My musical background started with piano lessons in early elementary school,
around 3rd or 4th grade. I learned the basics of reading music and playing
some simple pieces, but once I entered secondary school (high school in my case,
as there wasn't a 'middle school' in the parochial school system I was in)
my interest shifted towards percussion.
It began with lessons for drum set, likely to the chagrin of my parents
though they remained supportive through all my shifting musical interests,
which I'm extremely grateful for. It didn't take long before I came to the
conclusion that getting all four of my limbs to do different things at the
same time was too much. I don't recall how it happened exactly, but
somewhere around this time my focus shifted to hand drums, congas
specifically, and I took lessons for a while.
Then, like lightning out of a clear blue sky, a single performance
crashed into my imagination and stuck there...
I have no recollection about how I came across this performance. This was
in the 1990's and there was no YouTube or Spotify to facilitate stumbling
across something like this, but somehow it landed in my ears and while
Ravi's performance was of mesmerizing, of course, what really caught my
attention was Alla Rakha.
I had no prior context for how that such elaborate rhythm could come
from a single person on two small unassuming drums, but it didn't really
matter, I was hooked. Sometime in the late 1990's I ordered my first set
of tabla from ebay, along with a book and VHS tape: "Learning Tabla, with
Alla Rakha"... 📦 shipping from India cost more than the drums themselves.
I had no idea what I was doing, but it didn't matter. Look at this
guy... this material was published when I was three years old,
and his charisma still shines through in his picture the same as it did
in the grainy VHS tape I watched all those years ago!
I was hooked but there was a snag; I live in the midwestern United States,
and there isn't exactly a thriving Indian classical music scene here;
outside of Chicago at least, which was far enough away at the time that
it might as well have been India. I did my best to learn from the book
and tape, and had a couple brief stints with a teacher or two who also
lived just far enough away that it was a challenge to make it work.
I spent about a month in India in late 2011 and came home with a nice
new set of tabla and a decent student sitar, but had mostly resigned
myself to tinkering with them on my own and remaining an enthusiastic,
if clumsy, amateur.
🤔 🇮🇳☀️🥵
In hindsight, August wasn't the best choice for time of year to visit
India in. It was oppressively hot and humid, and I'm a baby when it
comes to that sort of thing... next time I'll go in February.
Fast-forward to early summer 2022, when a new form of
🦠 coronavirus
had been making the rounds and upending a good chunk of society in the
process, mostly for the worse. Since I build software for a living
(and as a hobby) I was shifted
to working from home in early 2020, and the growing ubiquity of
video conferencing got me thinking about whether I might be able to find
a sitar teacher who offered online lessons. After a bit of searching
I found Christopher Hale,
a sitar teacher in Toronto, and I've been taking lessons with him ever since.
Chris is an excellent musician and a very patient and thoughtful teacher.
I highly recommend reaching out if you're interested in learning sitar,
vocals, or just generally about Indian classical music! 🎶🎵🎶
🤨 "But wait" - I hear you say - "this page is
supposed to be about tabla, not sitar!" Yes my observant reader,
that's true, but this autobiographical detour is merely an off-ramp
and I assure you we're now on the home stretch.
After taking sitar lessons with Chris for a few years, staring forlornly
at my tabla sitting in the corner of the room, my partner came up with
what I can only assume was a clever ruse to
incept me into starting tabla lessons. She asked whether Chris had
any recommendations for a tabla teacher who would do an online lesson
or few with her, and he did: Jim Feist!
She took an introductory lesson with him, and while it didn't click for
her it (finally) occurred to me that there was no reason I couldn't also
take tabla lessons in addition to the sitar lessons I'd been taking with
Chris for the prior two years!
🕰️ No time 🕰️
Sorry, I lied in that last bit... there is one reason why
taking both sitar and tabla lessons at the same time is perhaps
not the best idea: time.
There's only so much time in the day and these instruments are
demanding, and jealous of time spent on other pursuits.
Kali and the Inevitability of Time - image generated by ChatGPT 4.5
from the prompt:
"Create an image of Kali; the Hindu goddess of time,
death, and destruction, where the theme is the inevitability of time
and the shortness of life relative to all the things one might want
to accomplish with the time they have. Render her stylistically in
her multi-armed form, staring directly forward, surrounded by various
items including a laptop, a sitar, and a set of tabla, with an analog
clock behind her directly above her head."
🤷♂️ But what can you do? I strongly believe that everything
in this world is interesting, at least when approached with a
particular frame of mind, and I'm not willing to give up on any of
it until my body completely falls apart... leaving me a dusty,
vengeful husk of what I used to be, until the wheel turns and I plop
out again as a different me.
As of early 2025 when I'm writing this, I've been taking tabla lessons
with Jim for just shy of a year and thoroughly enjoying it. I may still
be a clumsy amateur, but at least now I'm able to learn 'properly';
studying real compositions, with correct form and technique, and
with due respect to a tradition that stretches back centuries. I hope
to share some of what I've learned here, and maybe even inspire others
to take up these challenging and rewarding instruments, or to just
learn more about one of the world's oldest and most sophisticated
musical traditions!
"Originally, they may have been mere onomatopoeic representations of the strokes.
However, multiple ways to execute the syllables have weakened this relationship.
Furthermore, the syllables acquired their own syntax and grammar. ...
In short, they have assumed an identity all their own."
~
The Tal (tala) - Bol (the syllables) by David Courtney @ chandrakantha.com
Theka:
('support') basic phrase or pattern of bol for a particular tala,
establishing the beats and divisions of the rhythmic cycle
Kayda:
('rule' or 'system of rules') compositional form
consisting of a theme, and variations constructed using only
bols from the theme
Tabla
