Animated Kaida, TablaVision Residency March 1-31 and Feb 23 concert

Greetings dear readers!

Three announcements:

1. New Video: Animated Kaida

That was: 2 hours of planning, 16 sheets of paper with a 5x5 grid, 1 pencil, 1 eraser, 4 hours of set up, 6 takes (on 2 different tunings), 4 videos, 13 photographs, 3 hours of photoshopping and 4 hours of video editing (punctuated by fits of giggling everytime the toy autorickshaw explodes).

The Kaida:
DhageTeteKeTa TeteKeTa TeteTeteKeTa
DhaTeteKeTa DhatiDhagena DhageThunnakena

Ta=Na
Dehli-style 2 finger Tete

I learned this from Pandit Suresh Talwalkar in Pune.

planning...planning

Awesome AWESOME practice. Slow it waaaay down, and dig into the Tetes. Remember that Ta=Na (NOT Ne). Believe it or not, this kaida will help your Terekite a whole bunch, but don't be gentle. Sweat, work out on it. Play the theme for 20-30 min at a time. Have fun. I play this almost everytime I practice.

A note on tempo: I chose 72 BPM for video reasons: Video framerate: 24FPS + Tempo: 72BPM= 20FPB (an even 20 frames per beat) which was easier for editing…though since I was subdividing each beat into 8, I had to make 1 frame adjustments every few beats. No matter…i'm not a machine, so I had to tweak here and there anyway.

Which leads us right into:

2. 'Cycles' TablaVision Residency

Say hi to Larry.

From March 1-31 I'm going to be moving my audio and video studio into Arcadia Art Gallery (680 Queens Quay West, Toronto) and making an album and a film. I'm not exactly sure what i'm going to do to be perfectly honest, but at the moment it looks like this: record a 2-3 minute tabla piece a day, and shoot & edit video to accompany each piece. A mix of music video and documentary I think ('sounds like a snake eating its own tail' is how one friend put it) . Plus I'll be showing photographs I've taken, incl a series I took of Haridas Vhatkar making tabla and who knows what else.

The pressure to create on a daily basis is part of the process, not to mention that the gallery will be open for a couple of hours a day, so the general public will be able to watch parts going down, editing and mixing going on, video being shot and edited. There will be several cameras kicking around the space, so people will be able to shoot photos and video, not to mention be in photos and video.

A CD and DVD will be available for purchase (as pre-order or after completion). I'll post once I figure out how to do internet pre-sales (Bandcamp…here I come).

I might make a blog so far-flung folks can follow along.

Stay tuned. It could be good, or it could be a slow-motion month-long wipeout of epic proportions!

3. Feb 23rd: Autorickshaw in concert with FreePlay Duo and sitarist Chris Hale

location:
East Side Boom and Gerrard Art Space
1390 Gerrard St E (in the heart of Little India)
Toronto
8PM
$10
http://www.facebook.com/events/121638941345192/

Autorickshaw, in trio form:
Suba Sankaran-voice
Dylan Bell-voice, bass, keys
Ed Hanley-tabla, voice

This video is not the trio, but Dylan did mix this tune, and we'll play it, and this crazy bird will be projected on the wall:



FreePlay Duo (a cappella vocals w loopstation)
Suba Sankaran-voice
Dylan Bell-voice

http://www.freeplayduo.com/



Chris Hale-sitar, voice
Ed Hanley-tabla

Chris and i will be starting the evening with some classical music, he'll join Autorickshaw on some tunes and we'll all do some Bollywood numbers:

Here's the third video from that demo session Chris and I did: Kabhi Kabhi

Chris sounds AWESOME, no?

I'm working on video projections for the whole evening (fingers crossed we can secure a projector) and hopefully we'll video the whole gig.

Should be fun.

ok, all for now,
E

PS oops...almost forgot! I had the amazing Justin Abedin in for a session recently...he laid down some epic guitar parts on track 2 of 10 Talas to a Disco Beat...soon come...soon come:

Sitar & Tabla demos

Greetings!

My friend Chris Hale and I spent an afternoon recording short promotional/demo videos, and here they are:





more stuff soon.
tata!
E

Kaida in Rupak Tal

Greetings!
Happy New Year, and I hope everyone has a stellar 2013!

Here's a quick Kaida in Rupak Tal (7 beat rhythm cycle) to ring in the new year:



So, couple things about this:

Theme
Dha-kiteDhete Dhagena Dha-
KreDhetete KiteDhete Dhagena DhageDhinnagena

I learned this from Pandit Suresh Talwalkar in Pune, on my 2nd study trip, the 'mostly Rupak' trip (as opposed to the 'mostly Jhaptal' trip).

It's a 4-parter, taking 2 cycles of Rupak once you hit double speed.

Very good practice: accenting the Ki and Kre strokes means lots of attention on the baya hand.

The math is awesome: phrases of 11 and 17

The tihai has an 11 microbeat gap, which is played, rather than just left silent:
Dha ge ge ge Di ge ge ge Ta ke ne

Rupak theka is Tin Tin Na Dhin Na Dhin Na , and can also be played 'rin-tin-tin-where's-my-din-din'

I want to post more to this blog, but it's a bit of a production to do an album-level recording every time I want to post...hiring an accompanist, mastering et cetera (esp since the blog really doesn't generate $$ at all) so, I'm going to try a more lo-fi audio-visual approach with backing tracks and/or electric mandolin as accompaniment. I'm still working on new tracks for my album, and will post those as they come up, and I still have to  finish the videos from the Jhaptal Solo in August (omg :P) but hopefully I can generate more posts this way.

Tata!

Pandit Ravi Shankar, 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012

By now, I'm sure everyone has heard the sad news.

Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha

I wanted to share the story of how Ravi Shankar was responsible for my path in life.

At age 18, I was living on my own, and casting about for something to do in between trying to finish high school and bike couriering. I was self-taught on guitar and hand percussion, as drumkit was impossible at home, and doubly-so at my apartment in Kensington Market in Toronto.

I tuned my classical guitar D-A-D-G-B-E, and used the three low strings as drones, and played melody on the top three strings. I was not into harmony…chords just didn't click with me. I wanted melody against a drone. My neighbour Karen Nordquist heard me playing guitar, and suggested I might check out some Indian classical music, and sent me to Sam The Record Man with instructions to pick up a Ravi Shankar tape. I'd never heard of Ravi Shankar.

Well, I got there, found the world music section, the Indian music section and the Ravi Shankar section, which was row upon row of cassettes! I thought to myself 'holy! this dude has like 50 albums out!!'. Which one to get? I decided on a Deutsch Grammaphone compilation cassette that had traditional pieces on one side, and Indian-Japanese fusion on the other. (I still have the tape!)

I got it home, and listened to it:

Track 1: Raga Mohan Kauns [Homage to Mahatma Gandhi]

Cool! Very pretty!

Track 2: Raga Gara

Also cool! No idea what's going on! but it's cool!

Track 3: Tala Farodast (Alla Rakha tabla solo)

Cool. VERY cool. (recititation starts at around the 4 minute mark). OMG WHAT IS THIS INSTRUMENT!! WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE!!!!

{This is where I rip the cassette out of my tapedeck, run next door to Karen's place, slap it in her tape deck, hit play and say 'Karen…what is this instrument?!? I LOVE IT!!!'.}

and Karen said "Oh…that's tabla! My vocal teacher Art Levine studies tabla with a guy named Ritesh Das…I'll get you his number tomorrow"

aaaand, here we are, what…24 or so years later?

Ravi Shankar was always very supportive of tabla…his albums regularly featured dedicated tabla solos, so, even though he was a sitarist, he is very much responsible for my finding tabla.


I downloaded that album last night, and listened to it until 3am.

RIP Maestro, and thank you.

Here's the iTunes link to the tabla solo if anyone is interested: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/tala-farodast/id28455365?i=28455215

and here's an album that has all the tracks from that tape, and more: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/ravi-shankar-the-master/id357113462

4 New Videos!

Seasonal greetings dear readers!

I have 3 tabla related videos, and one non-tabla related video to share.
1. Tabla Reheading in 3min32sec
2. Live Performance of Ten Talas to a Disco Beat: Jhaptal w video in a movie theatre
3. ‪Sánta Claus and the Flecktones Conquer The Martians‬
4. Refrigerator Dance Madness 57

Ready? Here we go:

Tabla reheading in 3min32sec, with Tisra Tabla solo:

I posted this pic to the Book of Face, and a friend suggested that I videotape a reheading, and speed it up, and I thought that sounded like a capital idea! And here we are.

'guess what I get to do today?'

You've got your taking the head off part, your cleaning the drum part, your tying the head back on part, your putting the new synthetic strap in the first hole and not getting it twisted part, your trying to get the strap through the last bleeping hole part, your balancing the bottom ring part, your pulling once, twice, tuning, pulling thrice and finally fourth (frice?) with the Tabla Tool, then you got some knot-tying and some tuning, the old putting-the-pegs-in part (and the 2nd strap version of that), your tuning w tuner part, your putting the string under the kinar part, and, finally, you've got your final tuning and 'ka-chang!' part. On sam. Sans explosion.

NEXT!

Live Performance of Ten Talas to a Disco Beat: Jhaptal

(in a real life movie theatre with a GIANT screen! :D)



The gruuven-art-foto silhouette effect was sort of unintentional...

On Nov 29th I presented Nina Paley's insta-classic animated masterpiece Sita Sings the Blues at the Projection Booth movie theatre in Toronto. It was originally going to be just the movie. Then someone suggested a live performance might be sweet to open the show. Then I thought 'I have to play to that video!'. Then I saw the GIANT screen, and thought 'omg I have to make video for the WHOLE music set'. So...it was 10 Talas vid, then Freeplay Duo (Suba Sankaran and Dylan Bell) did a set of a cappella vocals with Abelton Live as a looping station, accompanied by CDN filmmaker Norman McLaren's optical-printer-ballet masterpiece 'Pas de Deux' (I video'd part of soundcheck), then the 3 of us came together as Autorickshaw Trio, accompanied by silent footage from my 'weird' videos (Tabla in Space!, Tabla-Matic Tuning Model 2161 and Refrigerator Dance Madness 57*)

I tried to set up the lights so that the musicians would be lit, but so that the light would not impinge on the screen. My bandmates Suba and Dylan were lit, but it turns out that lighting yourself without an outside eye is almost impossible, and I was in darkness, though the silhouette effect is pretty cool at times.

Fun evening, all told.

NEXT!

‪Sánta Claus and the Flecktones Conquer The Martians‬

WARNING: be patient! The 'Ancient-One of Mars' speech is 2 min long, but so worth it...you'll be happy you waited once the song starts. Trust me. BONUS: turning on Youtube's 'Automatic Closed Captioning' sends the weirdness into overdrive... O.o

what is this I don't even...apparently 'Jingle Bells' in Tuvan sounds like 'hotmail'?

Yeah. Again....don't ask too many questions, because I really have no idea what I'm doing, but there is some hilarious footage in here, incl a Tuvan Throat Singing Robot from 1940, Rudolph as you've never seen him before, some of the greatest costumes outside Bollywood. Here's the video description:

My 2012 seasonal gift to all.

Assembled using footage from 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians' (1964) and a short clip of 'Leave It to Roll-Oh' (1940) set to an awesome version of 'Jingle Bells' by Béla Fleck and The Flecktones, from their 2008 album 'Jingle All The Way'.

I hope the respected Mr Fleck and his people don't mind...I cooked this meal with love...and it is probably the best Christmas album ever made, so you should all go-ho-ho out and buy it!!:
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/jingle-all-the-way/id323516134

Attributionalness: OH! and a tiny, explosive clip of Nina Paley's film 'Sita Sings the Blues' that I forgot to put in the film credits...sorry Nina! I blame that bottle of wine I drank while editing...

Whether you're Earthling or Martian, I wish you a Happy Christmahanakwanzika!, and a Fun & Creative New Year!

Ed Hanley
c/o Tala-Wallah Cathode Ray Science
P.O. Box π, Planum Boreum,
Mars
52kaidas.blogspot.com

 So.....yeah.

NEXT! errr... FINALLY!!!

*OH!!! I just realized that I never blogposted about:

Refrigerator Dance Madness 57!

Here it is:


Once again, the video description says it all (except that I made the music a very LONG time ago):

Gee whiz, I wish they still made extended commercials for appliances with dancing and wanton frolicking. Just...I don't even...(sputters)...c-c-customizable fridge panels? Fridge parties? Warp-fridges? Sideways ice-cube trays with LEVERS?!? I mean, COME ON! Can you imagine the commercials these folks would make for a modern blender???

Track available here: http://tala-wallah.bandcamp.com/track/ta-ta-bla-bla-bla
Go buy it for $1. Your fridge will thank you. Even if it doesn't have a warp-powered sideways-levered ice-cube delivery system.

Read up on tabla here: http://52kaidas.blogspot.com
Tabla is almost as cool as a warp fridge.

I originally wrote and recorded the music for a dance piece choreographed by Mitch Kirsch, a Cunningham dancer, so a randomly generated refrigerator theme is pretty much in the spirit, I think. AND...the rhythms are all made up of phrases of 5 and 7, so the discovery of a refrigerator dance video from 1957 was a pleasantly serendipitous happystance.

Ta-KaDhin- 5
Ta-Dhin-TaDhin- 7
See?

AND, the person I kept thinking about while making this video has 5 letters in her first name (Freya) and 7 in her last (Sargent). "oooooOOOoooo" Hi Freya! -waves-

Those music people you were hearing are:
Ed Hanley on tabla, voice and programming
Parmela Attariwala on viola and or violin
Debashis Sinha on riqq
Suba Sankaran on vocals

Those videos you were seeing are all from the Prelinger Archives, are public domain and were super fun to edit (err...what does this 'composite mode' do...duuuude no way!!).

off to search 'blender' in the Prelinger Archives.... (swoosh)

ok...the warp part isn't really in the original video. But it totally could have been.

aaaaaand that's all for now.

I have 2 more videos from Jhaptal to post and blog...stay tuned!
E

Naghmeh Farahmand: Unbound

I'm working on a new track, and need to finish the live concert videos, but in the meantime I wanted to share and album I helped make: Naghmeh Farahmand's solo percussion album 'Unbound'.

Three tracks from Unbound:



Clicking 'Buy' will download the whole album, even though only three tracks are available for preview.

A fourth track in video form (sorry about the low sound quality on the vid…NOT MY FAULT!):

Maryem:

Naghmeh Farahmand comes from a musical family. Her father is one of Iran’s leading percussion masters, Mahmoud Farahmand. Growing up in that milieu, she showed great interest in rhythms and started playing the tonbak when she was 6.

While learning the rhythmic patterns of Persian traditional music she began playing the more melodic santoor under the guidance of Faramarz Payvar and Pashang Kamkar. Besides this traditional education, Naghmeh learned Sufi and Kurdish rhythms on the daf – an instrument she found both powerful and spiritual – with masters Bijan Kamkar and Masoud Habibi. Skilled on a variety of other traditional instruments, Naghmeh has been passing on these skills as a teacher for over 15 years.

Farahmand has played with many well-known Iranian ensembles and has performed widely at important festivals and throughout Europe. She was honoured to perform with Hassan Nahid, Iranian master of the ney and with Hengameh Akhavan, legendary singer of traditional music. Naghmeh also founded Sharghi, a percussion ensemble, which performed for Iran’s national television, recorded numerous pieces and performed live for over a decade.

Naghmeh and I met doing a gig in March 2011, and I was blown away by her playing. I asked if she had an album, and she didn't, so I said 'let's make one'.

I co-produced, engineered, edited and mixed as well as playing a couple small parts (framedrum oooOOOooos etc) and generally sherpa-ing the process. Naghmeh wrote and/or arranged everything, and played everything (and the list of instruments is impressive, esp since I only play ONE instrument :P) : Tonbak, Daf, Dayereh, Framedrums (Tar, Bendir), Udu, Djembe, Cajon, Shaker, Zills, Handclaps, shakers etc etc ETC! The amazing Maryem Hassan sings on 2 tracks, and the amazing Ray Montford mastered the record. Yay for amazing people!

Naghmeh would show up at the studio and announce that she had a new piece, and would record, say, the Tonbak part start to finish (incl sections where there were massive dozen-bar rests) flawlessly, to a clicktrack, then overdub other parts that filled-in, interacted, texturized, contextualized, coloured etc. It was very cool…she had the entire arrangement in her head, and would just lay it down, part by part, and it would gradually bloom and reveal itself.

I'm very proud to have been involved in the making of this album, for sure. Go Naghmeh!

Naghmeh laying down some heavy Tonbak at chez Tala-Wallah!

Enjoy,
E

links:

CD on CDBaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/naghmehfarahmand

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/album/unbound/id557241432?v0=9989&ign-mpt=uo%3D1

Guest Post: David Yovino and new tabla technology

The Future of Tabla Design: TransTabla | By Robin Sukhadia www.tablapusher.com

UPDATED. See bottom for part 2.

What is tabla’s best friend? “The Hammer,” according to David Yovino, who launched a Kickstarter Campaign http://kck.st/WiuStF to advance the design of tabla. “Without the hammer, a tabla player cannot tune their instrument. Tabla players must develop sensitivity with their hammer, striking carefully and accurately. Otherwise, the tabla can be damaged or the player may take too long to tune and ruin the mood of a concert.  I wanted to evolve the design to create a more comfortable and useful hammer.”

The evolution of the tabla hammer: old skool (left) and the future (right)

It makes sense: even tabla, which has withstood the test of time, is due for innovation.

Like all musical instruments, tabla has undergone changes in its design that parallel  advances in technology as well as the changing tastes and demands of audiences over centuries of time. The need for more speed, interplay and improved sound have resulted in what we see on stage today. The drum, in just one hundred years, has evolved a great deal from its origins and from its parent drum, the Pakhawaj. That drum was the favorite of the Mughuls in Delhi up to the 1500s. But as tabla artists fled eastward to Lucknow and Kolkata as a result of the onslaught of the British from the 1700s onwards, tabla too had to change as the structure and presentation of ragas changed. Growing middle class and global audiences demanded more fireworks from their tabla players, more speed, and a more powerful sound.

1920 Kolkata – Pandit Hirubabu Ganguly (left) and Ustad Abid Hussain Khansahib (right). Notice the size of the baya, the bass drum, and the larger size of the tabla.

Just one hundred years ago, tabla would have looked much different than it does today. In those times, the baya may have been more likely made of clay, not steel, like today. Although the clay was more resonant in sound, the baya unfortunately couldn’t travel well and was extremely fragile. The bass drum was smaller and also often positioned in the lap of the player, rather than on a ring on the floor, so it too was smaller. Tabla was still very sheltered, and heard only by the elite audiences lucky enough to have presence in the court of the Rulers. It simply was not designed to be consumed on a mass scale, and as such the drums were smaller overall, and designed to project to audiences in small rooms, perhaps for just 50 or so audience members.

That all changed with the arrival of the microphone in India in the early 20th century, the collapse of the Mughal system of patronage, and Indian / Pakistani independence in 1947. Tabla was liberated from its small environs, and within a few decades after independence was being mic’ed and projected to large audiences across India and south Asia. Tabla players were being invited by burgeoning Bollywood composers in Mumbai to perform on film scores. The sound of tabla was going global. All the traveling and the availability of mics led to tabla shrinking in size and the incorporation of new and more durable materials like steel for the baya shell, versus clay. The increasing popularity of the instrument resulted in the explosive manufacture of drums of varying quality by tabla makers in villages and cities across north India. As demand increased, quality and innovation decreased.

Even today, getting good tabla manufactured outside of India is a near impossibility. Only a handful of tabla makers based in India deliver the best drums to master and advanced players worldwide.

Fast forward to 2012. David Yovino, a student of tabla maestro Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California, is applying his skills in design, architecture and music to rethink tabla from the ground up. His designs are addressing critical questions that have been largely unaddressed by tabla makers for decades: How can the latest advances in materials be integrated into the design of tabla? How can tabla be redesigned to facilitate easier collaboration with non-Indian classical musicians? How do you maintain tuning of the drum while enduring the rigors of traveling? How can you enable fast tuning of the drum beyond just a half step up or down? How do you increase the resonance of the drum’s sound?




Yovino has created the first ever mechanism that enables simple tuning of tabla beyond just a half step. Tabla players who want to collaborate with western musicians often have to carry 2 or more drums that are in tune with the pieces being performed. Now, tabla players can simply adjust the tuning of a single drum across whole steps up or down the scale, while maintaining the drum’s balance. A machined hole built into this new design called the TransTabla allows for easy mounting of the drums on stands, so tabla players can more easily stand up with fellow musicians and perform on stage. Kevlar threading in the straps keeps the drum in tune almost indefinitely.

A new Tabla Tool he designed represents the evolution of the traditional hammer. Incorporating ergonomics and a hook for strap adjustment, the new hammer is more balanced and more utilitarian. Advances in the finishing of the metal also improve its aesthetic appeal.

Yovino aims to raise $10,000 through Kickstarter: http://kck.st/WiuStF to fund the further development of the TransTabla and the Tabla Tool. Consider supporting his campaign, and be part of the next step in tabla’s evolution. Learn more at www.vnodne.com.

Part 2: http://nadabrahma.co.uk/the-future-of-tabla-design-transtabla-part-2/

Photo credit:
Tabla Hammer – Robin Sukhadia
1920 Kolkata -  Photo Courtesy of Swapan Chaudhuri