Desicritics Author: Ra

S is for Sitar and Surbahar

Ra — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:16:35 EST

This post is related to T is for Tanpura not Sitar; it's Good to Know the Difference, so it may help to start from there. On the previous post there was a comment from a reader whose mother is a Vainika, i.e. a Veena player, saying that some people she knew thought it was cool not to know the difference between these instruments. One hopes the coolness quotient of Indian music will improve over time.

As always, there is no need to watch the videos to their full length or at all, though it might help to watch a classical clip to familiarise yourself with the sound and to distinguish the sound of the Sitar from that of the Tanpura.

Sitar:
A Sitar is a more complicated instrument than the Tanpura: it is used to produce complex melodies and not just the tones of Sa and Pa (though it has the strings to produce a drone) and will take longer to learn how to play (though some would argue that learning how to tune the Tanpura is a lifelong process!). The Tanpura is a unique instrument in the function that it performs; there are no Tanpura concerts, though it may be used for meditation. But Sitar concerts, where the Sitar features as a solo instrument are common. The Sitar features largely in Hindustani music concerts, i.e. concerts performed in the North Indian style of classical music. It is also played in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The word "sitar" has Persian origins. There is some dispute about the origins of the Sitar, but there seems to be some consensus that it is an Indo-Persian instrument. To read more on it's history see this link. It's origins are attributed both to the Veena of India and the lutes of Western Asia.

The Sitar is used a lot in Hindi film music and has been used by pop bands like the Beatles and by the heavy metal group Metallica. It would be fair to say that the Sitar is the most well-know Indian instrument in the West. Many people are able to recognise the sound of the Sitar, even if they confuse it's appearance with that of the Tanpura.

Listen out for the Sitar right at the beginning of the Metallica song Wherever I May Roam:

And for a calmer sound, let the Beatles step in. Their first song that tried to incorporate Indian music was Love You To. People are divided on whether they like the sound:

Another Beatles' song where I think the Indian element sounds better and where the Sitar is used is Norwegian Wood:

Though a Sitar may look like a Tanpura, it has movable frets on the fingerboard (see picture below), whereas a Tanpura doesn't have any frets at all, and many more strings than a Tanpura (approximately 21-23), of which usually six or seven are playable. Remember that Tanpuras usually have four (or sometimes five) strings. Some of the strings of the Sitar provide the sound of the drone, and quite a few are sympathetic strings, that create resonance. The gharana, or school of Hindustani music the Sitarist belongs to, determines the number of strings and frets used.

The Sitar often has two gourds at either end (though not always), whereas a Tanpura ALWAYS has only one. It also has many tuning pegs sticking out of the side (known as kunti) but the Tanpura has them only on the top.

Here is a picture of a type of Sitar:

Picture Credit: kksongs.com

Here is a video of Sitar Maestro Ustad Shahid Parvez playing the sitar. His sitar has only one gourd. Contrast this video to that of Pandit Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar that follows-they play sitars with two gourds. You can see Tanpuris (small Tanpuras that are used to accompany instruments) in the background in both videos.

Here is a video of Pandit Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka playing the sitar.

Sitars became poular in the West thanks to Pandit Ravi Shankar and his famous pupils the Beatles, particularly George Harrison. Here is a video of Panditji teaching George Harrison!

The Sitar is held differently to a Tanpura, i.e. across the chest, and played differently. Both hands are used to play the Sitar (for the Tanpura you need only one hand) and each hand is used differently. One hand plucks ( a plectrum is worn on the index finger) and the other hand slides or fingers the strings. The Sitar can initially be cruel on the fingers and demand blood, whereas the Tanpura strings are much simpler to play!

If you go for a sitar concert, you will often see the musician tuning the Sitar between pieces. The tuning of the Sitar is too complicated to get into here, suffice to say, this also depends on the gharana and the musician.

I would like to end the section on the Sitar with a video of the late great Pandit Nikhil Bannerjee, my personal favourite sitar player. Reluctant to be in the limelight, and completely devoted to his music, he received the honours due to him rather late in the day. Exquisite playing of the highest order.

Surbahar:
Another instrument that I will briefly mention here is the Surbahar (and the legendary player associated with it). The Surbahar is a close relative of the Sitar but is significantly larger, and has a lower, deeper, more bass sound. It is rarer than the Sitar these days and not as many people play it. It is/was sometimes played as a prelude to the Sitar or the Veena and some Sitar and Veena players do play it in addition to the Sitar or Veena, though they may employ different styles both musically and in the technique of using their fingers.

Here is Beenkar (i.e. "Veena player") Suvir Misra playing the Surbahar in the Dhrupad style (he is left-handed). Misra uses three fingers to pluck the strings (quite a feat).

One of the foremost exponents of the Surbahar is the famously reclusive Vidushi Annapurna Devi, daughter of Ustad Allauddin Khan.

Picture credit: india.tilos.hu

Allauddin Khan initially refused to teach Annapurna Devi music, because his other daughter's mother-in-law burned her Tanpura. Another daughter had died an early death. Ultimately, he had to teach Annapurna Devi, when confronted with her genius (he came home one day to find her teaching her brother the renowned Sarod player Ali Akbar Khan and his other student who went on to make waves, Ravi Shankar). Today, she teaches a few very select pupils (though not necessarily Surbahar) and generally refuses to meet anyone. I haven't put the videos with the soundtrack of her playing here, because the recordings aren't of very good quality. Some other Surbahar greats are Ustad Imrat Khan, the late Pandit Chandrashekhar Naringrekar and Pandit Pushparaj Koshti. Other, younger exponents include Shubha Sankaran and Rajeev Janardan

Here is a very sweet video of a dad playing Surbahar to his baby. Looks like she loves it! I'm mesmerised by the way she responds to the music.

If anyone has any questions, please leave them in the comments section, I will be happy answer to them or to point you to more qualified sources.

T is for Tanpura not Sitar; it's Good to Know the Difference

Ra — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:56:25 EST

Today I'm going to write about Tanpuras (or Tamburas), and in subsequent posts, about Sitars and Veenas because these instruments are often confused with each other. In my highly prejudiced opinion, every Indian who is able, i.e. has access to this knowledge, should know the difference between these instruments. The Tanpura is the backbone of Indian music, Sitars have brought it fame, and the Veena is one of the most ancient instruments in the world. After all we can recognize pianos, and will probably be able to tell that an organ is not a piano, though it may look similar and though we may not be able to name it.

I know that for those not interested in music this may be boring. On the other hand it is likely to be boring even for those who are interested in music, because this is very basic. But I hope those who are not interested, or vaguely interested, do read this post and forgive me for being a little obsessive about wanting us to at least recognize the different instruments if not to hear them. There may be concepts that are difficult to understand, if you want, you can explore them further by clicking on the hyperlinks, or just ignore them for the time being and simply get used to what the instruments look like and sound like so you can tell the difference. There are many video clips (hurrah for youtube!) and it's not necessary to play them for their full length or to play them at all-they are for the purposes of illustration only.

It's probably not your fault if you don't know the difference between these instruments-all three look similar, they have many variations (particularly Veenas), and Indian classical music has often been inaccessible to various groups of people; Gender, caste, social status, language, religion, class and education have all acted in complicated ways to exclude people from learning it or knowing about it. Or it may simply be that one just doesn't know about it, so let me evangelise (imperfectly).

Tanpura or Tambura:

All Indian classical vocalists, of the well-known styles of Indian classical music i.e. the North Indian style of Hindustani music (further subdivided into the quite distinct Dhrupad and Khayal styles) and the South Indian Carnatic style of music are accompanied by a Tanpura or Tambura (there are other less well-known forms of Indian art music that I shall not refer to here). The instrument is called Tanpura in the North and Tambura in the South. Instrumentalists are accompanied by Tanpuras too, though they often use a smaller version called a tanpuri or tamburi.

There are "male" and "female" Tanpuras-female ones are smaller and they can be tuned to suit male and female voices respectively.

Here is a picture of a North Indian Tanpura:

Picture credit: binaswar.com

And here is a picture of a South Indian Tambura:

Picture credit: chandrakantha.com

Though they might look big and heavy, they are actually quite light and quite fragile.

The North (Miraj) and South Indian (Tanjore) versions are constructed slightly differently and produce a slightly different sound though they perform the same function, that is to provide a "drone" to help the musician sing in pitch (sruti). Maintaining sruti, or singing in pitch is very important and therefore the Tanpura is absolutely essential in Indian classical music. Essentially, the Tanpura sings a recurring melody.

Everyone has a natural pitch. When learning Indian classical music, one chooses one's "Sa," called adhara shadja, the basic tonic note-every other note is sung relative to this note. Thus maintaining the basic "Sa," the fixed reference point is very important, and that is what the Tanpura does. (this is different to Western music).

Tanpuras usually have four or five strings. The first string is tuned to Pa (the natural fifth from the adhara shadja), the two middle ones are tuned to the higher Sa and the last, which is the bass string, to the tonic, Sa, an octave lower. The tuning of the first string may change, depending on the raga/ragam (e.g. there may be a raga/ragam without Pa) or an extra string that plays the seventh, i.e. Ni, is added, but we will not get into that here.

Nowadays one gets electronic sruti boxes and electronic tamburas that are much easier to carry around, that look like small radios. Though these are very good and have reached high standards, some people (including yours truly) feel that the traditional Tanpuras and Tamburas provide a richer sound and should not be done away with. Learning to tune a Tanpura is also considered essential in training one's ear. For a technical view on why traditional Tanpuras sound better see this article.

Here is a link to a podcast by the Carnatic musician Vidya Subramaninan and Devesh Satyavolu that explains, very simply, the functions of the shruti box, the electronic tambura and the traditional Tambura. Vidya sings out the notes of the Tambura-this will help in understanding what's been said above about how it is tuned.

Here is a video where you can see how Tanpuras are played and hear the rich sound of well tuned (North Indian) Tanpuras clearly. The singer is Ustad H. Sayeeduddin Dagar who sings in the Dhrupad style. He starts off here with a Sanskrit chant:

Here is a video of the Khayal singer Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, singing a bhajan. I've chosen this video because it has clear close-ups of her fingers on the Tanpura strings:

And finally, here is a link to a video of a South Indian Tambura being played, that I couldn't embed here.

A Tanpura is usually held straight up in front of the singer or tanpura accompanist (people can tend to lean it towards their bodies or put it in their laps) or flat down on the floor, whereas a Sitar is usually held diagonally across the body. More on the sitar in the next post.

"Newer" Voices in Hindustani Classical Music

Ra — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 00:35:33 EDT

Charu's post on music resulted in a pleasurable afternoon of digging up old favourites. She poses the question, "Where are the new young voices in Hindustani music (except the odd occasional one)..."

My upbringing was the reverse of Charu's: I was brought up on Hindustani classical music but was also introduced to Carnatic music, to MS and MDR and T Viswanathan and Lalgudi Jayaraman. Then I went to boarding school in the South and was exposed to a lot more Carnatic music. I married a South Indian, who jokes that I am more southern than he is, because I listen to Carnatic music day and night, despite not understanding Telugu or any other South Indian language.

Charu's right, there are fewer newer voices in Hindustani music than in Carnatic music. Nonetheless, I spent the afternoon revisiting some "younger" favourites and thought I'd share them. Some of these are admittedly middle-aged as Quizman pointed out on Charu's blog.

Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, for whom I would miss out on much needed sleep, is getting better and better. She had a slight problem with shrillness, but then dare I say it, so does Kishori, sometimes! Unfortunately, the recordings of Ashwini freely available on the net aren't superlative, though the Kabir Bhajan and the Meera Bhajan "Main Govind Gun Gana" here are well worth listening to.

Some more listening pleasure: Ashwini singing the truly beautiful Jaipur Atrauli favourite in Bhoop Nat Malaniya here, the full length version of which is available on tape.

Ulhas Kashalkar: I first heard him when I was a shivering student in Delhi. I ventured out into the cruel, cold and frightening night for the concert at IIT (frightening for any woman to go out alone at night in Delhi) berating myself for being so foolish, but was ultimately really glad I went. He sang Durga that night and we were absolutely transported to goose bump heaven. Slow, sensuous, silken-he combines the best of the Jaipur Atrauli and Gwalior Gharanas. There's a good collection here.

An aside about slowness: sometimes people complain to me that Hindustani classical music is like wailing and sounds sad. I concede that music sounds different to different people. But for me, Hindustani music is about longing, longing for the loved one (the beloved/the divine-often collapsed into one in the bandishes). Longing is not sadness. Dwelling on the notes in a leisurely alaap, when done right, is like love-making. It is about touching an exquisite threshold that can make you cry...but that's not sadness.

Back to the singers: I don't listen to Pandit Jasraj any more except very occasionally, but his student Sanjeev Abhyankar captures the old magic of the Mewati Gharana. His website is a bit too full of words like "child prodigy" and "genius", but it has some clips. There are some fantastic full length renditions here.

For those who like Dhrupad, there is a young crop of vocalists. The Gundecha Bandhu used to be and are loved by many, but at the last concert of theirs I attended in Delhi a few years ago, they were too gimmicky, concentrating more on showing off their technical skill than on the bhava that is so essential to Indian music. But I haven't heard them for some time now.

I like Uday Bhawalkar very much. He excels at the meditative alaaps so characteristic of Dhrupad. He performed in London at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan recently, a bone-shiveringly good Jaijaiwanti, at the end of which I was in tears. If music is a caress, this was it. Alas, it was all too short.

Wasifuddin Dagar is another young Dhrupad singer. The quality of the recording in the link isn't too good.

When I first posted this on my blog, others reminded me of Kaushiki, daughter of Ajoy Chakravarty, Rashid Khan and Shruti Sadolikar. If one looks, there are many more.

I suspect there are many new young, not so well-known vocalists who aren't getting the support, publicity and encouragement they need.

In Defence of Jholawalas and Walis

Ra — Wed, 7 Jun 2006 00:14:07 EDT

While I was busy moving house and had no internet connection an argument broke out on my blog. One begins to expect certain words and phrases to be bandied about when some of us start fighting with each other. "Pseudo-secular" and "jholawala" are among them. Since I became a member of the blogosphere I've learned of the preference for such terms as "ad hominem."

Anyway, "jholawala" cropped up in the said argument. Needless to say, jholawala is used as an insult, generally indicating somebody left-leaning, often someone from JNU.

The use of this insult has always puzzled me on a number of counts. First, because I've seen and known lots of people who are non-left leaning, carrying variations of the jhola. Second, I've seen a lot of people from JNU carry a variety of bags, not all jholas. In fact, small rucksacks were quite popular. Third, as the proud owner of several jholas, embroidered, plain, coloured, vegetable dyed, small and big, made of cotton, silk, khadi and jute, I feel compelled to remind everyone that they can be quite beautiful bags and put to a number of uses.

I remember my first jhola, with a nifty zip that could be slung over the shoulder, beautifully dyed with a red print, acquired from Hansa ben's Kasab in Matru Ashish building on Napean Sea Road. It appeared to have a seemingly endless capacity. I took it everywhere, packing clothes in it for a night out at a friend's, or my swimsuit and towel when I went for a swim. I even used it as a school bag and got rave reviews for it.

Over the years, I've owned many, because I have a bag fetish, as my long-suffering husband will testify, but also because I can't resist the beautiful designs and textures created by the various craftswomen and men of India. I gave a blue embroidered handbag-jhola to my Canadian friend, and it won admiration from all her friends.

There is one particular jhola I have a particular attachment to, though it is old and fading. It fits the stereotypical image people sometimes have of a jhola-made from khadi, brown in colour, large and shapeless.

One day, many years ago, I was sitting in a cafe in Delhi, sobbing my heart out, because something had gone wrong. My father, who was visiting from Bombay, sat with me feeding me tea and snacks, soothing me, stroking my back and hair, helping me to believe in myself again, just as he had when I was a child. Unbeknownst to me, one of Gandhiji's grandsons, who I'd met before, was also there. Suddenly he walked up to me and gave me the khadi bag along with a little piece of paper with a folk story he had written down for me, about a heroine with the same name as me. He spoke a few gentle words to me and then left.

That bag was too big for my body to carry around. But I kept it. It grew old and soft. But I'll never give it away. I use it to store socks and hankies. It is a strange but gentle reminder of courage and hope when I open my cupboard in Bombay.

Then there is the jhola from Chennai, given to me by my favourite uncle, who picked it up on an evening walk in Chennai. It too, now performs a storage function. Many jholas, when they grow old, grow soft and tender and comforting, and are a pleasure to ferret about in, much better than synthetic or plastic.

Jholas are such beautiful things, wonderful products of India. I can only admire them, regardless of the politics of the people who carry them, leftist, rightist, nothingist, pseudo or real secularist. At least those who carry them are sensible enough to see how lovely these bags are.

Baarats Never Come To Us

Ra — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:39:45 EST

When I was around 13 years old and my sister around 7, our parents took us for a holiday to Rajasthan. One of the places we visited was a town near the desert where we met someone from the BSF who invited us over for tea with him and his wife. His wife was a quiet woman, barely speaking. She served us some Sindhi sweets which we really appreciated, particularly my father, since they are not easily available. They reminded him of his childhood and his lost homeland.

Gradually, the officer's wife began to talk over tea, about her work and how she went around the villages talking to the women about their health and how to take care of themselves. She told us about one village where they had proudly told her that a baraat never came to the village, i.e grooms never came to collect brides from their village, they always had to go to other villages to get brides for their boys. The reason for this? No girl child was ever allowed to survive. They were killed by their own mothers, often by suffocation.

The UNFPA State of the World Population Report 2005, about which the Indian population has the following as excerpted in the Hindustan Times:

She strangled her first two babies to death because they were girls, terminated two other pregnancies because the foetuses were female and lost two baby boys to infections acquired in infancy. Married at the age of 18, Ranu from Rajasthan, said a girl child is killed by putting a sand bag on her face.

Another excerpt:

According to government reports, as many as two million foetuses are aborted each year for no other reason than they happen to be female...

"Missing''-- Mapping the Adverse Child Sex Ratio in India, released in 2003, talked of the decline in the child-sex ratio from 945 girls per 1000 boys in the 1991 census to 927 girls per 1000 boys in the 2001 census accordding to The Hindu

It's the mothers, women themselves, killing their own babies. They do so under tremendous pressure from their families and society at large. It's not going to change unless the men -the husbands and present and future fathers take a stand and fight for their daughters born and unborn. Many do, already, but it's not enough. It has to take on the scale of a nationwide movement-before it's too late.

Do Flyovers Solve the Problem of Congestion?

Ra — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:01:36 EST

There has been much coverage in the Bombay papers about Lata Mangeshkar's threat to leave Bombay if the Peddar Road flyover is built. She lives in Bombay and fears, among other things, that if the flyover is built, people will peer into her home and invade her privacy. She is being accused of being elitist and selfish and of not putting the needs of the city above her own.

Every time I visit home it seems like there is a new flyover, not just in Bombay, but in Delhi and Bangalore too. I have to admit they make travelling easier-especially getting from home to the airport and vice-versa. No potholes and one achieves a speed one never possible anymore in Bombay-even if it is only for a short stretch.

And I can vouch for the fact that the traffic on Peddar Road is a nightmare. This extends to all sides-to Bhulabhai Desai Road, Mahalakshmi and Kemps Corner. It takes forty minutes to get from one end of Peddar Road to another by car sometimes. If I have to take a cab from Bhulabhai Desai Road to town, I often walk down BD Road, up Kemps Corner and to Hughes Road before before taking one, because otherwise I'd be suspended for eternity in a cacophony of loud horns, sweating it out in the back seat of the cab, while the cab driver leans out of the window and vents his frustration by shouting at other drivers in a similar position.

But I'm still not convinced a new flyover will solve the problems. I'm in two minds about it. It may be smooth sailing for a while, but then the flyover itself might start experiencing more traffic than it can handle. What then? Build another flyover over the flyover? More and more people are buying cars in India, and really one can't complain against that, given that public transport is so overstretched. But if we had an excellent, fast, clean and safe public transport system, maybe that would encourage people to give up their cars for the trains and buses. Less pollution, less traffic, less noise.

I complain about the tube a lot in London-but I am able to travel on it, on a regular basis-and so far we haven't felt the need for a car. The only time I really felt the need for one was on the day of the 7/7 blasts, when I was in court at one end of the city and my husband was at the other end. I was only able to leave the court near Heathrow, instead of being forced to walk into London or staying the night there, because a colleague's parents had a car and came to pick us up.

Perhaps building a flyover will help, and Lataji is being a primadonna. But more needs to be done along with the building of the flyover. We need buses and trains that even the corporate elite of Bombay would be willing to travel in. Bombay is full of vast air-conditioned cars, with only one person in the backseat. That's a waste of precious road space and polluting. But to do something about it we need better public transport. Here in London, I see members of the House of Lords travelling in the trains, despite the fact that they have cars, and can afford not to use public transport.

Brand Equity and Bad Advertising

Ra — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:13:38 EST

This is what the man in the ad is saying: This summer I wouldn't be caught dead without my tea tree mattifying gel.

And below it says: You'll agree that the gentleman in the picture above, and metrosexual tastes don't exactly, well, go together.

Now, we don't mean to be disrespectful to anyone. This is a mere reminder to marketers that a focus on customers with stronger potential does help.

For example, if you're in the business of travel, high fashion, consumer electronics or luxury cars, you need to tap people in the forefront of trends and fashions.

You need to talk to the corporate world. Specifically, the marketing and advertising community.There isn't another set of people who propagate emerging lifestyles as actively.

From the mobile phone to the humble tissue paper, most lifestyle enhancing products have percolated into mass consumption, starting first with this group.

And while on the marketing and advertising community, the readership surveys are unanimous in their verdict: Nothing makes a higher impact on them than Brand Equity. Metrosexual Tastes included.

This is an ad for Brand Equity, a supplement of the Economic Times. There is another one of them pointed out by Shivam and reproduced below:

One could argue these are good ads. They do make their point. Forcefully. In a fairly innovative, eye-catching way. What's that old man doing in my glossy? But one could also argue that they are tasteless, offensive, inhumane, insensitive and make another point all together.

That it's ok to use poverty in a patronising fashion, like a commodity, make a joke about it.