voice. >> devapriya nayak: and like hesaid, there's seven notes, right? >> devapriya nayak: i can matchthose seven notes and come

up with a particularrhythmic structure, right? but i am humming it internally tomatch my rhythmic structure to that. >> soumya chakraverty:but also, i think, part of yasmeen's question wasthat you do have like a ball-- >> devapriya nayak: yes, yes. >> soumya chakraverty: that theball is the rhythmic pattern. >> devapriya nayak: right. >> soumya chakraverty:and that's also recited. so, there is an oraltradition of that.

so, it is said in tabla and iknow this because i learned it for a few years that you can onlyplay it if you can recite it. and you can only play it fastif you can recite it fast. >> yasmeen khan: but as a tablaplayer, you have to know your balls as well as the melodic ballsand-- so, that's a lot of-- and if you got a down set andthe down set has different -- >> soumya chakraverty: right. >> yasmeen khan: melodic balls -- >> devapriya nayak: yes, yeah.

>> yasmeen khan: -- and so, yougot to know what all of that means and how it relates to everything. >> devapriya nayak: aboslutely. >> yasmeen khan: --which is pretty complex. and the fun part of itis it's often improvised. i can't remember if it was atthe concert that i played here or at some other concert, in a veryfast section of the composition, we were exchangingballs with each other. so i was--

>> devapriya nayak: i thinkit was here [inaudible]. so, it's like a q&a. >> soumya chakraverty: andso-- and, you know, i'm playing and he is responding andthen we come together. so, that is done very commonand it's a tradition that came from mostly from danceand the percussion is, but it also has crept its waythrough instrumental music. >> yasmeen khan: that'spretty interesting. so, should we try and see if you--

>> yasmeen khan: -- can figureout what soumya is playing. >> soumya chakraverty: so, i'm going to play a few traditionalcompositions. [background music] and there isone composition that he likes a lot and this one you can see-- thisis a very traditional composition by a famous maestro in my schoolmany, many generations ago. and it's set to 16beat in the raag kamod. but if you listen to it andyou can see the unusual pattern in this-- with this count--

>> devapriya nayak:i say that this-- >> yasmeen khan: so-- >> devapriya nayak: -- compositionwas in the tabla language. so, it may not be 16 beatsis what you're saying? you've got to figure it out? >> devapriya nayak: no, it is16 beats but you don't know where the beginningand where the end. >> but you don't know where thebeginning and where the end. >> yasmeen khan: so, thatwould be kind of interesting

if you talked through it as well -- >> soumya chakraverty: yup >> yasmeen khan: --while your playing it. >> soumya chakraverty: this isthe part where we're improvising like rather he knows nori know where we're going. so, this is the unknown [inaudible]. what i played up until now is thefixed part of the composition. >> soumya chakraverty: and youcould hear in that composition that it has this unusual of stopin the middle, unusual pause.

and if you are not-- if you haven'theard that composition before-- >> soumya chakraverty: -- it isvery difficult to figure it out. but it, you know, in the oldendays, it used to be played on stage and yeah you figure it out and-- >> soumya chakraverty:-- come along. >> soumya chakraverty: so, it startsfrom the, you know, the first beat and he and i have practiced a fewtimes, played this on many concerts so he knew exactlywhich composition it is. this is like the melodicpart of it, so he knows that.

>> devapriya nayak: so, you know, translating that intoa tabla player's mind. >> devapriya nayak: so, i'm thinking yeah, that's where the gap is. >> soumya chakraverty:that's the stop. >> devapriya nayak:that's where the stop is which is making the melody so nice. but that's also a marking point forme that is where this beat goes. which is my marking for that area.

and after that, i don't knowwhat's going to happen, ok. >> yasmeen khan: and what reachesthat that goes into the empty spot. >> devapriya nayak: so that, goingafter the ninth or the tenth. so, we are fluctuating betweenthat and then moving away. and then he could [inaudible]area and i have no idea. i'm just keeping the theka alive. if you move the theka,it's completely lost. >> soumya chakraverty: and i'm,also as an instrumentalist, listening for what he is playing

and i'm layering mymusic to go with that. so, there's a lot of-- that'swhy we call it as a conversation. and often, in a concert you don'tpick that up but there's a lot of technicality behind it that whathe is playing, what i'm playing, we're constantly boundingoff each other. >> yasmeen khan: yeah, because imean, if you're looking at the tabla in terms of sort of a western drum,there's no clear, you know, beat, structure that somebody who's usedto listening to just a regular-- >> yasmeen khan: -- westerndrum can actually pick up.

>> devapriya nayak: becausewestern drums are very structured. >> devapriya nayak: andthere is no language to it. so, you just pretty muchgoing by them, the sound-- >> yasmeen khan: ofthe bass drum, yeah. >> devapriya nayak: --of the bass and so on. but if i throw you offto a different intro of style then you cannotcome back to that one. >> yasmeen khan: so, couldyou play a 16 beat sample? >> devapriya nayak: sure

>> yasmeen khan: -- and namethe beats as you're going. >> devapriya nayak: right, right. >> yasmeen khan: first, second-- >> devapriya nayak: so first,i'm going to describe it as one, two, three, four. so, the 16 beats is going like one,two, three, four, two, two, three, four, three, three, three,four, four, four, two, four. ok. so, or we can say-- [ humming and drum beating ]

-- this is the language thatreplaced one, two, three, four. >> devapriya nayak: ok? now, once you established thisrhythmic structure then you can do just about anything and there arelike thousands of compositions to travel around that cycle. so, for example, i'm just givingyou the beat and then moving around to do the differentthings, so. [ counting and drum beating ] >> [background music]soumya chakraverty:

and you should talkabout what a tihai is. >> devapriya nayak: a tihai issomething that repeats three times. tihai, three. >> devapriya nayak: and something, it could be a syllablerepeating three times, it could be a compositionrepeating three times or it could be just a setpattern repeating three times. for example, there's apattern called [inaudible]. is a tihai.

>> yasmeen khan: and youcan play that with any-- >> devapriya nayak: you caninsert that in anywhere. >> yasmeen khan: any rhythmic cycle? >> devapriya nayak: in acomposition, rhythmic cycle. >> devapriya nayak: as long asit's hitting the first beat. so, you-- you're insertinga repetition of three whether it's the entirecomposition or whether it's-- i'll show you the example of justtihai applied in different areas. for example, just a syllablerepeating three times.

i'm repeating a particularphrase three times. so, phrase repeating three times. now, the entire compositionrepeating three times. there's a small composition for thebeginners level wherein they learn. it's called-- it startswith kut [phonetic]. this phrase is called kut. the entire phrase repeatedthree times. and you can play itin different speed and the way we keep speedis by clapping our signs.

and the word in our language, the word rhythmic patternis called taal. >> devapriya nayak: andtaal came from clapping. >> devapriya nayak:it's called taal. so the-- where we keep the speed,one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12,13, 14, 15, 16, and one, ok? one, two, three, four, five,six, seven, keeping the taal in the same speed, or sayingit in different times. so, that also has a different effectand preparing the tihai on the spot

for it to match that oneis something that you-- >> yasmeen khan: you have to-- >> devapriya nayak: --make, sort of workout. >> yasmeen khan: because theone is the beat that is-- >> yasmeen khan: -- everybody hearsthat, that's the beat you hear. you may know everythingelse might just sort of-- >> soumya chakraverty: and thecompositions in instrumental or vocal music are also normally toemphasize main note is that one-- it's the starting pointof the beat cycle.

now, the composition may notbegin from the one but you-- it's always the main emphasis noteand that's where the instrumentalist and the percussionisthand off each other. >> yasmeen khan: so that's--that occurs throughout the-- >> soumya chakraverty: throughout. >> yasmeen khan: --throughout the composition. >> yasmeen khan: it's notjust the beginning where the-- that note is emphasizedbut throughout. so, you may have somethingthat starts from the--

maybe the ninth noteor the 12th note. but the compositionmay start from there, but the main note itwill always hit is the-- and i'm going to startto demonstrate that by playing somethingso that you can see that. so this composition that i'mgoing to play in a different raag, it starts from-- and i'mgoing to give it away and it starts from the seventh beat. but you can see that the emphasisof the composition is going

to be on that first beat. so, you could see that inthis case, that emphasize of that composition was at [music]that kind of that slow drawn out melody but that was thehighlight of that whole-- the entire compositionand he knows that. >> devapriya nayak: to him,but to me, the marking point-- >> yasmeen khan: that's it. >> devapriya nayak:now, that's the-- >> soumya chakraverty:that's the landing point.

>> devapriya nayak: that'smy landing point and that's where the thing is starting. so, to us, music istalking to us differently. >> devapriya nayak: from-- to me,it's the tabla player's language, for him it's the melodic languagebut the appeal is the same. >> yasmeen khan: andyou're syncing both. >> devapriya nayak: andwe are syncing those two. just-- so, how arewe doing for time? >> we're fine, it'sabout five to four.

so, it-- are there other thingsthat you want to talk about or cover, i mean, it's very-- >> yasmeen khan: i mean,we can talk forever. >> soumya chakraverty:that's the point. >> devapriya nayak: and there'sso many things to talk about. >> thirty-four minutes left. >> left. and [inaudible]. >> yasmeen khan: we got30 something minutes. >> you have that ifyou like to use it.

come on make some gimmick? and, you know, what we could dois demonstrate a few different rhythmic cycles. >> yasmeen khan: well,that would be great. >> soumya chakraverty: andalso, the fact that, you know, i think i made this point duringthe concert of how we can start from a very slow tempo and thenit builds up to the, you know, the very fast tempo andyou can go on there. so, there's so many differentrhythmic patterns we talked about.

there was 100 to 165 taals. >> yasmeen khan: so, thisone question i have though about rhythmic patternand maybe especially, i think, in the 16 beats. they talked about theempty beat, the khali? >> yasmeen khan: so, is that-- canyou talk a little bit about that? >> yasmeen khan: and see ifthat is in the other beats that you're going to talk about. and you should talked about not onlyin 16 beat but talk about rupak tal.

>> soumya chakraverty:because it starts from a khali. so, introduce the concept of khali. so the concept of khali oremptiness are no-clap, so to speak. so, the way the 16 beats-- and one of the reasons it'scalled the mother of all taals because this is the first thingwe learn when we start tabla. why do we learn that? because within 16 beats,all the other taals, all the other majortaals are hidden.

so, it's sort of like a clueto learn other taals also. and that's where thetali-khali concept comes. and the way the-- the waywe keep tali-khali or clap or no-clap is the veryfirst beat is clapped and the fifth beat is clapped andthen the ninth beat is not clapped. and then the 12the, 13th beatis not-- is clapped again. so, the way we keep count of thatis one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11,12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and one. >> devapriya nayak: so, ifi use the tabla language,

now, this is my formulaof the 16 beats. and i want to demonstrate to you howthe other taals are hidden in it. so, but you were keepingthe 16 beat alive, now you're saying kaherava,which is four beats. sorry. this is six beats. there. >> yasmeen khan: so theninth is always dropped. >> yasmeen khan: wherever it goes. and the same way, if i'msaying kaherava, which is four.

so, kaherava and then, you know,there are rupak tal, seven beats, nine beats and it getsmore and more complicated. >> soumya chakraverty: but onething i'd like to clarify just to-- you feel-- i mean, he showed thatthose other beat cycles can exist within the 16 strike-- cycle. but if you just want to recite like he recited dadra,which is six beats. and then, you want to showthat same counting, it's one, two, three, four, five, six.

so, the same clap andblank technique comes into other forms as well. >> yasmeen khan: oh, intoother beat cycles as well. >> devapriya nayak: yes,because if they're your major-- the reason why i didn'tgo into that is because here are my--tintal is my major. the other is being played as minor. but if i make-- let's say, dadra asmajor and then tintal within the-- >> soumya chakraverty:so, you're overlaying.

>> devapriya nayak:you're overlaying it. >> devapriya nayak: and that'swhere it gets complicated. but, you know, interestinglynot every beat cycle starts from the claps. so, i was asking him about rupak. rupak is a seven beat cycle. >> soumya chakraverty: it's-- >> devapriya nayak:so it goes like-- >> soumya chakraverty: yeah, so--

>> yasmeen khan: so howdoes that work out on-- so, when you're playing thetabla, your fingers do not touch. >> devapriya nayak: no,but internally, we're-- >> yasmeen khan: you'renot making any-- >> soumya chakraverty:it's a softer note. >> yasmeen khan: it's a soft-- >> soumya chakraverty: we have din,means-- i mean, also, in the tintal, when he is playing thekhali, it's a softer note. it's not a--

>> soumya chakraverty:it's not a heavy note. and more often, he'snot playing the dayan, he's just making atonic sound with dayan. >> devapriya nayak: with the dayan. so, it's going like-- >> yasmeen khan: [backgroundmusic] was that the khali? so you can hear the softer note. as a audience, you can alwayssee where the tali-khali is and, you know, listening if you knowthe music then you appreciate that.

but the idea of the tali-kalicame from where there is emphasis on certain beats and whetherit's softer or draw back on-- >> soumya chakraverty: -- obviously. you still have to keep the beatbut, you know, since you mentioned, there is also-- thereare certain beat cycles where there is a blanknote, truly a blank note. for example, there's a taal patterncalled dhamar, it's a 14 beat cycle. the legend goes that it came-- itwas drawn from an elephant's walk. now, so, why don'tyou recite dhamar?

so, the dhamar tal is 14. it goes like-- >> soumya chakraverty: so, you--there are two blanks in there. >> soumya chakraverty:he recited the-- >> yasmeen khan: so how is that-- and how does that work out on the-- >> devapriya nayak: on this? >> yasmeen khan: -- tabla? >> devapriya nayak: it'sactually came from [inaudible].

>> yasmeen khan: ok that one. >> devapriya nayak: so, thisparticular taal used to be, still is, sung with dhrupad, buta lot of the instrumentalist-- >> soumya chakraverty: lethim play and then i'm-- >> devapriya nayak: andthen he will do the melody. >> soumya chakraverty: a melodythat is set with dhamar tal. >> devapriya nayak:so, it goes like this. as you can see the significancewith the elephant walk. >> yasmeen khan: itdoes definitely sounds.

just like this kindof poddling elephant. and the idea is that becauseof those two blank notes or blank rhythms, it can throw theinstrumentalist or the vocalist off. so, this is the-- >> yasmeen khan: their revenge. >> soumya chakraverty: -- revengeon [inaudible] revenge on that. so, i'm going to play a littlecomposition set to raag kedar and this was composed bymy teacher's contemporary, a very famous musicianpandit budhadev dasgupta.

and this, again, this starts fromthe eighth beat but we can again see where the emphasisof the melody points to that sound or the starting beat. >> yasmeen khan: perfect. very different from-- >> devapriya nayak: verydifferent, very different. >> soumya chakraverty:no, but this is-- this actually gave you aflavor of the ancient tradition that they will talk aboutwhich is the dhrupad style.

>> soumya chakraverty: andthere's a vocal aspect of this type of composition that evolvedinto modern day singing. but these are very, verytraditional and the composition that i played is notvery old, obviously,-- it was made in probablylast 15, 20 years ago. but the fact is that thatcomposition reflects the traditional style of the dhrupad. and dhamar is a taal cycle thatwas very extensively use in dhrupad as long-- as well as with another12 beat cycle called cautal.

>> yasmeen khan: andis dhrupad slower? is it more-- i mean, what is it? >> devapriya nayak:it's more meditative. >> yasmeen khan: it'smore meditative. >> soumya chakraverty:it's more meditative. actually dhrupad has avery big component of alap. >> soumya chakraverty: and evenbefore the percussion start playing, there was almost like an hour to twohours sometimes of just the vocalist or the instrument just playing alap.

and the alap section, you hadasked me earlier, i did not answer. there is a component of thealap section, which is-- there are actuallyfour stages of an alap. at least, in sarod vocabulary. so there, the first phase whichis the most commonly heard, which is without any kind of rhythm, just purely the barsbeing introduced and as far as being introduced. then comes a part whichwhere there is a rhythm part

to it and it's called jhur. and this also came from thedhrupad, the vocals music. then, you start to, you know, usesome of that aspect of the rhythm, it's not set to the beatcycle but, you know, you can hear that there'sa rhythm part to it. or no, a mellow-- arhythmic aspect of it. >> yasmeen khan: tothe melody of it? >> soumya chakraverty:to the melody. >> soumya chakraverty:and, i'm going to play

in a few seconds toshow or demonstrate. and then, it goes into, you know,full embellishments like [inaudible] like you do the, you know, rhythm except that it'sstill at 20 beat cycle. and then finally thevery fast portion of the jhala, that's also played. so, i'm just going to again, play alittle bit of alap in the same round that i was playing kedar. so, i mean, i played a verybrief alap, but you could--

you could see how this could beelaborated to a significant extent. then comes the jor portion. how does that work? it starts again very slowly. and so it goes. >> yasmeen khan: and sothat has a greater beat. >> soumya chakraverty: soi'm actually keeping the beat or the tempo more tosay not olny beat. the tempo through,until that's come.

and this would pickup as i'm going along. and when it-- what's--gets to a point that. so, you can see thatthere's a lot of [inaudible] that is being [inaudible] butagain, i'm just keeping my own beat. not just [inaudible]. >> soumya chakraverty: thisis the third phase of alap, the fourth phase actuallygoes into fourth scales alap. and finally, therewould be a-- so this-- this whole tradition that is nowplayed today in instrumental music,

actually came fromdhrupad, so they do this through vocalization techniques. and they would recite both. and so, what i'm playing as[humming], they would say-- and then later on, thisactually walk into another form of singing called perana, which isalso taken from instrumental music, went back to localmusic and was molded after and-- molded after percussion. so, dhrupad has givena lot to-- back to--

or it has given a lot of ideas thathave branched into different forms of vocal and instrumental music. >> yasmeen khan: it's fantastic. >> devapriya nayak: andthe same thing with tabla, when they are like-- thewhole concept of alap, i raised it when i wassaying that when you-- when a tabla soloist is playingtable, he starts off with peshkar. and peshkar is the alap of tabla. if, for example, he playedthat four stages of alap,

we also do the same thing whenwe play solo and that happens in the peshkar style whenwe perform and the peshkar-- and the first partof the peshkar is, it sticks to the schoolthat it comes from. for example delhi peshkaruses more finger techniques of these two fingers. farrukhabad and lucknow, whichi like a lot, deals with a lot of meditative type syllables. for example--

[ foreign language ] and all these syllables arecoming from the lucknow style. >> yasmeen khan: anddoes it-- is it. >> devapriya nayak: and-- >> yasmeen khan: doesit go from slow to fast? >> devapriya nayak: it's very slow. >> yasmeen khan: as well. >> soumya chakraverty:you want to play some? >> devapriya nayak: it's very slowand it's set to a very slow tintal

or any taal for example, i mean,peshkar could be in any taal. but i can show youa little bit of -- >> soumya chakraverty:i'll keep the-- >> devapriya nayak: peshkardemonstration and this-- the tintal. so, that's an example ofmeditative slow style peshkar. i'll show you a mid part ofit, a little bit faster tempo. not in the-- and ourbass tempo is the same. but the peshkar inmid tempo moved up. and will developingon the same rhythm.

so, this is-- this movement will bedeveloped into other rhythmic aspect of it, but it's going to go in samebass tempo, but a different set. >> soumya chakraverty:and, while he's doing-- while they're doing the peshkar,the instrumentalists or at least, i'm also trying to adaptand play something similar. >> yeasmeen khan: ok. >> soumya chakraverty:that resembles the peshkar. >> yasmeen khan: so, it's thetime where he's calling the shots. >> devapriya nayak:yeah, just the reverse.

reversal of rules. and then the third stages which is alittle bit faster just like he does. so, this is this the third stages, and the last stagesis the fourth stage. and we can develop thisalso or in a bigger style, but in order to develop this, youneed to play longer in a solo event. >> yasmeen khan: and, in-- ok. and in-- when you performtogether, say like in may, do you-- in the middle of your performance--

in the middle of theperformance do you-- when the tabla player startsto showcase his playing-- >> devapriya nayak: absolutely. >> yasmeen khan:-- do youthen go sort of recreate -- >> devapriya nayak: lay low. >> yasmeen khan: --lay low and sort of-- >> devapriya nayak: yeah, you. >> yasmeen khan: --to a semi peshkar? so, i'm actually repeating almostplaying over and over the same gat

or the composition,the fixed composition and that's just to keep going. >> soumya chakraverty:just like when he-- when i'm playing, he'skeeping going, we do the reverse along the rolls. >> yasmeen khan: and is thissort of a modern development? >> soumya chakraverty:no, it's been there. that way forever. >> devapriya nayak:it's traditional.

>> soumya chakraverty: now, again, there has been somehealthy competition. so there's a concept of [inaudible],where you can both go and improvise without knowing whereeach will say it, but in your head youhave the beat cycle, so you know where exactlyto come together. and then, there's another thing, youknow, the reason why i said earlier, it's traditional, is because alot of schools for example there-- for example lucknow, ifyou're playing a lucknow badge

or lucknow style tablaplayer, and you know that a lot of times the syllablesare harder, and it sound-- it's got a ringing sound to it. because they're used toplaying with dancing feet. and so, those-- the same tablaplayers are going to play with instruments or vocal. in those cases, the vocalist or the instrumentalistthey just let them go. and they just play free flow.

and you can see thoseimages coming in their hand. >> yasmeen khan: that's fantastic. >> yasmeen khan: well, i thinkwe're coming to the end-- >> yasmeen khan: -- on tape. and i'd like to thank you both-- >> devapriya nayak: thank you. >> yasmeen khan: -- very much. >> soumya chakraverty:it's a pleasure. >> devapriya nayak: it's a pleasure.

>> yasmeen khan: there's no stress. maestros soumya chakravertyand debu nayak. thank you so much. >> this has been a presentationof the library of congress. visit us at loc.gov.