Habibuddin's Nest: interlocking tabla tarang

Greetings fellow travellers!

I hope everyone is doing well in this time of great upheaval and change, and are wearing a mask and washing your hands.

It’s been awhile, but I’ve been thinking about how to reignite this blog, and I have some ideas, so please stay tuned.

First up, I want to share a piece I recently released as part of a film called MUSHROOM. The complete film is available on Vimeo On Demand, and is a 31-minute journey of music, film, photography, sound design, dance and documentary, with a solid appeal to tabla players/nerds/geeks. 

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/mushroomfilm

The video below is part 2 of the film, and I’m making it available for free on this blog for educational and inspirational purposes.

The music is an interlocking tabla tarang, and the visuals are a virtual tabla museum.

Please watch, and I’ll break down the music below (fullscreen, headphones etc):

The soundtrack for the film is here, if you want to listen, or purchase (though I strongly recommend experiencing it with the visual component)

So, what’s happening with the tabla tarang? 

First, maybe, we need to discuss what IS a tabla tarang. We know what tabla is, and tarang means "waves" (and 'waves of tabla' is just about the best thing I can think of!)

Wikipedia says: "The tabla tarang (Hindi: तबला तरंग) is a melodic percussion instrument consisting of between ten and sixteen tuned dayan drums."

Here's Pt Kamlesh Maitra with a 12-dayan tabla tarang:

So, basically, a tabla version of a xylophone or marimba, where each drum would correspond to a single pitch... except! tabla has two pitches per drum: the open 'tun', and the harmonic 'na'. The tun is roughly a minor 7th below the na. So, if na is C, then tun is roughly the D below that. And when I say roughly, I mean it's sorta kinda somewhere around there, depending on a whole lot of factors. More on this later, and how it impacts the melodic and harmonic landscape of tabla tarang. 

If you want to pop out for a sidebar on tabla tarang, here's a video of Pt. Kamalesh Maitra, and a more contemporary take by Andy Skellenger. 

I haven't delved much into tabla tarang as a melodic instrument... I've only played with having a couple of drums clustered around a tabla set, and dropping the occasional na or tun in for flavour. 

however...

I have been thinking about the layering possibilities of tabla tarang for a long time, and i finally dug into it, and I want to share the process, so...

Here we go!

Tabla produces multiple sounds, some pitched, some not. Some resonant, some not. Some can be modulated, some cannot. 

A tabla groove has multiple layers of sounds happening at once. Let's look at a simple dadra theka:

Dha ti Dha Dha tin na Ta ti Dha Dha dhin na

The na part is ( • sound, - no sound):

• - • • - • • - • • - •

The baya pattern is:

• - • • • - - - • • • -

The tin/dhin part is:

- - - - • - - - - - • -

and the ti part is:

- • - - - - - • - - - - 

*the ti also acts as a mute on the preceding na, so is both an event, and the end of an event

I frequently get lost isolating individual sound patterns when practicing tabla. 'what's the na pattern? what's the baya pattern?' etc and what I wanted to do, my 'what happens if?' creative instigation was:

What happens if I take two different compositions, isolate the individual stroke/sound patterns, play them on different pitched drums, and carve out some sort of arrangement?

I chose two heavy traditional compositions that i learned when i was studying with Pandit Anindo Chatterjee in Calcutta in 1999/2000:

A tintal kaida by Habibuddin Khan, Ajrada Gharana (and this is a wonderful feature)

Ghe Ghe Te Te Ghe Ghe Te Te Ghe ne Dhene Dhin na Ge na

Na ge Te Te Ghe Ghe Te Te Ghe ne Dhene Dhin na Ge na

Dhene Dhin na Ge na Na ge Te re ki te Dhene Dhin na 

Ghe Ghe Te Te Ghe ne Dhene Dhin na Ge na Na ge Te te

and a tintal chalan by Wajid Hussain Khan, Lucknow Gharana:

Ghe Ta ge Ghe Ta ge Dhene Dha ge treke Dhin na ge na

Na ge te te Ghe Ta ge Ghe Ta ge Dhene Na ge te te

I chose these two compositions because:

a) they both start with baya only

b) they both feature dhene and dhinna

c) they both end with nagetete

d) they're both sublime, groovy and beautiful

If we look inside at the individual stroke patterns, we see this:

note that the first pattern is twice as long as the 2nd. 

I made a pattern for each one:

Habibuddin Khan composition:

Theme, Variation 1, Variation 2, Theme

Wajid Hussain composition:

Theme, Theme, Variation 1, Theme

I recorded in layers, starting with the Habibuddin Khan kaida (Th, v1, v2, Th):

-the 'tun' part, on 9 different pitched drums, at single speed (so, 9 takes, 9 tracks)

-the 'na' part, on 9 different pitched drums, at single speed 

-the baya parts, on 7 bayas, at single speed

-just the na and tun parts, at double speed, on all 9 pitches

-the baya parts, at double speed on 7 bayas

Then, the Wajid Hussain chalan (Th, Th, v1, Th):

-the tun and na parts together, on 9 different pitched drums, at single speed 

-the baya parts, on 7 bayas, at single speed, incl the 'tak' of Ghe ta ge

-the tun and na parts together, on 9 different pitched drums, at double speed 

-the baya parts, at double speed on 7 bayas

Remember though, each tabla has 2 pitches, so while the harmonics of the drums (na) were tuned to (ascending) 

C, D, D#, G, A, A#, C, D, D#

there are a whole second set of notes in the tun-pattern, and none of them are in tune with the notes in the na-pattern, so this set of drums creates its own harmonic universe. You could redo this piece exactly, but with a different set of drums, it would sound quite different simply because the relationship between na and tun is unique from drum to drum. 

My notes:

note that the patterns are all different lengths, and nest within each other, hence the title

Once all the parts were recorded, I did subtractive editing to remove parts (like carving a statue out of a block of stone), and shape a progression. and yes, the edit was an absolute beast and took hours and my computer squealed frequently. 

on a tech-nerd level: I also rented/borrowed a pile of gear so I could record each drum with a different microphone and preamp combination:

the 9 pitches of tabla & 7 baya with mic & preamp config

also on a nerd level, panning was very important, and with so many tracks, I had to make a panning map to keep track:

The tempo is very VERY slow... 17.5 bpm, so slow that the whole piece is only 6-cycles long. 

The lehara is a combo of organ samples and an incredible bass vocalist by the name of Kurt Sampson. I was inspired by a Phillip Glass piece called Koyaanisqatsi which you should go listen to RIGHT NOW! Then find the film and watch that. 

The video was made during lockdown, and I set up my kitchen table as a photography workbench and photographed/videoed every drum in my apartment, as well as that retro lehara machine and my repair tools. That tripod is taped and locked down, so every drum appears accurately in relation to every other. 

Oh! AND... the video is dedicated to tabla makers, those artisans of wood, copper, iron and skin.

I think that's it, but I want to leave you with a challenge, if you dug this:

Try an interlocking tabla tarang.

-pick a pair of compositions (could be same tala, or different talas)

-pick a set of tabla pitches (could even be just 2, because 4 notes!)

-track just the na pattern on each pitch at single and double

-ditto tun, tete, terekite, dheneghene etc

-then baya

and see what happens.

As I mentioned, I have some ideas for this blog, including not only deep dives into traditional tabla, but also contemporary approaches, creativity in general and some guest posts. Drop me a line if you're interested in anything in particular, or if you have an idea.

Habibuddin's Nest was created with the generous creation and production support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Until next time,
Ta,
E

PS please watch the film! People seem to like it... here's a word-cloud derived from reviews:

Surfacing

Hi,
It's been 16 months since I've posted on this blog. I'm writing this post because I was touched by a comment that arrived today:

...as well as an email I received after a recent performance.

I want to explain why I haven't been posting, but first, some music and visuals:



I'll talk about the video and the tabla material below, but I want to share something first.

About 3 years ago I slipped into a very deep and debilitating depression (and frankly, I'm still not entirely out of it, which is worrying). We all ride our own sine-waves (or hey, cycles!) of mood, up and down, round and round, but this was completely new, completely different. I wasn't aware of what was happening for a long time...well over a year I think. I suspect depression is unique to each person, as individual as our voices, or the art and music we produce. Mine manifested as a lack of inspiration, an absolute voiding of all self confidence, creeping hopelessness, increasing isolation, and overwhelming anxiety. As the self-critical voices grew louder and more persistent, it was all I could do to get out of bed in the morning, let alone produce anything artistic. I fought it, periodically struggling to the surface...mounting the Cycles project in some of the very darkest days, putting on a concert series at Musideum, travelling to India twice to study, and again on tour with my band Autorickshaw, performing dozens of concerts, worked on dance and theatre projects, recorded a new solo album, but most of all, created dozens of video works. Almost all my video work, in fact, has been produced in the last three years, over 70 videos of my own, not to mention dozens more concert and music videos for other artists. Video and photography have been one of the few anxiety-free areas of my life in the last three years, and I gladly dove into the sanctuary and freedom of expression of creation in those mediums.

I obviously have not been as debilitated by depression as some people are...people who simply cannot work, or require pharmaceutical or hospital intervention. For this I am thankful. But I feel as if I'm operating at about 25% capacity on any given day, though some days are better than others.

This blog was a casualty of that period. In fact, tabla was very nearly a casualty of that period. I contemplated stopping many many times. I started studying tabla because I loved the sound, loved the deep musical language and traditions, and needed discipline in my life. I've done it for 25 years now, though I still hesitate to call myself a tabla player. I'm unsure, even today, whether I have anything of worth to offer in the world of tabla. My repertoire is relatively limited, my technique not even close to the level of professional players in India. So, tabla became a source of great anxiety. Practicing was a battle to shut out the clamour of self criticism, and stopped being enjoyable, peaceful, and healthy, except for very rare occasions when everything lined up and all I could hear was the music. Practicing used to be joy, and it became a painful prospect I avoided at all costs.

So. Why am I telling you this?

So you will maybe recognize the signs, in yourself, or in someone you know. My tools are: •Mindfulness meditation: simply observing your breath has the amazing ability to push anxiety away so you can get a good look at it (and it's never as bad as you think when it's not clamped on your face, blotting out your vision).
•Exercise: work out. It will help you sleep, it will release endorphins that will make you feel good.
•Eat well. Eat yoghurt. There's is a growing body of scientific evidence that our gut biome (intestinal flora, bacteria) has a pretty strong effect on our mood.
•Skin contact: if you don't have a lover, get a massage. We are not solitary beings, despite what modern western society would have us believe. We need other people. Depression is isolating. Loneliness is dangerous. Physical contact is important.
•Finish things: the artistic mind often makes grand plans, dream impossible dreams. Don't stop doing that, but also make micro works of art you can complete in a short time. Work on one kaida, even if it's just the theme, 1 variation and the tihai, and record it, perform it for a friend, or just perform it for yourself. The sense of accomplishment will make the next project seem less overwhelming and impossible.
•Talk: This, most of all, is why I'm telling you this. Don't hide what you're going through. That will only increase your isolation. Mental health problems are rife in the world, yet still have massive stigma attached. Tell your closest friend, or a family member. Someone you trust, who loves you, and wants you to be happy. They can be a major source of energy to help you climb out of it. If a friend comes to you seeking help, please don't say 'ah, it'll pass', or 'pull yourself out of it!!'-something you'd never say to someone with a broken bone or a disease. Any contact is incredibly important, so simple conversations, even online chats, may actually be life preserving...you may not realize it, but you're making a difference. Reach out, and recognize when someone is reaching out. Be kind...it costs nothing, and means so much.

ok. I think that's it. Thanks for reading. Comments welcome.

Onto the video above.

I've posted the audio of this here before, but now it has video...one that has come out of some of what I've been going through. This piece is in Chartal Ki Sawari, that uber-lovely 11-beat tala with the swing at the end. This material is all traditional Lucknow repertoire I learned from Pt. Swapan Chaudhuri, which I've recorded and posted before, a number of times. The bassline is based on the Jaunpuri gat Chris Hale and I perform together...I'm honestly not sure if it's still in Raga Jaunpuri at this point, but in any case, the tabla is traditional even of the presentation and accompaniment is not. That is Ben Riley on drums, Justin Abedin on guitar, Rich Brown on bass. There's an extended 'even tabla players get grumpy' 11-minute version here, with Chris Hale on Sitar:
https://tala-wallah.bandcamp.com/track/chartal-ki-sawari-extended-dance-mix-2

In closing, I will endeavour to post more regularly...I have a few things I've made in the last little while that are tabla-centric, and while I'm tempted to post them all at once in a big multi-post, I'm going to wait, and spread them out.

Thanks, Anonymous commenter, for sparking the pilot-light. It's amazing what a few kind words can do.

be well,
Ed

PS re 'Surfacing'...a video I made this summer during a rough patch:

Water is life's mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.
-Albert Szent-Györgyi

Music improvised by Autorickshaw and guests sometime in 2005, with:
Kevin Breit-guitar, Rich Brown-bass, Jonathan Goldsmith-keys, Ed Hanley-tabla, Suba Sankaran-voice, and Debashis Sinha-percussion, at Puck's Farm, Schomberg, Ontario. Recorded and rough mixed by Walter Sobczak. Thanks to Frazier Mohawk.

A pair of Jhaptal recordings from Cycles and more! WAY more!

Holy posting frequency Batman!

Suba Sankaran in the Cycles Space

As I mentioned, during the month of March, I ran a month-long creative collaboration laboratory (aka 'Happening') in the Arcadia Gallery in Toronto. The project was called Cycles. Basically, I moved my studio (instruments, recording studio, cameras etc) into the gallery, and recorded/ video'd/ photographed anyone who came in, doing whatever they wanted to do. This resulted in a LOT of material being recorded, among other things. (click that link for some crazy crazy stats!)

I had no idea what was going to happen, or if anyone was even going to come, so I made a rough plan: record a tabla solo (peshkar->chakradar), in various talas and shruthis, and crowd-source the accompaniment by recording and/or sampling people playing things to build leharas.

Well....people brought so much amazingness and wickedocity, I was pulled off the tabla-solo path pretty early BUT...I did record the afore-posted Tintal Peshkar video, as well as a Jhaptal Palta Theka and a completely wacked out Jhaptal Kaida.

Ready for some Palta Theka action? Here we go:

...
So...let's get this out of the way: non-traditional accompaniment! The credits on this piece are:

Ed Hanley-tabla, voice, udu, shaker, programming, recording, mixing
Larry Graves-Green Egyptian Parade Drum
Lisa Patterson-Duduk
Adam Ogilvie (age 2.5)-bell

This composition is an amalgam of stuff from a variety of sources, stitched together on the fly:
A Palta Theka from Pt Suresh Talwalkar
A Palta Theka from Pt Swapan Chaudhuri
Another Palta Theka from Pt Swapan Chaudhuri
Chunks of material from my lessons with mrdangam maestro Karaikudi Mani

The starting point (after theka of course) is:

Dhin - Na - - Dha - Dhin - Na - Dha - kreDha - Dhin - Na - 

and we end up at:

Dhin na Dha trkt Dhin na Dhin Dhin na
Dhin na Dhin Dhin na Tin na Dhin Dhin na

 Everything was video'd, so, when I get time, I will edit the video for this one.

Cricketty

What else...the G tabla I was using has a pretty significant buzz, so I decided to join it, rather than fight it, and I threw a wee bit of ye olde overdrive plugin on the tabla track. The lowlow kick-drummy sound is actually an udu drum run through major filters, and the cricketty chik chik sound is actually trashy can-lid jingles from my green Egyptian Parade Drum. oh, and Yay cheezy drum programming! And whoa...isn't the duduk just about the most haunting thing you've EVER heard??
A. Mazing.

OK! time to go to space dear readers!

Ever wondered what a Kaida would sound like with the baya at double speed, and the tabla at single speed? What about that same idea, but with 8 bayas in unison, and 8 tabla in unison? With a bass veena, didgeridoo and gongs as accompaniment? Well, your wondering-about-all-that days are OVER!

This one is in 2 parts: alap, then the kaida.




...

(    (  ( (( Bass Veena )) )  )    )

So, first of all, the alap...WHOA! That, ladies and gentlemen is Justin Gray playing his custom made Bass Veena. Imagine a lot of reverb when you say that, because it's amazing:
(    (  ( (( Bass Veena )) )  )    )

He's playing Raga Bikaskhani Todi, which is one of my very favourite ragas...a sombre morning raga...from the wiki:

It is said that this raga was created by Bilas Khan, son of Miyan Tansen. Bilas Khan is said to have created raga Bilaskhani Todi after Tansen's death; an interesting legend of this improvisation (it differs only in detail from Tansen's Todi), has it that Bilas composed it while grief-stricken at the wake itself, and that Tansen's corpse moved one hand in approval of the new melody.

Slightly creepy, but cool. 

So, the kaida. Guess what? It's this old chestnut again:

Dha-trekeDhinnagen Dhagetete Dhage trekeDhinnagena
DhagenaDhatreke Dhinne Dhagetete Dhage trekeThinnakena

Yup...same one I play here, here AND here. Yes. I like this kaida.

you put your left hand in,
you take your right hand out...

The how: First, i recorded the whole kaida to click in logic (you can hear it come in every other cycle or so) so I'd have a guide. Then I put a shawl over the tabla, looped the section I wanted to record, and recorded (in loop mode) the theme, each variation and the tihai, eight times each. Logic makes a new file for each loop, and stacks them, so once you're done, you have, in this case anyway, a massive wall of bayas. THEN...I did the same thing for the tabla part, but at single speed...which was a bit of a trip at times...very interesting and unexpected intersections were happening...syncopating in a whole new way. But the tihai was a problem!!: the tihai I play on baya in double speed will not work in single speed! They won't land on sam together!! So...new tihai for the tabla part, with a Karnatic style expansion of Dhas...see if you can hear both tihais going by at the same time. Trippy!

There is some crazy patterning going on...the baya part is usually twice as long as the tabla part (because of Bhari/Khali, the tabla part is played twice for each single baya part, if that makes sense) so in this case the spread is closed: for each long baya part (bhari/khali) there is only 1 repeat of the tabla part. And now even I'm lost. Anyway. I thought it was cool.

Talia says: remember! safety first when gonging!

What else...my friends Larry and Talia did a gong improv to an early version of the recording (before Justin recorded (  ( (Bass Veena) )  ) which involved hanging gongs from the ceiling (there was a LOT of stuff hanging from the ceiling actually) and gonging gorgeously while standing precariously on a chair and a ladder. At some point, I didgeri-did the didgeridoo and the track was didgeri-done.

But that's not all! Earlier, I sampled some folks playing bells and singing bowls too...here are the full credits before I forget anyone:

Ed Hanley-tabla, baya, didgeridoo
Larry Graves, Talia McGuire-gongs
Justin Gray-bass veena
Laurie Stevenson, Wendy Fisher, Lori Fox Rossi, Vicki Persig, Christine Hein & Suba Sankaran-singing bowls and bells

and finally...here's a playlist of all the videos. (that link goes to the playlist, or see below...there's a 'next' button beside the play/pause button).
Each one deserves its own blog post, though not all of them are tabla-centric, they are all interesting in their own ways...poets, a dancer with Parkinson's disease, a whirling dervish, a lego stop motion animation in eleven beats! Hmm. That last one might have to get its own blog post:

'Cycles' Collaborative Multimedia Creation Laboratory

I'm 4 days into a month-long creation process at an art gallery in Toronto.

Because this is a tabla blog here, I can geek out on what I'm trying to do, but first....here's the first video from the project, a Tintal Peshkar with esraj accompaniment by the amazing Rattan Bhamrah:

Cycles: Part 1 from Ed Hanley on Vimeo.

So...first the project, then what's going on tabla-wise in that video.

The project (which has its own website here: http://www.cycles-film.com/ ) kind of fell into my lap. The folks who book the gallery approached me to see if I would be interested in doing a show. I balked initially, as I'm a musician (and yes, photo and video are also creative languages for me) but I had no idea what I'd do for a 'visual art' show. But I though about it a bit, and thought it might be cool to record a tabla solo, 52 Kaidas style (i.e. in discreet chunks) and crowd-source the accompaniment by recording and sampling anyone who came into the gallery. Then of course, I'd have to shoot music videos for each piece, and THEN, I knew I'd have to stitch it all together into a film.

Did i mention they approached me in mid-February, and the slot they wanted me to fill started March 1st? Yeah. So...I'm still kind of forming the idea of the whole thing as I go.

Much like a Kaida, there are rules, and the fact that there are rules is actually freeing, rather than restricting.

The rules are:
1. record all the parts of a tabla solo (peshkar, kaidas, kaida relas, relas, parans, thukras, chakradars etc) but in different talas (I'm planning Tintal, Jhaptal, Chartal Ki Sawari and Rupak but who knows)

Larry, Udu-ing.

2. Everything has to be created and recorded in the space....audio, video, photos, paintings, dance, you name it (this is one place where it's completely open ended). If someone wants to come down and vocalize bird sounds while they dance around in a feathered suit, I will record it, and I will integrate it into the piece. (tastefully, of course)

3. It has to be all inclusive: if you can clap your hands once, I can sample that clap, and work it into a piece. If you can pluck one note on a guitar, you're in the piece. If you have a FACE, I will take your picture, and you will be in the piece. Open to everyone. 

4. I have to be there, ready for anything, every single day for the entire month of March. And I need to work fast. I cannot agonize over tinytiny details...this project is about raw creation, not crystalline studio perfection. I think that exercising creativity and problem solving skills is important, so this is like a month-long creative boot-camp for me.

5. Ummmm..errr... I'm sure there are more rules, but it's late, and i can't remember. The project website has it all on there already. If you're a Torontonian, stop by. It's a new adventure everyday!

OK! Tabla-time!

I just LOVE this composition!

I learned this from Pandit Suresh Talwalkar in Pune. It's a really lovely arrangement: Peshkar, flowing into a Kaida, flowing into a Rela.

Tihais popping off everywhere, really cool vocabulary, tricky rhythmic phrasing, you name it. And slooooow tempo. I kind of rush through it (and I'm glad I did...the video is over 8 minutes long, which is about 7:45 seconds too long for most of internet-enabled humanity, sadly) but I could hang out on each section for 10 minutes easily.

I'm playing a low D tabla made by Mukta Das, and a baya that he reheaded...a Benares shell that weighs a LOT, very bottom-heavy, and stable.

This is probably (but not definitely) the most traditional presentation of tabla solo material I'll be doing in this project. I'm going to be sampling random strangers, so...there could be tuba, musical saw, gosh...even bongos!

Oh...that video is downloadable! (I'll also upload it to YouTube this evening)

This blog post here talks about how it was made...

I'll cross-post significant videos and recordings here. I recorded a Jhaptal Palta Theka on March 2nd, and now just have to build to accompaniment from whoever turns up, and I have some interesting tabla material planned.

thanks for reading, and head over to Cycles!

OH!

I almost forgot:

This Cycles project is not to be confused with THIS Cycles album, by another Canadian tabla player (high-five!) by the name of Shawn Mativetsky, which you should totally check out. Very cool stuff.

Ten Talas To A Disco Beat: Jhaptal

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you...something completely different.

Sita Sings the Blues meets Charanjit Singh in a psycha-tabla-delic dream.

 

It's been awhile since I've released a new track you can buy…so here's the Audio only version with that seductive BUY button. Pay What You Want, minimum $1 as per usual.



As always, I'll get down to the absurdly detailed nitty gritty of materials and creative process.

The Music

I first heard Charanjit Singh's album Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat a few years ago, and I fell instantly and rabidly in love with it. I have listened to this entire album on repeat on more than a few cross country aeroplane rides while on tour. A few tracks are in the top 20 most played in my iTunes library (#1, 6, 7 & 10). I even bought the vinyl. It's hypnotic.

Charanjit Singh made this album in 1982 in Bombay, apparently predating the invention of the genre known as Acid House by something like 4 years. Here are a bunch of links for you to investigate further if you wish: Track 1 on Youtube; and now you want to buy it, so go here: Bombay Connection; an article in the Guardian;  parts one and two of Geeta Dayal's awesome take on the whole thing; and finally an interview with the man himself. Psst!! Dudes in the video...I love that you went to his house! Can you convince him to make a new album? :D

Anyway…as soon as I heard the first track, I thought "I have to record tabla on this song!" and then immediately: "I'll record tabla on on ALL the songs! muahahahahah!!", and then… reality set in. The tracks are already so perfect and complete, there was just no way to improve upon them, not even with tabla (gasp!), so the idea went on a back burner and simmered. In the meantime, I went to India and studied with Pt Suresh Talwalkar on a Canada Council grant, and one Jhaptal Kaida he taught me leapt out as being PERFECT for a 1982 Vintage Bombay Acid House treatment (I'll cover the kaida fully in the next video post from the solo). But…all the tracks on the album are in 8 or 16 beat cycles, and the Kaida is in 10. Hmmm. Obviously, I need to make a version of one track in 10 beats…and then (forehead !!smack!!) it crystallized: Ten Talas to a Disco Beat! Remake every track in a different Tala, using the Ragas Charanjit Singh used on the original album. Not covers, not sampling, but new tracks...in the style of Ten Ragas. A companion album, if you will. Of course, I don't have Tabla repertoire in 10 different Talas (rhythm cycles), nor have I ever made anything remotely like a primordial Acid House track in my life, but I'll cross those bridges when I come to them. Never let reality get in the way of a good idea!

Here's the Kaida:
Dha - Treke Dhinnagena
Dhagetete DhageTreke Dhinnagena
DhagenaDha Treke Dhene
DhageTete DhageTreke Thinnakena

Fast forward to September 2011, around the time I posted the bluster-y Year Of Jhaptal post I decided to try to tackle making just one track, using that Jhaptal Kaida. Track 1 on the 10RTADB album is Raga Bhairav, so I started there. First: bassline, then drums, then keyboards courtesy of Dylan Bell (not an easy keyboard gig as you can imagine…it took promises of beer and future recording/web design-y favours) and then I set about actually recording the tabla parts in June of this year. There are 19 or so tracks of tabla: 3 high D w Bayan (6 tracks), an A drum and a low D drum (just Dayans), all in unison; a few tracks of single hits on a high and low D Dayans w distortion (sounds like an electric guitar? it's tabla), plus the sundry Dtrkttktrkt and other filler tracks. The bottom end is completely eaten by the bassline so that's why you can't hear the bayas: The bassline is crushing them out of existence! Muahahahah! But, I'm ok with this. The bassline is more important here.

That's the session...all 36 tracks:1-17 are virtual instruments
NOT samples (also not old Roland gear)
 and 18-36 are all tabla

Enter a solid week of editing just the tabla parts. Then a frustrating wandering-in-the-woods period where I had so many ideas that didn't work…Suba Sankaran came over and we co-wrote melodic lines for each variation (lovely, but not quite right...it became all about the melody), a vocoder track with the vocal percussion version of the main tabla parts ('Dha treke Dhinna Gena Dhagetete' etc), w the melodic lines or baseline or keyboard parts as the triggers (I couldn't make it work to my satisfaction), a different set of effects on each tabla track! for each variation! (what are you freaking crazy? do you know how LONG that would take??) aaaaand so on, ad naseum. So….it went back in the subconscious slow cooker for a few weeks. Fast forward again to editing the videos from the Jhaptal solo. The next one in the queue is that very same Suresh Talwalkar Jhaptal Kaida, and I thought 'what if I released that video, and THEN the Ten Talas track! Holy synchrorhythmity Batman!'

na-na na-na na-na na-na DHA DHA!

Enter a kind of manic period over the past few days where I looked at the track again, stripped everything back to the basics, and lo and behold…it was all there already. I just needed to slash and burn: this this this this and this…DELETE. Finish editing, and mix. Done. Sometimes a break is all it takes. I mastered it this morning.

Which brings me to the video part…

Much like Ten Ragas, I was positively frothing with glee when I first saw Sita Sings the Blues. Here are some links: You can watch it online for free (and you really really should), or download it (I have a 4 gig HD copy and a 15 gig copy I used for editing, all free and legal) right here; here's Roger Ebert's review; and here's an interview with creator Nina Paley in Wired. I am in awe…Nina Paley is my freakin' hero: she animated the entire 81 minute movie by herself, on her home computer. Keep that in mind while you watch. Here's what she says about it:

Dear Audience,
I hereby give Sita Sings the Blues to you. Like all culture, it belongs to you already, but I am making it explicit with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. Please distribute, copy, share, archive, and show Sita Sings the Blues. From the shared culture it came, and back into the shared culture it goes.

You don't need my permission to copy, share, publish, archive, show, sell, broadcast, or remix Sita Sings the Blues. Conventional wisdom urges me to demand payment for every use of the film, but then how would people without money get to see it? How widely would the film be disseminated if it were limited by permission and fees? Control offers a false sense of security. The only real security I have is trusting you, trusting culture, and trusting freedom. 

Whoa. Did she...did she say remix??

So….I wanted to remix parts of the movie. This idea was simmering for even longer than the Ten Ragas idea. Once I started the final push to finish the track, it was clear a video had to go with it. I'd already done some of the heavy lifting making video projections for the Jhaptal solo using SSTB, so it only made sense. I started on Tuesday, finished Thursday, and looked like Gollum at the end, I'm sure, complete with mutterings and preciousssings and cursessssessss. Please note: 99% of what you see is Nina Paley's work. I just chopped it up, squeezed it through kaleidoscopes, ran it spɹɐʍʞɔɐq, grabbed single frames etc etc. I did throw a few easter eggs in there, and those are my hands on the drums, filmed during the recording.

Oh yes, and there are explosions. Lots and LOTS of explosions. With pretty colours. On Sam. Because, really....Sam should be punctuated by explosions of pretty colours, don't you think? That's how I see it anyway.

So…there you have it, a creative time-travelogue of sorts, starting in 5th century India (Ramayana), with stops in a tabla practice room in Delhi sometime in the early 1900s (the Kaida), a Bombay recording studio 1982, an animators apartment in New York in 2007 ending up in an Artist's Co-op in Toronto in 2012. I take no credit for creating ANY of this. This is a perfect example of what Austin Kleon is talking about here.

I'm not going to promise that I can complete the album, as this one track took over my life for significant chunks, but it was really fun to make, and I have material in mind for an 11 beat version...

Thank yous are in order:

Dylan Bell for his Bomb-tastic keyboard parts
Suba Sankaran for writing a ton of (unused) melodic material and inadvertently teaching me a lot in the process
and both Suba and Dylan for letting use their livingroom as a recording studio
Santosh Naidu for convincing me to be as accurate as possible in recreating the drum and bass sounds
Gurtej Hunjan for showing me how to program the 808 drum machine in Logic to get those sounds
Jai Pahuja for patiently listening to me plan this project out for years
Andy Krehm for mastering it on short notice (we used 1/2" reel-to-reel tape in the mastering chain...exactly what Charanjit Singh would have mixed down onto! very excitement! unless he mixed down onto 1/4" tape, which is probably more likely)
Nina Paley for making Sita Sings The Blues, and writing back to me re proper credits (swoon) and generally being an inspiration
Charanjit Singh for going way way outside the harmonuim box and making an awesome record that's both traditional and cutting edge even today
Boing Boing for introducing me to both Ten Ragas and SSTB
Pandit Suresh Talwalkar for teaching me the Kaida, whipping my technique into shape, and showing me a lot of very cool tabla tools and techniques
Freya Sargent for embracing and encouraging the creative mania!

PS I'm kind of agonizing over whether this is actually a cover version or not. I don't think it is, and here's why: The Raga itself is not copyrightable, nor did Charanjit Singh invent it, the drum grooves and tempo are different, all the keyboard parts are completely different, and while the bassline is close, it's pretty different too…different rhythm, different time cycle, and different note order. But….I'm 100% sure I'd recognize it and go 'Charanjit Singh cover!' if I heard it, so that casts a teensy weensy seed of doubt. Anyone care to weigh in?