Many vedic traditions, which follow this same philosophy, also treat this time as very important. In Ayurveda (traditional Indian medical system), this time is supposed to be the tail end of vata time and vata is associated with degeneration and old age. In vedic astrology, the 8th house in the birth chart is associated with this time and that house is considered the house of liberation (which people mistakenly think as house of death and therefore – bad house).

Indian classical music which is deeply rooted in vedic philosophy, there is a whole class of Ragas that are associated with this time. There tends to be a sense of mysticism with these Ragas. Some of the notable Ragas associated with this time are Marwa, Puriya, Purvi, Shree, Gauri and Puriya Dhanashree.

Raga Marwa is a very uniquely strange raga because it is played by significantly diminishing the Sa note. The Sa note (Sa being abbreviation of the word Shadja or “that which gives birth to other six notes”) is played for reference in the tanpura in the background. However as it is diminished in the rendering of the Raga, the overall effect it creates is that of unstable and anxious feeling. One of the best Marwa renditions I have heard is by Ustad Vilayat Khan.

There is one particular composition in Raga Puriya Dhanashree that I love. Here’s a version of that composition sung by one of my favorite vocalists – Dr Veena Sahastrabuddhe. The words of the composition can be roughly translated into “Today is coming to an end, Now is the time for you to meditate”.

Here’s a gem by Pandit Kumar Gandharva in Raga Shree. Kumarji had a medical condition because of which parts of his lung were removed. As a result, he had very short stamina and was advised against singing. His genius was such that he developed a whole new style of singing that deemphasized long notes in favor of punchy approach to rhythm. The tarana in Shree that he sings in this clip is a great example of his style – notice how he emphasizes the rhythm by throw of words.

By the way, those of you who feel surprised and perhaps depressed by the association of death and liberation with the time of dusk, should take heart in this next one. As circle of life continues, so does the time of the day. If sunset is “death” of the day, it is also birth of the night. Birth of course is celebrated with every bit of joy the newborn brings to the world. Ragas after sunset exemplify this feeling of joy. Raga Yaman is the king of such ragas. See how contrasting the effect is compared to all the Ragas above -

Those were simpler days. I was studying Electrical Engineering at VJTI in Mumbai. My parents had moved to Pune and I used to live with my grandparents in Shivaji Park area in Mumbai. I used to get grand pocket money of Rs 1000 per month (US$ 25 in today’s money) which used to pay for my basic living costs like travel to college, lunches, textbooks etc. and still used to leave some “savings” to buy audio cassettes and LP records at Rhythm House in Mumbai.

Hariji did not have the Gurukul he now has in Mumbai. But he was extremely passionate about teaching. He had a pretty grueling schedule which involved extensive travel all over the world. However, whenever he was in Mumbai, he would teach us without fail from 11 am to 1:30-2 pm.

The classes were held in the outhouse of a rather run-down open air theatre  just off Linking Road near National College in Bandra. This room was given to him by the Government for the classes. The room was pretty run down but Hariji invested some of his own money to get it cleaned and painted. It was right next to a road and you can hear in recordings the sound of traffic – an occasional BEST bus passing by or a rickshaw honking.

The room also had a poster of Hariji from promotional material from Hariji’s concert somewhere in Germany. I used to find this poster very inspirational because of the intense and calm expressions in the photograph. Few years down the line, Rajiv, Hariji’s son, gave me a copy of that poster and I still have it with me.

My meager pocket money did not allow me to have any recording equipment. I could barely afford a Bansuri. Some of the well made Bansuris used to cost around $75 which was way above my budget. It was also a time in India when imports of gadgets such as Walkman were heavily restricted. But Francoise and Catherine – my co-students from France and Canada respectively – were kind enough to lend me some of these recordings. Sadly, both passed away in last couple of years.

The classes used to be small during weekdays, but used to swell during weekends when more senior students like Rupak Kulkarni and Rakesh Chaurasia joined in.

I used to thoroughly enjoy the experience. I must have missed several days of classes in my engineering college to attend these classes. I also used to be in awe of Hariji who took us to all his local concerts. One of the memorable ones was under a huge banyan tree at Elephanta Caves off Mumbai. We had to go there in a small boat.

Here are those recordings*. These date back to 1989-91 (I don’t recall the exact date). I hope you find them as inspirational as I do even after all these years.

* You will need to login with your free account. Create one if you don’t already have.

I woke up today as usual to step out for my usual Saturday morning coffee and noticed my neighbor’s almond tree was in full bloom.

It’s springtime! (No, East Coasters, this is not meant to rub it in.)

Growing up in Mumbai, spring was no big deal. Mumbai has basically three seasons – very hot, less hot and heavy rain. Spring marked transition from less hot to very hot season, so I had no idea why it was such a big deal.

I liked the song sung by Bhimsen Joshi and Manna De which depicts a legendary dual between Tansen and Baiju Bawra in the court of emperor Akbar in 15th century. The song describes full glory of spring -

Ketaki Gulab Juhi Champakban Phoole

While I really loved the tune, I did not quite have any way to relate to it’s poetry. I also did not understand why Baiju Bawra (Manna De) wins the dual just by hitting a random high note, in spite of Tansen (Bhimsen Joshi) singing it much much better. That was my first lesson about differentiating reality from Bollywood. Recently, I came across this Films Division documentary where both Bhimsen Joshi and Manna De talk about the experience of recording the song -

It took me a couple of years spent in Lucknow to appreciate what spring really is. After bitter winters of North India (and absence of central heating), you can’t but feel festive with arrival of spring – the time of rebirth and rejuvenation.

Indian Classical Music has it’s evolution based in depiction of moods and life of people of the subcontinent. This time of the year is marked by festivals to celebrate spring – such as Pongal and Holi. Indian Classical Music celebrates the season through traditional Ragas associated with it. Three main ragas come to mind are – Basant (which literally means Spring), Bahar (which literally means Blossom) and Kafi ( which literally means nothing – certainly not coffee).

Listen to this beautiful composition (sung here by Pandit Jasraj). The poetry of it is -

Aur Raag Sab Ban Baraati (All the ragas are participating in the wedding procession (of))
Dulha Raag Basant (the groom – Basant (spring))
MadanMahotsav Aaj Biraaje (festivities and romance is in the air)
Bida Bhayo Hemant (but the Raag which is not around is Hemant (winter))

Bahar is another spring Raga. It’s movement is mainly in the higher side of octave. Bahar is often mixed with many other established Ragas to create mixed Ragas like Bageshri Bahar, Hindol Bahar etc. Listen to this wonderful rendition set to very stunning visual depiction by my friend Nachiketa Sharma.

The Holy Grail of Spring ragas is the combination of these two major ragas – Basant Bahar. The mixed Raga is very difficult to sing because it employs all twelve notes in the octave and transitions from Basant to Bahar and back have to be managed very carefully. In other words, there is a very specific way to use these twelve notes. I had the opportunity of listening to Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar sing this wonderful raga here in Bay Area. Ulhasji was accompanied by Pandit Suresh Talwalkar on tabla for that concert. Subsequently, I found this vintage video of Pandit Ram Marathe – Ulhasji’s Guru, who is also accompanied by a much younger Suresh Talwalkar. The composition is credited to Pandit Ram Marathe himself -

Basant Ki Bahar Aayi (Full Blossom of Spring is here!)

This video is exquisite. Enjoy!

I launched my website Bansuriflute.com six years ago with the goal to provide information on Bansuri to beginners. I have received a couple of hundred emails since then from people all over the world who are interested in learning Bansuri. Inspired by this, I have been meaning to offer some form of Internet lessons for a while.

Six years and countless hours of thinking later, I am delighted that this finally came true.

Why did it take so long? Simple – because I wanted to create a site that I myself would want to use if I were a student with no direct access to a teacher. By setting the threshold high, a lot of obvious options like books, DVDs or Skype were just ruled out.

What became obvious to me was the power of social networks and tools like YouTube is changing the world. And these social networking mechanisms offer a great way to collaborate and learn.

You see – when you go to a teacher along with fellow students, what are the key processes that come into play -

1. The teacher explains you key concepts.
2. The teacher (good one anyway) puts structure on passing on the knowledge to you.
3. The teacher passes knowledge to you at a pace you would find it easy to receive it.
4. There is feedback to you in case you do anything wrong.
5. You can ask for clarifications.
6. You collaborate with your fellow students.
7. The group dynamic of your fellow students keeps you motivated and in many ways, competitive.

As you can see, a lot of these key steps are missing in traditional eLearning models. If you buy a DVD, you get information overload and no feedback. If you buy a book, you get no audio visual demonstration. If you learn on Skype, you miss the group dynamics.

So where do you get audio visual exchange and collaboration today. As it happens, we do this everyday – on Facebook.

Hence the new site with social networking capabilities. You can login to the site and explore the social networking features by commenting on articles and engaging in group forum discussions. You can even post your individual updates on your practice, any good music you listened to or anything else. The site will be a growing body of knowledge, both because of content from me, and also because of information you might be able to share.

It is important to stress that this site is meant for people who do not have direct access to a good teacher. Nothing in the world can substitute direct human contact and feedback from a knowledgeable Guru. Not even Facebook!!

This is truly exciting stuff. Has not been attempted before in the world of Indian Classical music. This can be done better through your feedback. So feel free to comment on this blog with your suggestions. I will appreciate them.

www.bansuriflute.com/eLearning

And when you describe them to others, you would have a grin on your face. The kind that suggests to others that while you are talking about these resolutions, you really don’t believe in your gut that you would stick to them beyond a first couple of days.

Why does this happen?

I recently read a couple of books that point to the answer. And the answer is as relevant to students of music as it is to anyone else who wants to make a personal change – of any nature really.

The book is aptly called Switch – How to Change Things When Change is Hard. The book actually borrows concepts and theories from another book I read recently – called Happiness Hypothesis.

Both these books go on to explain a very simple but powerful model for human behavior. Here’s the summary -

Because of the evolution of human brain, all of us have a split personality.

There is original part of our brain that is genetically tuned for “Fight-or-Flight” instincts of survival. This is the commonality we share with all animals. Because “Fight-or-Flight” decisions cannot be mulled over (imagine a tiger attacking a person who carefully tries to weigh pros and cons of the fight or flight options), this part of our brain is genetically designed to be impulsive and make quick decisio

ns rather than necessarily very informed ones.

Then there is the new brain or neocortex. These are the frontal lobes in our brain that most animals do not have. In other words, this part of the brain is a distinctive character of humans. This part, over the years, has evolved to think and make rational informed decisions.

These books argue is that the split personality of human mind is comparable to elephant and rider. Elephant is the impulsive mind and the rider is the rational mind. Rider makes informed decisions and tries to guide the elephant.

Rider by its virtue thinks longer term. He says, Prasad – if you lose a few pounds in the new year, it will be good for your health (and perhaps it will make you look better as well).

But the elephant has other ideas. The elephant follows rider’s commands for first couple of days. Then one fine evening, the elephant “feels” like watching television rather than exercise. Or the elephant “feels” like eating that entire bar of chocolate.

Rider loses control on the elephant and both go off the path. Remember, elephant is much bigger than the rider.

What’s more, both rider and elephant have past memory. They know that this has been the behavior before – last year and the year before. And this is the reason for the grin. Even though the rider knows that whatever resolution you are making is perfectly good and rational one, both rider and elephant know that you (they) are going to give up on it in two days.

So are new year’s resolutions a hopeless exercise? Apparently not. The Switch book actually has a framework that helps you target the rider, the elephant and the path they are traveling on.

So if I were to make a new year’s resolution to lose a few pounds, I would -

Direct the rider by -

• Following bright spots – e.g. even though I did not exactly follow the original script, last year I did lose 10 lb. instead of 20. What worked there?
• Scripting the critical moves – e.g. the original treadmill running did not work, but playing tennis did.

Motivate the elephant by

• Finding the feeling – e.g. isn’t it enjoyable when you hit that tennis ball hard? (as opposed to play tennis to lose weight)
• Shrinking the change – e.g. let me play tennis for 15 minutes rather than for 90 minutes every morning at 6 am

Shape the path by

• Tweaking the environment – e.g. keep tennis racket and shoes in the car so that you can play anytime you feel like
• Building habits – they say doing something regularly for 21 days forms a habit

All this is so relevant for practicing music. How often do we say we want to practice long hours and early in the morning And then sleep through the morning and feel guilty for the rest of the day. Just think how this model can be applied to practicing music regularly.

Are we born talented or do our circumstances and effort define who we become?

Most of us would agree that Ustad Zakir Hussain, the tabla maestro, is one of a kind musician. Not only is his mastery on the instrument is amazing but also his treatment and imagination around what tabla can do has no parallels.

The key question is – is Zakir Hussain born talented or his circumstances created him. In Zakir Hussain’s case, his father was a stalwart of his generation himself and therefore, it is natural to ask whether Zakir Hussain was born with the right genes to be able to play excellent tabla or whether he is who he is because his father tutored him with great care in his early years.

I recently read two books which try to answer some generic questions behind making of talented musicians.

The first is called “Talent Is Overrated – What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else” by Geoff Colvin. The author argues that while we marvel talent of some of the exceptional people (he cites Mozart, Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett as examples), there is evidence that all these people are made by a perfect combination of their circumstances and their mental makeup.

Key points in Colvin’s argument are -

• It takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in any field. There is something about the 10,000 hours number. Human brain seems to get rewired to do things better after that much of practice.

• The effort you would have to put in for these 10,000 hours is not any generic effort. Colvin calls it “deliberate practice”. We are not talk of just any kind of hard work that our parents told us about. After all, there is no dearth of hard workers amongst us who put in 20, 30 or 40 years of effort into things. We are talking about highly specific kind of effort that continuously pushes the boundaries around the rough edges pertaining to that field.

• One of the common traits of high performers have is that they tend to think, analyze and identify rough edges in their performance and then design practice specific to those edges. As an example, Tiger Woods would hit the ball from the bunker several hundred times in a given practice session even though in a real tournament, there would be only rare occasions when he would land in one.

• The role of a good coach (Guru!) cannot be underestimated in identifying these rough edges and designing deliberate practice around them.

• Deliberate practice is painful and outright boring in conventional sense. Hitting ball out of bunker hundreds of times must be really boring. So what makes Tiger Woods go through the routine day after day after day. Ask this question in time when Tiger Woods was nobody and yet he must have gone through this practice. Money and fame are clearly not the motivating factors behind deliberate practice.

• Then the key question is NOT – why some people are born talented. The key question IS – what makes some people have the mental make up to go through the pain of this deliberate practice and others don’t.

So what do these two book tell us about talent in Indian Classical music?

Coming back to Ustad Zakir Hussain. He is the first born son to his father (he has elder sisters). Because of what this means in Indian culture, he would have received a lot of attention from his father. Ustad Alla Rakha is known to be a wonderful teacher – which meant that he would design a lot of deliberate practice in formative years of young Zakir.

10,000 hours approximate 10 years in normal world. If Zakir Hussain started playing tabla at the age of 1-2 years, then he would reach the level of mastery by age of 11-12. Remember, the deliberate practice may not just be about playing tabla. It is also about absorbing good music which I am sure Zakir had plenty of exposure to, thanks to his father’s being a pre-eminent musician.

As it happens, Ustad Zakir Hussain played his first public concert with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan at the age of 11.

The second book I read recently is called the Happiness Advantage. While talent is not the central argument in this book, the author, Shawn Achor, talks about something called Tetris effect. Apparently, there was an experiment at Harvard where students were asked to play the popular video game called Tetris for 5-6 hours non-stop. For those of you who don’t know what Tetris is – it has bricks of various shapes fall from top of the screen to the bottom and the goal of the player is to align those bricks so that gaps between them are minimized. You would rotate the bricks before they settle down at the floor so that they are in alignment.

Apparently, after playing the game for 5-6 hours, if you walk into any daily situation, you tend to extrapolate the brick adjustment. For example, you walk into supermarket, see loafs of bread on the shelf and feel like you can visually align them so that they form a perfect line – just like in the game.

Back to Indian music. There is a well known tradition in Indian music, especially amongst tabla players of Punjab tradition (gharana) called Chilla. According to this tradition, the musician goes away in seclusion for 40 days and practices music 12-14 hours a day (and does nothing else). In tabla, this practice mainly focuses around rhythmic patterns (kaidas and relas), which are musical equivalent of Tetris pieces.

Now, if 5-6 hours of Tetris can temporarily alter the cognition of your brain, imagine what 12-14 hours a day for 40 days can do. It probably has potential to rewire your brain for life and make it very sensitive to these patterns. Is it surprising that you would return back a significantly better percussinist?

Listen to what Ustad Zakir Hussain himself has to say about it.

Since we were practicing Ahir Bhairav, we decided to choose this beautiful Bhajan by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Lata Mangeshkar – Ram Ka Gungaan Kariye (Roughly translated as – Sing praise of virtues of Lord Ram)

This composition happens to have special place in my heart. I remember it was Saturday in August 1988. It was the first time I went to Hariji’s home and asked him to teach me Bansuri. When he told me that he does not teach beginners and asked me to play something, I played this Bhajan.

While we were playing this Bhajan in the class today, it occured to me today what place Lata Manageshkar and Bhimsen Joshi have in my and most of our lives. Imagine the world where there is no Lata Mangeshkar. Or Bhimsen Joshi. Imagine us born in different times than these stalwarts.

And then think about all those melodies that we would not have. Or may be they would have been sung by someone else, who may not have had the God-graced power of pure notes.

What would that world be like?

Imagine if Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia were born in different times. What would that be like….

For one, I would not have had any inspiration to learn Bansuri which today makes my life so much richer. My life would be incomplete even without me knowing about it. Something that helped me survive through bad times and better cherish good times, would not exist.

We would have perhaps had other Bansuri players trying to mimick other musicians rather than capitalizing on strengths and emotionality inherent in Bansuri. We would have had a lot of mechanical music.

Role models like Lataji, Bhimsenji, Hariji or Zakir Hussain are not born every day. But when they do, they take their domain to such heights that it inspires generations to try and scale those heights. And our lives are not only enriched by their own music, but the music of all those who get inspired by them.

All of us – whether we are musicians or not – have many reasons to be grateful to these role models.

“Numbers rule universe”

“Numbers in space is Geometry, Numbers in time is Music, Numbers in space and time is Astronomy”

— Pythagoras (580-500 BC)

If you are reading this blog, I am presuming you are interested in learning a bit about music – perhaps specifically Indian Classical music. So what are these quotes by a mathematician – especially the one who most of us remember for his trigonometric theorem related to the nightmarish memories of high school geometry.

As it turns out, music has a lot to do with mathematics.

Human ear is supposed to be capable of hearing frequencies between 20 Hz and 20000 Hz. As we grow older, that range becomes more like 50 Hz to 12000 Hz. If you think about it, there are millions of frequencies in that spectrum. So why is it that some frequencies sound sweet and not others?

However, one frequency or note in itself does not convey anything. Music is formed when two or more notes are perceived relative to each other, either together (e.g. as a chord) or sequentially (e.g. as a melody).

In Indian Classical system, each note has a name – Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni – which corresponds to Western Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti. The notes referred here are actually acronyms – Sa stands for Shadja, Ga stands for Gandhar, Pa stands for Pancham and so on.

The word Shadja in sanskrit literally means the father of the (other) six. In other words, Sa gives birth to the other six notes. The note Sa is the anchor in any Indian melody and is prominently played as a backdrop in form of tanpura drone.

We know from our high school physics that when the frequency of a note doubles it sounds similar to the base note and is called the Octave note. So if Sa is x Hz, higher Sa will be 2x Hz. And all other notes have to be between the frequency band between x and 2x. That still leaves millions of possible notes.

The answer to finding all notes lies in yet another important concept – known as Shadja-Pancham bhaav or the relationship between Sa and Pa- the fifth note.

As it happens, Pa falls exactly in the midpoint of Sa and octave Sa. In other words, if Sa is x Hz, Octave Sa is 2x Hz then Pa will be 3/2 x or 1.5x Hz. Great, then that gives us one more note. What about others.

Why else is Shadja Pancham Bhaav important concept? Look at the piano keyboard below. If you start with C in the first octave as Sa and play the fifth pure note (8th key if you count half steps or komal notes), then you reach Pa. If you then count 8 keys from Pa (in other words Pa of Pa), you reach Re. If you then count 8 keys from Re (i.e. Pa of Re) then you reach Dha and so on. The amazing thing is that you then come back through the cycle after 12 notes and reach back on Sa.

This is called the Circle of the Fifths.