Tech features Indian musical performance

Anindo Chatterjee is a world-famous tabla instrumentalist from Calcutta, India. On Saturday, Nov. 3, Chatterjee came to Tech to perform his well-known classical Indian tabla solo with sarangi accompaniment from fellow musician Ramesh Mishra.

The tabla is a percussive instrument native to South Asia. The word tabla actually stems from the Arabic word for drum, "tabl." The tabla is essentially two drums, usually of distinctly different sizes. The disparity in timbres leads to various tones, something most people disregard in percussion.

With tablas, these differences are essential since there are only two drums. Unlike Western drum sets, these tones affect the actual technique in the performance. Tablas are handmade of leather, rope and wood and are tuned by the rope with the use of dowels and a hammer.

Played primarily in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the tabla has played a part in the resurgence of classical Indian music in places far west of its land of origin, particularly in areas with high concentrations of South Asians like England, New York and Chicago. Indian music has gained popularity thanks to artists such as the famous sitarist Ravi Shankar, who is the father of recording artist Norah Jones.

The tabla has recently made a grand appearance in Atlanta with the arrival of Chatterjee. A promising tabla prodigy from a young age, Chatterjee won his first major honor at the age of seventeen as a finalist for the All India Radio Music Competition and the title of Young Tabla Player of the Year from the president of India.

With his experience and versatile playing ability, Chatterjee has performed with greats like Ravi Shankar, Hari Prasad Chaurasia and the late Ustad Allarakha, all famous Indian musical artists. Due to his talents, many have even hailed him as the greatest living tabla player in the world.

Chatterjee's accompanist, Ramesh Mishra, is also a significant figure in classical Indian music. His instrument, the sarangi, is a bowed instrument of Nepali origin that is played just as often all over the Indian subcontinent. Like Chatterjee, Mishra has an extensive family background in music.

Both Chatterjee and Mishra have earned the title of "pandit," which is the Hindi designation for a scholar specifically skilled in philosophy, law and religion, but it has been extended to one who masters anything culturally essential to Indian society. In this case, many Muslims in India have earned the title of pandit, primarily for the arts.

The venue for his performance at Tech was the LeCraw Auditorium at 7 p.m. on Saturday night. Tickets were sold at the door, as well as memberships to indefinitely see all his performances for a year. The event was open to anyone who wished to attend.

The concert began with an introduction by Dr. Parag Chordia, an assistant professor of Music at Tech. He specializes in music information retrieval research and is part of the Music Technology group. Dr. Chordia began with an explanation of the tabla, its styles and some of its cultural connotations. He gave details on the styles of tabla playing with the existence of the gharana, or the apprenticeship of a certain musical style.

Though Chatterjee was originally trained in a specific style, he is well -known and much appreciated for his adaptation of playing many different types instead of adhering to just one.

"He started off by tuning his tabla, and that is the hardest part of playing the tabla," said Karan Daftary, a first-year Biomedical Engineering major.

Daftary is a tabla player himself with five years of tabla training in India. He has seen the likes of Ustad Zakir Hussein, another famous Indian tabla player.

A significant part of the show included the presentation of gharanas and their distinct sounds, which portrayed the idea of musical apprenticeship and lineage, both essential parts of Indian culture.

Chatterjee's performance was simple in nature, in the sense that he played musical selections on the tabla in a sequential order. He did, however, stop several times to describe the type of beat he was about to play, and then simultaneously played it. After doing this several times, he played continuously for some time before stopping and explaining one of the key moments of the performance.

Towards the end, Chatterjee gave a short explanation about a beat he played at normal speed and how it would differ when played at different tempos.

Eventually, he played the beat at normal rate, twice as fast, four times as fast and even eight times as fast compared to the normal beat. Obviously such a pace is difficult, and the pace at which his fingers and hands moved stunned much of the audience.

While Chatterjee and Mishra worked in synchronization, the audience felt the tone of Indian classical music reverberate through the hall. "He is one of the best tabla players I've seen in my life. It was a golden opportunity that I got to see him," Daftary said.

With his immense talent and the beautiful accompaniment of the sarangi instrumentalist Mishra, Chatterjee presented one of the finest and rarest musical performances at Tech in years.

The event was hosted by Sur, the Indian Classical Music Society of Greater Atlanta (ICMS) and the Tech organization Aarohi, dedicated to classical Indian art.

The musical performance was an exceptional spectacle because it included such high profile musicians in the world of classical Indian music. Members of Aarohi and ICMS were able to go for free.

Aarohi often holds events similar to the tabla concert. By teaching Indian percussion, students have even held concerts of their own, representing the various talents of Tech. For more information on events held by Aarohi, you can go to their website: http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/aarohi/default/gallery.html.