Jhaptal solo, Part 4 plus ANOTHER bonus video!

Tala-Wallah: Welcome back, dear readers. How was space?
Readers: Space was cool, wasn't it, Mini-Na?
Mini-Na: uh-huh
Number Two: While you were in space, I created a way for us to make huge sums of legitimate money, and still maintain the ethics and the business practices of a tabla organization. I have turned us into purveyors of psychedelic tabla videos!
Readers: O_o

So, in the continuing saga of Jhaptal solo vids, here are a pair of compositions.



The first is a Farukhabad Kaida-Rela I learned from Subhajyoti Guha, and the second a Kaida i learned from Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri.

Farukhabad Kaida-Rela

This is a very interesting composition:

Dha-kredhetete DhageTaka Dhinne Dhinnagene
Dhinne Dhinnagena Dhage TeteKreDhetete Dhage Take Dhinne Dhinnagena

Notice that the first Dhinne Dhinnagene is NE, not NA. The other two are NA.

So…if the stroke after DhinneDhinnageNA/NE is a Dha stroke, it's NA, if it's another Dhin, it's NE. It's an ergonmic thing. If you're playing it slow, you can do all Na's theoretically. But it's also a grammar thing…the double NA that happens when ending w Na is pretty sweet.

The variations have lots of entertaining twists and turns, but there is one interesting feature: when repeating a couple of DhinneDhinnagena strokes in a row, it alternates open / closed.

DhinneDhinnagene
ThinneThinnakene etc.

And then reverses polarity in Khali: Thin/Dhin

Note that the composition abandons the Dha-KreDhetete Dhage part in the latter variations. You could totally spin off into an all DinneDhinnagene / DhaDhagene universe if you wanted to.

Lucknow Kaida

This is, as I mention in the video, a favourite (and yes, that's the Canadian spelling of that word). Also note: it's not that easy to play theka and talk over top, something I was discovering on the fly…hence the weird pauses and eeeeeeeextensions on worrrrrrds :P

I recorded this for the blog earlier, and you can read about it here: http://52kaidas.blogspot.ca/2011/09/year-of-jhaptal.html (2nd composition)

DhinneDhinnaGena DhageTereite DhatiDhageDhinnagena
Dha TrekeDhetete GhenaDhatiGhena DhatiDhageThinnakena

The variations are super sweet, with explorations of spaaaace, as well as a series that gets into some really wicked divisions: 4.5 and 5.5 (or 9 and 11 if you prefer). Then a reversal, then almost a Dhora (Ax3+B), but not quite, since the math wouldn't work. The tihai is different from the one Swapanji taught, and different from the one that I played in the other version: it's a small Mukra that Swapanji taught, and I thought it worked, both in personality and in an old-school short-and-to-the-point Tihai kinda way. The Kaida phrases get shorter and shorter, so i thought 'why not whittle it down to a nice sharp point: Dha'. 

I have a couple of old tabla solo recordings on Vinyl, including an Ahmedjan Thirakwa recording, and the tihais are so short sometimes, they're done before you even realize they're happening. A nice change from the increasingly elaborate math parties one can sometimes see (and which I love…not slagging tabla math parties at all!)

PS I've got a Youtube playlist going of the Jhaptal solo videos, so crack open a new tab in your browser, click here, and let them run in the background while you go about your nefarious internet business. 

Bonus Video time!

This is a video for (a slight remix of) the first track in this post: http://52kaidas.blogspot.ca/2011/09/year-of-jhaptal.html



I will just post the description I wrote for the Youtube page, as it'll make about as much sense as anything else I could possibly write about this video:

The future of Tablavision technology is here! The cats at Tala-Wallah Cathode Ray Science present the astounding: 'Tabla-Matic Tuning model 2161'. If tabla is your bag (and it should be) then this is the scene for you!

Just think! Without budging from your easy chair, you can turn your new Tabla-Matic set on, off, or change channels! You can even shut off those annoying commercials! Just a flash of light does it*! So take 5, kick off your zoot suit and get fractured, boogie man! It's supermurgitroidally out of this world! Hey Mommy-O and Daddy-O, dig this: There are no cords or wires even! Capable of all rhythmic resolutions from 3 to 128 beats! It will astound you, and provide hours of entertainment for the whole family! Fully compatible with the model 420 Kaleido-percept-o-tron stereo-enhanca-matic.

*Absolutely harmless to humans.

This is a Public Domain/CC BY-SA service announcement brought to you by the finger-zingers, skins players and tab-slappers at Tala-Wallah Studios, and remember:

Tabla is Good for You!

You can download the air check of this hot plate from this screenshow here: http://tala-wallah.bandcamp.com/track/dha-dhatidhatidhadhadhinna

Ahem.

Yeah.

Don't even ask. Even my mom thought I was weird.

It started out as another experiment, this time using video from the Prelinger Archives http://archive.org/browse.php?field=subject&mediatype=movies&collection=prelinger which is a very large collection of old, now Public Domain films, and then it went a little sideways, to say the least. But fun to make for sure. (insert image of me giggling to myself incessantly)

And remember: if you like what I do, feel free to support me. There are tracks and albums for sale here http://tala-wallah.bandcamp.com/ and you can even play-what-you-want! With Paypal, or a credit card even! Isn't that exciting? It totally makes my day when Paypal sends me a message and says there's $1 in my account!

Until next time, 

Tata!