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Debashish Bhattacharya-Hindustani Slide

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  • Hindustani SlideIndian Classical GuitarDebashishBhattacharya

  • 2Hindustani SlideGetting There: One Americans Journey

    by Mark Humphrey

    On a bone-jarring bus ride through Howrah, one of the planets poorest and most densely populatedcommunities, Debashish Bhattacharya turned to me and asked, Will most Americans be watching thisvideo during the morning or evening? From our teetering, standing-room-only bus, Debashishs atten-tion shifted to the arcane psychology of Hindustani music with its notion that specific sound formationsare appropriate to particular times of day. To a 6' 2" American buckling his knees to avoid concussion(Debashish commended my good hydraulics) and white-knuckling the overhead rails to avoid beingpitched at the next pothole into the passing slums, this seemed a curious inquiry. Evening, I replied.Debashish said Acha (uh-huh), nodded assent (the Indian way, side to side) and was satisfied. Hecould now prepare his program.

    How, I surely must have asked myself, had an Oklahoma-born Californian come to be on a buslurching into Calcutta with an Indian classical musician seeking counsel on American video-viewing hab-its? The blame, I concluded, must be shared equally by Bukka White and Ravi Shankar. Like manyWesterners, I had become vaguely aware of Indian music via the use of sitar by the Beatles (NorwegianWood), Rolling Stones (Paint It Black), and others in the halcyon days of psychedelia. I was perhaps 14when I bought a Ravi Shankar album (The Sounds of India, Columbia CL 2496); a few years later I sawhim in concert with the dynamic tabla master, Alla Rakha, father of todays leading tabla virtuoso, ZakirHussain. The fancy for Indian ragas as soundtrack to psychedelic epiphanies, much satirized on Laugh-In(and, in a different way, Dragnet), soon faded, as did my own fleeting interest in this exotic sound.American blues emblemized epiphanies of an earthier order, and in my late teens this music became mypassion.

    I may have been 17 when the Columbia Lp reissue of Bukka Whites 1940 session (ParchmanFarm, Columbia C 30036) entered my life, and with it an awareness of bottleneck slide guitar. How did heget that sound? I wanted to find out, and began tentative experiments with pocket knives, rain gaugetubes, and (more successfully) finger-long pieces of steel tubing. Bukka, I would later learn, was a gate-way for many of us who came to this music about the same time, circa late 1960s-early 1970s. LeoKottke recalls the first slide piece he learned (via John Fahey) was Bukkas version of Po Boy. FromBukka I discovered a rich African-American tradition of slide guitar, much of which was just then becom-ing accessible via reissues on the Yazoo label. Here was an exciting new-old guitar sound, one that hadyet to become an overdriven rock cliche. Exploring its sources on record and attempting to play withsome semblance of these artistss grit and passion was an exciting challenge.

    Photo by Mark W

    ooley

  • 3After a couple of years experimentation (a wine bottleneck, I found, worked best for me), I hadacquired enough technique to venture to play more than mere imitations of blues pioneers. I found low-rent versions of country steel guitar standards and made a few stabs at lazy luau Hawaiiana. One of mybetter goofs was Zorba the Greek bottleneck style. Sometimes Id hit a lick and think, That almost soundslike a sitar. Slow slides as well as certain brisk leaps around a note recalled what Id heard Shankar playa few years earlier. Interesting, I thought, and moved on.

    My bus ride through Howrah was still faraway, but creeping closer. Some 15 years after myslide Zorba days, I found myself working as MusicDirector at a public radio station with a varied (ifshort-lived) American roots music format. Week-day mornings I DJed, and Western Swing was apopular part of the programing on this station inthe San Fernando Valley, where California Okies hadmade Bob Wills and Spade Cooley pop heroes inthe 1940s. I heard recordings with steel guitars daily,so I was startled to walk into an Indian food stall inSanta Monica and hear a tape of an Indian popsinger with a steel burbling behind her. Intrigued, Iasked the guy at the counter the names of artistswith such accompaniment, which he kindly wrotedown and I promptly lost. But I soon discovered anIndian market in Culver City with hundreds of cas-settes selling for $1.50: I bought a couple ( HitGhazals, Divine Melodies) by steel guitarist GautamDasgupta. He used an electric steel (very trebly witha good dose of reverb) to play vocal lines - singlenotes, no harmony - with kitschy synth orchestra-tion. The steel became a surrogate female voice,alternately weepy or flirtatious. This was moodmusic of the old (pre-New Age) order, Subconti-nental Mantovani with some dazzling bar technique.Just as Ravi and Bukka gave me my first kick to-wards the Howrah bus ride, so the soundtrack totandoori chicken at the Bengal Tiger confirmed myhunch that there was an affinity between the Indiantwang and American slide guitar.

    Discoveries of further pieces of an evermore intriguing puzzle then accelerated. Gautam Dasguptassyrupy pop was followed by an apparently far stranger find: an album of Indian classical music playedslide style on an archtop jazz guitar! The cover showed a mystically sincere looking fellow in formal whitekurta and dhoti sitting cross-legged with an archtop guitar in his lap. Mind you, Id seen great vintagephotos of hillbillies and Hawaiians playing lap style, but this was something else again. The album wasTwo Raga Moods On Guitar (World Pacific WPS-21452) by Brij Bhushan Kabra. I paid $1.89 for it.

    About a year later, I was sent review copies of a couple of recordings by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt(Easter Sunday Recital, Raga 105 and BihagDesh, Raga 208). This was some three years prior to his AMeeting by the River World Music Grammy. Here was more Indian classical music played slide style onan archtop guitar, this time one with sitar-like sympathetic strings added. A testimonial from Ravi Shankarsaid: Although guitar is a foreign instrument, he has a tremendous command over it... He has given anew dimension to it by merging the sound and style of guitar, sitar, and sarod. Now I had recordingsmade at least 20 years apart by two guys playing Indian classical music on guitar. What, I wondered,gives?

    A tangential piece of the puzzle fell into place on yet another used vinyl forage. I happened on amildewed album of Dr. Lalmani Misra (Nectar of the Moon, Nonesuch H-72086) playing something calledthe vichitra vina. The cover was a gorgeous color drawing of a man siting over an instrument comprisedof two large gourds joined by a neck fretted with a glass egg! The instrument looked like some bizarremedieval cousin of the modern steel guitar, though it sounded very much like a sitar. I was stumbling, bitby bit, into fragmented artifacts of a rich musical tradition: I first heard the sticky sweet steel in Indian

    Sumit B

    anerjee plays a 'Givson' electric steel m

    ade in Calcutta. Photo by M

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  • 4pop, then classical music slid on archtop guitars, and finally an apparently traditional Indian instrumentplayed slide style. I wondered further - What gives? I had to see and meet some player of this music foranswers.

    Southern California has a large Indian community which frequently sponsors concerts. The dis-covery of Indian slide guitar had rekindled my long-latent interest in Indian music, so in September 1993I found myself at a concert by sarod master Ali Akbar Khan. A lady was distributing flyers outside the hallfor Ustad Zakir Hussains Festival of Music. There were names and dark blurry photos of performersassociated with Calcuttas Sangeet Research Academy. One was captioned: Debashish Bhattacharya:Guitar. What kind of guitar? I asked. Like Vishwa Mohan Bhatt was the reply. Finally, a piece of thepuzzle I could watch play; possibly one I could talk to. I would not miss his concert.

    But I did. There were many performers, two nights of concerts and no indication on the flyer thateveryone wasnt playing on both nights. They werent though, so I missed the guy Id driven 50 miles insweltering September heat to see/hear/interrogate. I was not keen on this turn of events - if I couldnt seea guitarist who played in this style, then at least I would talk to one. I had bought Debashishs sole CD(Debashish BhattacharyaGuitar, India Archive Music, IAM CD 1007) and read in the liner notes that hewas a disciple of Brij Bhushan Kabra. Henry Kaiser had done a first-rate interview with Kabra which ran inthe December 1985 Guitar Player. I xeroxed it to break the ice with Debashish in case he hadnt seen it.As the concert was ending, I recognized him (despite the bad photo) walking from backstage to take aseat for the remainder of the concert. When it ended, I made my way up to him just before he exited,introduced myself, and gave him the xerox on Kabra. He is my guru, he said, pleased. Evidently Iddone the right thing. What can I do for you? I explained that I wanted an interview and some instruction.This I can do, he said.

    The next evening I went to the home where Debashish was staying. I expected to do a formalinterview, but first Debashish asked me, Do you play guitar? I allowed that I did, and added that I hadone stashed in the trunk in case he felt inclined towards a lesson. Please bring it in, said Debashish, whothen requested I play. For a gathering of touring Indian classical musicians I played Steel Guitar Rag; theyclapped along! The ice was broken; I played Wabash Cannonball, and then Debashish was eager to havea go at my old steel-bodied National. He surprised me by playing a version of Spanish Fandango, a sweet19th century parlor guitar tune. He was entranced by the sound of my Duolian; he had read about resona-tor guitars and was fascinated by how they worked. I turned on my tape recorder and asked many ques-tions; Debashish patiently and thoroughly answered. Then he said he would like to visit some musicstores the next day. I offered to chauffeur him and his friend, musician/composer Sanjoy Chakraborty.Aside from some Hollywood hustlers who cheerfully tried to swindle the out-of-towners (a 1970s Dobrowas presented as a 1920s National at one store), the highlight of our music store tour was a visit to PacificPiano, where the string wizards from Calcutta (Sanjoy plays sitar) stockpiled spools of Austrian Zitherwire. They were giddy with delight: You cannot get this in India, they enthused. Effusive with thanks,they said, You must come to Calcutta. A year later, I did.

    Vichitra vina

  • 5In hindsight, it was a journey for which I had been preparing for more than a quarter of a century.Perhaps if I hadnt xeroxed that article on Brij Bhushan Kabra, it wouldnt have happened and this videowouldnt exist. But probably things would have gone right anyway, for Debashish Bhattacharya is a mas-ter musician who is also an extremely open, accessible person. I was lucky - my curiosity led me to theright guy. The night this video was taped, he told me: Baba Allauddin Khan said, To be a good musicianfirst you must be a good man. Most Indians keep the Bhagavad Gita in their place of puja [worship]. Ikeep the life of Allauddin Khan.

    Why this discursive preamble? Because most Americans, I suspect, come to this music as I did bysome circuitous route. We share a curiosity about the seeming anomaly of Indian music played slide-styleon guitar. It looks, on first glance, like a complete oddity. But what on first glance appears anomalousbecomes, on closer examination, sublimely inevitable.

    Getting There II: Hittites & Hawaiians

    The evening Debashish surprised me with Spanish Fandango (and sounds more Indian besides),he said, It is important to Indianize the guitar. In the immediate context of his career, he was emphasiz-ing (A) the struggle of Hindustani slide guitarists to be accepted as the equals of sitarists and sarodists onthe Indian art music playing field, and (B) their stylization of the instrument (the addition of sympatheticstrings being the most obvious example) to suit the contours of Indian classical music. In a broader sense,he was also pointing to a long-standing process: the guitar is merely the latest in a long line of Indianizedforeign instruments. The sitar may have evolved from the diminutive three-stringed setar of Persia, thesarod descended from the Afghani Rebab; tablas came from the Middle East, the violin and harmoniumfrom England. The musical gifts of Indias many invaders were readily assimilated and reinvented; Ameri-can ways and means have recently met the same treatment afforded those of Moguls and Britons - theyhave been Indianized. In South India, Karnatak classical music is now performed on saxophone andelectric mandolin as well as the traditional vina. As for the guitar, there are those who believe it was firstIndianized not on the Subcontinent but in Hawaii.

    Two different accounts from the 1930s describe the 1880s performances of Gabriel Davion, saidto have been a kidnapped Indian brought to Honolulu by a sea-captain. Remembering a boyhood encoun-ter from 1884, Hawaiian composer Charles E. King recalled: This Davion attracted a great deal of atten-tion because he had a new way of playing the guitar... All the playing was done on one string, and thestrings were not elevated by a bar. Davion is said in another account to have accompanied hula dancerswith Hawaiian-style guitar at King Kalakauas Jubilee in 1886. If true, an Indian exile may have been thefirst Hawaiian guitarist, though it was surely Joseph Kekuku who both popularized and claimed to haveinvented the style. The fact that Davion came from India is significant, writes David D. Kilolani Mitchell

    Photo by Mark H

    umphrey

  • 6in Hawaiian Music and Musicians (George S. Kanahele, ed., University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1979),for he might have learned the sliding technique using a rod or hard substance from Indian players of thegottuvadyam. It would have been a relatively simple matter of using it with a guitar.

    The gottuvadyam (block instrument) is the sister instrument of South Indias vina, sometimescalled a Sarasvati vina for the goddess of music and learning often depicted playing it. It is, in musicologistsparlance, a fretless long-necked lute; a hard wooden block is used as slider to change its pitch. Much ofthe playing is done on the highest-pitched string, actually a course of two or three strings tuned to anoctave. To speculate that Davion played gottuvadyam assumes that he came from South India, which wedont really know. But the gottuvadyam wasnt the sole Indian instrument played in this fashion. Theaforementioned vichitra vina is a North Indian relation, though it may have developed after Davions time.There were, however, folk instruments: H.A. Popley used Tambur as a generic term for Indian long-necked lutes in his The Music of India (first published in 1921), and wrote: Sometimes players use thetambur in quite peculiar ways. I once heard a musician play on it by stopping the strings with a smallbamboo and using it more like a vina. The full resonance of the tambur and the buzzing sound gave themelody a very pleasing effect. I also heard a player play an instrument like the tambur by stopping it with

    a cocoanut.This means of fretting a stringed instrument was nothing new

    in India. The Ajanta cave paintings of the 5th century A.D. offerthe earliest glimpses of an instrument which became important inmedieval India, the ekatantri (one string). It was essentially a hol-low wooden or bamboo tube along which a single gut string wasstretched. At the upper end was a gourd, the instruments sole reso-nating chamber, which the player rested on the left shoulder. At thelower end, the string passed over a wide convex bridge; the buzzassociated with Indias plucked stringed instruments emanates fromsuch bridges. The ekatantri is also believed to have been the earli-est instrument to utilize a jiva of bamboo fiber placed under thestring at the bridge to accentuate this buzz in the manner threadsare today used on the tambura. Most significant in our context, theinstrument was often fretted with a kamrika, a short length of bam-boo. The 12th century scholar Haripala gave detailed descriptionsof techniques for playing the ekatantri, including one calledSphurita: The string is made to produce tremulous note due toshaking effected by bamboo... Ekatantri became a significant in-strument of the 7th through the 13th centuries A.D. Writing in the11th century, the scholar Nanyadeva proclaimed, Goddess

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  • 7Sarasvati Herself dwells in the ekatantri, for it could deliver all srutis (notes and microtones) and gamakas(ornamentations). The 13th century scholar Sharangadeva called the ekatantri the mother of all vinas,and the vina, as evidenced by its mythic association with Lord Shiva, credited with creating it, and Sarasvati,resides at the pinnacle of the Indian instrumental hierarchy. (In a sense, all the plucked long-neckedlutes of India, including sitar and currently guitar, may be regarded as varieties of vina.)

    So there was nothing foreign to India about a plucked stringed instrument on which a sliderchanges the strings pitch. By the 20th century, however, it was no longer a technique in extensive use,though the gottuvadyam and vichitra vina revived it somewhat. (Writing in String Instruments - PluckedVariety - of North India, Vol. II in 1988, Sharmistha Sen states: The vichitra vina is a recent innovationand took its shape hardly 60 years ago. The gottuvadyams chief exponent, Ravi Kiran, touts his instru-ment as the earliest form of vina, but believes it emerged as a concert instrument only a century ago.)The Hawaiian guitars arrival in India isnt something we can precisely date, even though we hear itprominently in movie songs (filmi music) shortly after Independence. There were hints in even these filmiperformances of the slide guitars adaptability to Indian classical tradition: the song Baat Chalat fromthe 1953 film, Ladki, opens with a brief meditative guitar line suggesting the slow alap or introductoryphase of a raga before becoming accompaniment to the plaintive pop vocals of Geeta Roy.

    We might well wonder what took the guitar so long to get to India. Hadnt an occasional colonialBriton passed through strumming it in Spanish (fretted) style? Hadnt there also been opportunity, amongwaves of sundry invaders, for something guitar-like to take root in India? The earliest recorded guitar isetched in stone on the Sphinx Gate at Alaca Hoyuk, Turkey. Its a small-waisted fretted instrument resem-bling todays Persian tar. A Hittite juggler plays this primordial guitar in the bas relief, circa 1400 B.C.Surely Asia Minor was a nearer port of export for the guitar (or some kindred chordophone) into Indiathan Hawaii. But the guitar bided its time, traveling instead to Europe and only coming to India after itsHawaiian transformation (which an Indian may have prompted).

    The Hawaiian guitar insinuated itself into 20th century Indian music by two routes: recordings anddirect contact with Hawaiian musicians. Hawaiian music was an international craze in the early 20thcentury, and recordings of Hawaiian guitarists were reportedly popular in India. The Hilo Hawaiians re-cording of Aloma inspired the formation of Calcuttas Aloha Boys in 1938, a group which recorded forHMV (Victor) and broadcast on All-India Radio. According to Hawaiian Music and Muscians, JimmieRodgers naughty 1929 recording, Everybody Does It in Hawaii (with Joe Kaipo on acoustic steel guitar),was a great hit in India. Recordings inspired home-grown imitators, and there were visits by touringHawaiian troupes too: the Tau Moe family spent the years 1940-1947 performing and recording in India.(Bob Brozmans account of them appeared in the January/February 1991 Acoustic Guitar.) By Indepen-dence, Indians had heard enough Hawaiian guitar to begin integrating it into their own music. The chordalvamps and dreamy harmonies of Hawaii were discarded; in their place emerged single-string glides andsubtle ornamentation of notes.

    I had the opportunity to ask Debashishs father, Sunil Bbattacharya, if he heard the guitar when hewas a young man. At that time there was guitar in our country, he said, but they played [Rabindaneth]Tagore songs and light music (light music tends to denote something between classical and populargenres). They were also very popular in orchestras playing Western music in the 1930s and 1940s.Vishwa Mohan Bhatt told me: Before, guitar was considered an instrument only for light music, for filmsongs... They were having a very wrong impression about it. In other words, it was deemed inappropriatefor Indian classical music.

    The man who changed that was Brij Bhushan Kabra. He is atotal musician, Debashish says of his guru, a god-like man. VishwaMohan and I are performers. Brij Bhushanji is a musician. Born intoa prominent family in Jodhpur in 1937, Kabra shocked his father, apatron of the classical arts who had studied sitar with the legendaryInayat Khan (father of sitarist Vilayat Khan), by embracing a West-ern instrument, an archtop Hofner guitar acquired for 250 rupees in1958. Kabras elder brother, Damodar Lal, had studied sarod withAli Akbar Khan, and so shouldnt he follow suit? Surprisingly, AliAkbar Khan encouraged Kabras enthusiasm for guitar: Dont leavethis, he told Kabra after coaching him in the rudiments of Hindustaniclassical tradition. I believe you are going to do something on it.There is something special about this instrument... The father whoinitially objected to Kabras interest in guitar then challenged hisTh

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  • 8son by offering to present him in concert a year after he took up the instrument. I started playing like amad person, Kabra told Henry Kaiser (Gultar Player, December l985), because up until that time, therehad been no precedent for the guitar in Indian classical music. Kabras solitary crusade to prove theguitar could hold its own in this tradition was a success: his 1959 concert debut was followed by furtherexperiments with guitar (he would be the first to add the chikari, or rhythmic drone string) and, beginningin 1964, a recording career. I had no fixed ideas about music or the instrument, Kabra told Kaiser. Ideveloped my technique according to the music I wanted to play, by trial and error, and it kept gettingbetter and better... As I went on, I found there was unlimited potential in it; the only question was how farI could draw on my own reserves, how much more I could learn to really bring it out of the instrument. Butthe instrument never said no. It has fantastic range, as far as the holding (sustaining) power of the note isconcerned. No other instrument has that. For the most important part of Indian music, the alap, it is oneof the most ideally suited instruments... the most important aspect of the alap - the modulations that thehuman voice can do, the grace notes it can produce - that can be achieved very well on the guitar.

    The guitars entry into the Indian classical arena, wrote Mohan Nadkarni in the notes to Kabras1968 World Pacific album, Two Raga Moods on Guitar, is looked upon as a welcome, if bold venture.This sense of a new voice within Hindustani tradition doubtless drew young musicians to follow Kabraslead. The guitar has now become quite a popular instrument in India, he said a decade ago. The realthing will start rolling when a lot of other young people come up. And things have indeed rolled at a briskclip as younger players have garnered international acclaim for the sound of Hindustani slide guitar.

    Being There: Debashish Bhattacharya

    The guitar had been nudging its way into Indian classical tradition for scarcely a decade whenDebashish Bhattacharya began playing it on All India Radio. He was a seven-year-old prodigy then:Many of the upper musicians of our country told us, If you keep him learning, definitely he is assured ofsuccess, his father recalls. Born in West Bengal in 1963, Debashish is the eldest son of Sunil andManjushree Bhattacharya. They are singers who forsook the often-penurious musicians life for clericaljobs in Calcutta to better provide for their three children. My mom and father have sacrificed their wholelife, says Debashish. My father used to sing a very good thumri (light classical vocal) style. He had allthe qualities to be a good musician, but if he had done concerts and went to his gurus and stayed withthem, we could not be nourished in the proper way. You will find a rare father in him.

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  • 9If you visit the Bhattacharya household in Calcutta,you may find Debashish holding court for a group of as-piring guitarists, or his sister, Sutapa, playing harmoniumand teaching Indian Solfeggio (Sa=Do) to an enthusiasticgaggle of young girls. You may encounter Debashishsbrother, Subhashish, teaching the mysteries of tala(rhythm) on tablas or pakhawaj or one of the other drumshe plays expertly. If no students are present, youll likelystill hear music from one or more of the youngerBhattacharyas, whose parents sometimes drift into theirmusic room to listen and offer encouragement. It wasprobably always like this, and naturally these musicalparents were eager to see if their first born had talent.We had the opportunity to test him at age three or four,recalls Sunil Bhattacharya. He had the power to graspmusic by listening: the music he has taken from his ear,he can sing and express it. When we came to the conclu-sion that he has got musical sense, I decided he must beencouraged along this line, to be trained by some re-nowned musicians.

    The guitar came to this musical family as a surro-gate voice for Manjushree Bhattacharya. His mother wasa singer, says Sunil, a proper singer. But when she gavebirth to my first son, Debashish, she became very ill. ThenI told her to play some light music, to take up an instru-ment. I toId her, You can play a guitar; it has got somescope in making light music. Then I purchased a sec-ond-hand guitar. When he was about five, I told his motherto give him a chance to adapt this instrument to his mu-sical sense, to his musicality that was in him from birth. He became successful at the age of five and sixmonths. Within three months he has gone through the whole six strings of the instrument.

    The guitar was bigger than me, Debashish recalls. My Mom taught me, This is Sa (Do), this isRe (Re), this is Ga (Mi), and so on. After Debashish mastered the scale positions with his bar, Manjushreesang Solfeggio lines and asked her son to play what she had sung. Gradually she added the ornamenta-tions (gamakas) and challenged her son to play those as well. This is the system, says Debashish,learning from singing. I never felt any limitations on guitar because I learned from a limitless type ofmusic, vocal music. Vocal cords have no limitations; they can articulate in any design. Indian instrumen-tal practice is closely patterned after the contours of a highly - developed and venerable vocal musictradition.

    Even so, Sunil sought out a guitar tutor for his promising son. I was 61/2 years old, Debashishremembers, when my father took me to Sri Rajat Nandi from Calcutta. He is a Western music performer.He plays Spanish and Hawaiian type guitar. From him Debashish learned tunings, Western notation, andsuch universal guitar hits as the theme from Bonanza and Wipe Out. I took two years lessons from him,Debashish says of Nandi, and then left because I didnt find much in it. I started to play some Indianmusic and also old compositions which my mom has taught me. His training would continue along moreorthodox lines.

    Debashish studied sitar with three prominent sitarists of Calcutta, Haradhan Roy Chowdhury, PanditGokul Nag and his son, Pandit Manilal Nag. From them he learned much about ragas and traditionalcompositions. Sri Maharaj Banerjee gave him instruction in harmonium, the missionaries gift to Indianmusic. All the while Debashish continued playing guitar. In 1984, he became the first guitarist to receivethe Presidents Award of India. At the time he was playing an ordinary six-string Hawaiian guitar.

    In 1986, Debashish embarked on five years of intensive study with Brij Bhushan Kabra. He hadalready proven himself as a performer, yet he felt a need to deepen his command of the guitar as instru-ment of Indias classical tradition and thus became Kabras disciple. In the past, the intense guru/disciplerelationship was the primary means by which Indias classical music was transmitted. If a guru agrees totake on a disciple, he assumes responsibility for the disciples food, shelter, and clothing. The disciplebecomes a member of the gurus household and often helps with cooking, cleaning, and routine chores.

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  • 10

    But the majority of the disciples time is devoted to musical study and practice. The traditional manner oftransmitting knowledge through the ages in India has been the guru sisya parampara (preceptor discipletradition), writes Stephen Slawek (Sitar Technique in Nibaddh Firms, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1987).The initiation ceremony symbolizes the binding for life of the sisya to the guru. The ceremony takes itsname from the most important part of the affair - ganda bandha (thread tying) - in which the guru andsisya tie red sacred threads around each others right wrist... During the intense period of training, theguru offers not only instruction but an ever-present role model for the musicians life. The guru is mygod, says Debashish. Guru is my father, guru is my mother first, then my family who gave birth.

    A disciple absorbs specific techniques and ways of thinking about and playing ragas. A musicalpatrimony is handed on, and so the disciple becomes a member of a gharana, a musical lineage (literallyfamily). Because of his important connection with Ali Akbar Khan, Kabra is a member of the Senia Maihargharana, a lineage he passes to his disciples. Linked in legend to the 16th century Mogul court singerTansen, this is one of the most esteemed and influential gharanas. In the 20th century it blossomed underthe care of the legendary Ustad Allauddin Khan, whose famous disciples include his son, Ali Akbar Khan,and Ravi Shankar. Membership in a respected gharana confers legitimacy on a musician, and this is doublyimportant for those whose means of expression is a maverick instrument, the guitar.

    Before my guruji, says Debashish, guitar was supposed to be a light music instrument. Mygurujis effort has brought us to where we are today. Many disciples tell tales of gurus who are relentlessmartinets, but Debashish describes a convivial relationship with Kabra. You will not get many gurus likehim, he says. Generally gurus prefer that, What I am playing, you play. But my guruji always encour-aged me to do new things. He always appreciates new kicks in my head. He always loves to see his sondo better and better. Everytime something has clicked in my head, I made a telephone call to guruji. Hetold my brother Subhashish, While Debashish is performing, if he just tries to remember what I havetaught him, he will never be an artist. The artist is born, not taught. So what actually he has in his crookedbrain, he must produce it on the stage. Otherwise he is not an artist.

    Debashish Bhattacharya is an artist. On November 21, 1994, he performed before several hun-dred thousand at the 23rd National Festival of Music in Bangalore, becoming the first guitarist to beinvited to this prestigious event. Along with extensive concertizing, Debashish devotes much of his timeto teaching. I have my mission, he says, not only to play guitar but to do something with my studentsalso. If it is good for Indian classical music, I wish to encourage the students of guitar not to only play filmimusic but to play our own countrys wealth. That is classical music, always the treasure of any nation.As of November 1994, Debashish had 30 students ranging in age from children to adults. Some of themare really fantastic, he said. Young prodigies. They can play what I sing just by listening. God blessedthem. One of his students, a 14-year-old young lady named Mitu, has taken first prize in the All IndiaTelecommunications Cultural Competition for the past four years. With a new generation in training, theguitar is poised to play a more prominent role in Indian classical music in the 21st century.

    The InstrumentWhen this videos director, Abhijit Dasgupta, saw Debashishs instrument for the first time, he

    looked it over and said: I see. Its one-third sitar, one-third sarod, and one-third guitar. Yes, saidDebashish, and another ten percent besides. Given the varied sounds he evokes from his instrument,Debashishs ten percent is modest. He keeps nails on his left hand and occasionally plucks the sympa-thetic strings in the manner of the Arabic zither, the kanun. (In Indian classical music, this technique hasbeen used by the santoor master, Shivkumar Sharma.) He may play echoic lines which recall the venu, orbamboo flute. And, of course, there is the all-important role model, the voice. Debashish continues tostudy it with the internationally renowned singer Ajoy Chakraborty. I get a symphony out of this instru-ment at certain points, says Debashish, of whom his friend Sanjoy Chakraborty observes: He can act indifferent ways. If you can copy a hundred personalities, it becomes easier to become a great actor.

    The instrument Debashish uses to suggest such variety began evolving little more than a decadeago from a simple six-string Hawaiian guitar. At the time he won the Presidents Award in 1984, he wasgrappling with its limitations. When I was playing only gayaki ang [instrumental adaptation of vocalstyle], it is okay. But when I played jhala [fast climax with pulsating rhythm], I used to play with the firststring as chikari [tonic drone string or strings similar to a banjos fifth string]. A continuous tonic withrhythm, that is chikaris work. It helps me make listeners aware of what I am going to do; it provides methe rhythm. While I am doing chikari on the first string, playing on the open string to get the drone sound,then I cannot touch it with the steel bar. I am sacrificing my first string, its quality of sound.

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    Brij Bhushan Kabra had encountered the same limitation and added a single chikari string to hisinstrument on the bass side. In the Indian system, says Debashish, people play chikari in the back [i.e.,bass side]. On sitar and sarod, it is easy to strum, because they hold the instrument perpendicularly, nothorizontally. But if I play guitar and the chikari is in the rear, it is far. The idea of a back chikari on guitarI found is faulty. If you are to produce some good and intricate thing on your guitar, you have to feelrelaxed. So to facilitate my style, I put the chikari in front [i.e., on the treble side]. This chikari canproduce the fastest jhala on guitar. Debashish has two chikari strings, one a tonic identical to the firststring and the other its octave (equivalent to the first string at the 12th fret) mounted on half-inch highposts in the manner of sitar chikaris.

    Next his guitar lost its bottom bass string and gained three treble-range strings on the bass side.Debashish calls them supporting strings. In this regard I am a staunch follower of our gharanas greatUstad, Ali Akbar Khansab, says Debashish. He has also got the supporting strings on sarod. I like hissarod style of strumming chikari, bass and supporting strings to create an environment with much moreuse of open strings. Near the high tonic string in range, supporting strings arent barred but are strummedfor color and rhythmic background. I tune the supporting strings according to the first key note [i.e.,dominant note, vadi] of the raga, says Debashish. I pluck these strings in between the phrasing of theraga. I also keep in mind which notes are important. Suppose in Raga Charukeshi I tuned my instrumentssupporting strings Ni [Ti one whole step below the top tonic string] flat, Re [Re], and Ga [Mi]. These notes,together with Ma [Fa] and Dha [La] flat, creates a background which is like some Western chords butwhich is somehow more enjoyable and brings a fresh mood of joy into it.

    The final addition Debashish has made to his instrument is a dozen sympathetic strings. Calledtaraf strings on sitar, sympathetic strings are a characteristic of many North Indian stringed instrumentsand vibrate in sympathy when an equivalent note is sounded. While this feature is considered unique toIndian chordophones, in the 18th century various European viols featured sympathetic strings. The violadamore was the most popular, and experienced sufficient revival in the 20th century for Paul Hindemithto compose music for it.

    Debashish tunes his sympathetic strings to match the contours of each raga. Sa [Do] is our basicnote, he says, and I prefer to have more Sas in the drone strings. And I prefer to have two Panchams [Paor Sol] in ragas where Pancham is important. But in a raga like Gurjari Todi, where the fifth is omitted,the tuning of the sympathetic strings accentuates the notes given greatest emphasis: Dha komal (La flat)is the primary note, called vadi, and Ga komal (Mi flat) is the secondary or samvadi note. Thus Debashishtunes his sympathetic strings for Gurjari Todi to entirely omit the fifth and include two flat sixths and twoflat thirds.

    As on sitar, the sympathetic strings pass over a separate small bridge, the javari. The curvature ofthis bridge emits the nasal buzz characteristic of Indian strings. Javari, writes Thomas Marcotty in TheWay-Music (Deciso Editrice, Switzerland, 1980), the art of grinding a bridge, literally means to give life

    Photo by Mark H

    umphrey

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    to the instrument. The bridge... is a little plate about the size ofa matchbox, consisting of bone, ivory, or stag-horn. To achievea perfect javari one must first flatten the surface of the bridgeand then carefully round it just a little bit... The vibrations of thestring must reach the bridge in the smallest possible angle...The javari procedure is a very time consuming business, requir-ing a lot of experience and patience.

    Debashish asks his sympathetic strings to do more thanmerely ring behind a plucked note. The strumming of them atthe opening of a raga (a silvery sound likened by Frederic V.Grunfeld to a hail of broken icicles) announces to the trainedear exactly which raga will follow. He also strums them (alongwith chikaris and supporting strings) at various points in perfor-mance for emphasis.

    1985 was the year Debashish sketched the transformationof a six-string Hawaiian guitar into an Indianized instrumentwith 22 strings. The first guitar to be thus adapted was an IndianGibtone flat-top copy of a Gibson Dove. A year later, he re-ceived the instrument which he has used in concert ever since.When I went to my guru in 1986, Debashish recalls, he said,Debashish, I have a nice guitar for you. It didnt suit me, but Ithink it suits you, because you have a tendency to do someexperiments always. He had found this guitar in Europe andplayed it for ten years. Like Kabras first guitar, it was a Hofnerarchtop. Initially, Kabra was opposed to the modificationsDebashish made to the instrument, particularly the addition ofsympathetic strings, but he later withdrew his objections andeven christened the instrument. He told me, Debashish, theinstrument you are playing is the guitar I have given you, butwhat you have done on it is something different. The style, thetechnique, everything is different. So on a very holy day hehas given the name Dev Veena after long thought. Dev meansGod: The veena which has been sent to us by God.

    The adaptations Debashish required for his Hofner were doneby Bhab-asindhu Biswas, whose workshop produces the Con-cord line of Indian acoustic guitars. You can buy a Spanish neckflat-top guitar from him, but Bhabasindhus reputation is forthe finest Indian classical guitars: both Debashish and VishwaMohan Bhatt play his instruments. (The Mohan Vina, Bhattsinstrument, is designed differently: it has back chikaris and onlythree primary playing strings.) Bhabasindhu is often busy withsuch custom orders as an instrument with sitar-like decorativebinding or a guitar with an exceptionally wide neck requestedby one of Debashishs students who is blind.

    I tried to combine all advantages of vocal music, sarod andsitar, says Debashish of his efforts to Indianize his guitar. Igave another shape to this instrument. But within it is a guitar.Playing harmonics, he observes, It sounds beautiful! Why wouldI not use it, the harmonics? Its guitars own tone with openstrings. So Debashish evokes varied voices on a single instru-

    ment designed to combine strengths both Western and Eastern. The point of view I am supporting, hesays, is that this instrument is more versatile than any other instrument.

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    The Performance

    The performance on this videotape occurred on the evening of November 17, 1994 at Max MullerBhawan in Calcutta. It was a significant day for Debashish Bhattacharya, for that morning he had been atKalighat Temple to receive the sacred thread worn across the shoulder and under the garment of adultmale Brahmins; it signifies maturity and without it a Brahmin may not marry, which Debashish did inDecember. That evening he gave careful thought to what ragas he would present; his goal was to findsounds accessible to Americans which were nonetheless idiomatically Hindustani. His ac-companists were Sutapa Bhattacharya, tambura, and Kumar Bose, tablas. Debashishs sister, Sutapa, isan accomplished vocalist and teacher of vocal music. The tambura, like the sitar, has a resonating cham-ber made of a dried gourd (tumba). Unlike sitar, tambura is never used as a melodic instrument. Itssingular role is to provide a constant drone of the tonic (Sa) and usually the fifth (Pa), though the fifthisnt a part of the drone in a raga like Gurjari Todi. (Ma, or the fourth interval, and sometimes the third,Ga, may be substituted for the fifth, depending on their relative importance in a given raga.) Even whenthe guitar and tablas render the tambura essentially inaudible, it is a key part of the ensemble, for itprovides an insistent tonic grounding.

    While on this topic, it should be mentioned that traditional Indian music works around a fixed toniccenter. Key changes as we know them in the West dont exist. This has invited no small amount of NewAge mystagogy. Sa, writes Joachim-Ernst Berendt in The Third Ear (Henry Holt & Co., New York,1985), corresponds exactly to the year toneand there has not been any change for thousands ofyears. Berendt maintains that Sa, the central tonic note of Indian music, is immutably fixed at 136 Hz,just below C sharp. Indian music, he asserts, is organically and cosmically correctly tuned to Sa, theFather of notes, the sun tone and its long-established relationship over millions of years with everythingthat exists on the planet. This, to put it charitably, is more imaginative than accurate. If you are studyingHindustani music on sitar, your teacher may have you tune your instrument near the pitch Berendt callsthe Father of notes (sitarists tune anywhere from B to C#). If, however, you are in South India learningabout Karnatak music, you may tune your vina to F or F#. And if you are studying Hindustani guitar, your

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    Sa will be D. If Sa was ever a single universal note, that hasnt been the practice for quite some time.Tablas, too, are tuned to Sa. These wonderfully expressive hand drums (the tabla proper is the

    right drum, which is tuned; the bass drum, or bayan, is not) once were used for little more than timekeeping. Over the past couple of generations, however, tablas have marched to the front of Hindustaniinstrumental ensembles. Tabla players keep the Tala, or cyclic rhymthic pattern well in hand while subdi-viding its beats, shifting its accents, and engaging in flamboyant improvisatory interplay with the melodicinstrumentalist. In his book, The Sitar: The Instrument and Its Technique, Manfred M. Junius suggestedthings to note in a sitar and tabla performance, and the same elements can be seen in this video: Nowwatch the tabla player come in: he picks up the rhythm easily. First he produces some strokes with theright hand on the tabla, then gradually the left hand brings in the other drum, the bayan. How expressivethis drum is! The sitarist continues to repeat the first part of the Gat [composition] known as the Sthayi,the tablist is happily improvising, and with a brilliant cadence he opens his accompaniment till bothplayers end together on the last note of a phrase which is repeated three times; it is called Tehai. Eachtime when both artists end together on the first Matra [beat] of the time cycle [beat 1=Sum], a wave ofrelief passes through the audience. The Tala, the time-cycle, has been established.

    One of todays leading tabla players, Kumar Bose, accompanies Debashish here. I studied withmy father first, Pandit Biswa Nath Bose, Kumar recalls. My father was a disciple of Pandit KantheMaharaj of Benares gharana; his son and disciple is Pandit Kishan Maharaj. After my father died in 1980,I started learning from Pandit Kishan Maharaj also. So we belong to the same gharana, Benares gharana.I started my life [i.e. career] accompanying Ustad Imrat Khan [master of sitar and surbahar, or bass sitar].I toured with Imrat Khansab, [sitarist] Vilayat Khan-sab, and many other artists. Finally I joined PanditRavi Shankar in 1981, and that was a big break for me. Panditji loved me and helped me a lot, and Imvery obliged to him. He brought me to the world light. Then I just went on.

    The performance opens with a Dhun set to Raga Kirwani. Dhun is a type of light air or melodywith a repeated theme and improvised variations. It may be based on a folk tune or a popularization of aclassic raga. Kirwani is a Karnatak raga which has been integrated into Hindustani music by such instru-mentalists as Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar, among others. Its basic scale, with a flat third and flatsixth, you may recognize as our Harmonic minor scale. Santoorist Shivkumar Sharma has said of Kirwani:Its notes are such that in slow tempo the mood is one of yearning, longing and the pain of separation. Infast tempo, however, its expression is light and romantic, so there is an interesting musical contrast. TheTala in this performance is a fast Dadra, a rhythmic cycle of six beats (3 +3=6). Debashishs five primarystrings are tuned (from treble to bass) for Kirwani as follows: 1, D; 2, A; 3, F; 4, D; 5, A. He calls this Dminor tuning. His extensive use of harmonics here is beautifully guitaristic, while the singing quality of hisbar work recalls the emotional and highly ornamented Thumri vocal style.

    (Indian music purists who may be shocked by a recital opening with a Dhun are advised that theordering of performances on the video was an editorial decision - the actual order in performance was thetraditional one, with the heavy main course of a fully developed raga followed by lighter music. Thisrearrangement is intended to ease the culture shock of Americans unfamiliar with this idiom and hope-fully in no way compromises the integrity of the music.)

    The second selection on this video is the raga Gurjari Todi. Todi is one of the ten Thatas, or parentscales, of North Indian classical music. Subtle variations on parent scales render such offspring asGurjari Todi. Tori has a flat second, flat third, sharp fourth, and flat sixth. Ragas often follow slightlydifferent routes in ascent (aroh) and descent (avroh). Tori skips the fifth in ascent, but uses it (albeit inpassing) in descent. Gurjari Tori omits it altogether. Gurjari Todi expresses the tragic part of love, saysDebashish, who relates the tale of Lord Krishna and Radha as expressing the ragas mood. We areinvolved with worshipping gods and goddesses through our music, he says. Pathos, remembrance ofpast days, is the basic structure of Tori. If you get Pa in it, its the only expression of hope. So if Panchamis left out, then everything is tragic. Its basically a tragic rag.

    Ragas are rich with meaning and often imbued with extra-musical beliefs. Daniel M. Neumanwrote of a singer who claimed to have cured a fevered Nawab by singing Gurjari Todi: You know GurjariTodi can cure even the severest temperature if sung with perfection, he insisted. Hindustani ragas havetime associations: this is a morning raga. Ragas have inspired poems, called Dhynamantrams, and paint-ings, called Ragamalas. Gurjari was personified in one as A Southern girl, dusky, with splendid hair,Gurjari sits smiling upon a bed made from the tenderest sandal trees of the Malaya mountain. Knowing allthe secrets of music, she plays, cheek leaning upon the lute.

    As Debashish sets the stage for this raga with a brief introductory alap, he makes expressive useof his sympathetic and supporting strings to provide atmospheric shading of the notes he bars. When he

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    plays in the mid-range, you may note a sarod-like sonority from his unwound bronze third and fourthstrings. (Only his fifth string is wound.) After the Gat, or fixed composition, is introduced, a variety ofright hand techniques lend accents to the melodic figure. The heavy staccato use of the thumbpick bor-rows from what Debashish calls the power of the sarod, which is plucked with a coconut-shell plectrum.The Gat is set to fast Ektala, a rhythmic cycle of 12 beats (4+4+4=12). For Gurjari Todi, Debashish tunedhis primary playing strings thus: 1, D; 2, Bb; 3, F; 4, D; 5, Bb. Bb (komal Dha) is the vadi, saysDebashish, and F (komal Ga) the samvadi. He calls this tuning Bb major.

    The final selection here is an exquisitely expansive development of the Raga Charukeshi. It fitsmy instruments character, says Debashish. Actually, Charukeshi is a South Indian raga. Over the past40 or 50 years our great [North Indian] maestros, [sitarist] Nikhil Banerjee, Vilayat Khan, Ali Akbar Khansab,Ravi Shankarji, everybody has taken advantage of Charukeshi to play, because its so joyous. (The linernotes to a Ravi Shankar recording of Charukeshi state the raga depicts the mood of love and frivolity.)Charukeshi, says Debashish, is a Karnatak raga, so it has no time limitation. It is well fit in the morningas well as the evening. In this raga, we have many chances to experiment. From the Western point ofview, its quality is clear.

    Debashish explores the contours of Charukeshi, which has a flat sixth and flat seventh, in theintroductory alap: We say opening the curtain for the show, explains Debashish. The alap carefullymeasures the character of the raga from various angles. This developmental process unfolds alongarhythmic lines until the Jor, the second section of an instrumental alap, introduces a pulse. The finalsection of the alap is the brisk improvisatory jhala with its virtuosic barring and emphatic use of theringing chikaris.

    There are three Gats, says Debashish of the ragas development after Kumar Bose joins him.Theyre set to Tintala slow (vilambit), Tintala fast (drut), and jhala respectively. (Tintal is a rhythmiccycle of 16 beats: 4+4+4+4=16.) While I am playing this raga, says Debashish, I feel that my soul is alittle bit raised up. His instruments primary strings are tuned thus: 1, D; 2, A; 3, F#; 4, D; 5, A. Debashishcalls this tuning D major. It is his primary tuning. Used by Hindus, Hawaiians, and Southern Americanbluesmen, who sometimes called this tuning Vestapol, D tuning just may, if youll indulge the hyperbole,be the organically and cosmically correct slide guitar tuning.

    For their hospitality and help in Calcutta and West Bengal many thanks to Debashish Bhattacharya,Sanjoy Chakraborty, Sumit Banerjee, and their families and friends.

    DiscographyDebashish Bhattacharya: Guitar

    India Archive Music IAM CD 1007Debashish Bhattacharya: Guitar, Young Masters Series, Music Today, A92067 (Indian cassette)


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