Sahil ‘Demonstealer’ Makhija shares his views about the evolution of Metal in India and the torch bearers who’ve led it from the front.

Sahil Makhija plays for Demonic Resurrection. He is the owner of Demonstealer Records and works for Furtados Music as their Artist Relations and Events Manager. For guest lectures and workshops, contact Sahil at thedemonstealer@gmail.com

When I was asked this column I was pretty unsure about what I was going to write so I figured I’d trace the outline and the evolution of the Metal scene in India.  As far as I know metal in India existed as far back as the early ‘90s when bands like Millennium and Dying Embrace from Bangalore were busy writing their original music. Millennium even released an album and had a music video which aired on MTV. In around ‘95 there was Brahma from Mumbai who also released an album and made a video.

Fast Forward to 1998 when I took my first step into the world of Indian metal. What I saw was all cover bands for most of the part. Even a band like Brahma that had an album was playing covers with rock bands like Parikrama, etc. So for the 2 years that I was just a normal rocker attending gigs it was mostly bands playing covers with maybe 1 or 2 originals thrown in apologetically. In 2000 I formed Demonic Resurrection and it’s about the same time that a website called Gigpad.com came into being as well. New bands like PDV also burst onto the scene while bands like Kryptos, MyndSnare and Threinody were gaining popularity. That year also saw the 1^st ever Deathfest held in Mumbai. This is when the original movement started and slowly but surely bands started playing their own music. However this was not an easy job, the audience had to be converted as well, especially because of years of conditioning to come to concerts and receive a 2^nd hand experience of their favourite bands.  Many of us bands played to non receptive audiences and even bottles and stones but somewhere down the road around 2004-2005 people’s attitude started changing while bands too started professional recording and releasing of music. An almost forgotten effort was ‘Deepthroat’, a compilation of Indian bands released by Throatlatch studios, formed by the members of a Kolkata band called Cranium who moved to Mumbai to start a studio and record label. However they didn’t survive long and vanished. Around this point many small independent ventures like OML, Counter Culture Records, RSJOnline, Demonstealer Records came up and began to push the scene forward. The Great Indian Rock Festival that had been supporting original music since 1995 started bringing in International artists.

Another big stepping stone was when DNA Networks broke the barriers and got Iron Maiden to India. Almost 25,000 metal heads stormed palace grounds for what was one of the landmark concerts in Indian metal history. Since then, the country has been stormed by foreign artists like Machine Head, Megadeth, Opeth, Enslaved, Satyricon, Amon Amarth, Textures and the recently concluded Summer Storm Festival that was headlined by Lamb of God.  Film maker Sam Dunn and Scot McFayden also found interest in Indian metal and featured Demonic Resurrection, Bhayanak Maut, Kryptos, etc. in their documentary titled Global Metal. Some of the other relevant achievements of the scene were Kryptos signing to OSM Records along with Demonic Resurrection who signed to Candlelight Records. Scribe and Demonic Resurrection both performed at the Inferno Festival in Norway this year. Also grinders Gutslit and Gorified joined Putrid Pile on their tour to Singapore and Malaysia. Both bands also signed and released their music on foreign labels. Bhayanak Maut and Undying Inc managed to bag a song each on one of Metal Hammers Compilation.

So having taken a look at how the scenario has developed I feel it’s only a matter of time before we break through and have a sustainable scene that won’t result in bands breaking up after 5 years to get married and become computer engineers… Instead, we’ll rock the stage till we grow old.

Article By Sahil Makhija

“The piano is the most important of all musical instruments: its invention was to music what the invention of printing was to poetry.”

-          George Bernard Shaw

His Majesty - Mr. Piano

The piano may be one of the hardest instruments to learn but it’s also one of the most versatile and beautiful sounding musical instrument in history. Awed by its beauty, we generally fail to realize the craftsmanship that would be required to build such a detailed and complex work of art. The Big M takes you into the intricate world of His Majesty-the Piano.

The origin of the modern day piano dates back to the 17^th century in Florence, capital city of Tuscany in central Italy, which was the birthplace of Italian Renaissance. In 1709, The ‘Pianoforte’ was first revealed as the invention of an Italian Harpsichord maker named Bartolomeo Cristofori. Since its inception, the instrument we know today as the piano has gone through many innovators who have shaped its functionality, appearance and sound. However, beautiful as it might be, the biggest challenge as always is to buy ‘the right piano’.

The East Room on the state floor of White House. This unique Steinway & Sons grand piano was designed in 1938 by Eric Gugler with inputs from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There are two types of pianos – uprights and grands. Uprights are the tall, vertical pianos while grands are horizontal with the strings extending away from the keyboard. To make matters worse, the two types of pianos have different sizes between them. The upright family consists of the spinet, the console, the studio and the full size while the grand piano has the parlor, the baby, medium, professional and the concert grand. With change in specifics, the cost changes accordingly.

Decide on your budget and see if you have enough floor space for a piano. The piano can be a good investment but it can also be expensive, so don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ask about its durability, performance, sound, aesthetic and internal construction. Always remember the three ‘T’s while checking out a piano: Touch- action of the keys, Tone- color of the sound and Type- design and brand.

One very common question asked is, how many times should one tune the piano? Our advice would be twice a year, once every six months. If your piano hasn't been serviced or tuned for several years, your tuner-technician might also perform a pitch raise.

After the first big step is over, upon arrival to the house, it is very important that you keep the piano away from exterior walls, drafty windows and doors, fireplaces and climate-control vents. Humidity can be the worst enemy of the piano. Maintaining an optimum humidity level is important, 35-45% humidity is ideal. Dust, pollen and smoke all reach the piano’s fragile interiors easily. Keep the piano lid closed when not in use.

One very common question asked is, how many times should one tune the piano? Our advice would be twice a year, once every six months. If your piano hasn’t been serviced or tuned for several years, your tuner-technician might also perform a pitch raise.

Piano moving should be done by trained piano movers using adequate manpower and the correct equipment for any particular piano’s size and weight. Pianos are heavy yet delicate instruments. Over the years, professional piano movers have developed special techniques for transporting both grands and uprights, which prevent damage to the case and to the piano’s mechanics.

The piano is a crucial instrument in Western classical music, jazz, film, television, and most other complex musical genres. A large number of composers are proficient pianists – and since the piano keyboard offers an easy means of complex melodic and harmonic interplay, the piano is often used as a tool for composition.

Years back, to own a piano was a dream. The old pianos left behind by the British had been the savior for many good pianists for a long time. However, today you can walk into a piano boutique and get a taste of the many different brands laid out for the hungry pianists.

Thus His Majesty – Mr. Piano has made its presence from the east room on the state floor of the White House to the remotest place on earth in various forms. It only makes us wonder whether music would be the same without this mesmerizing instrument.

Did You Know?

• There are over 12,000 parts in a piano, 10,000 of which are moving.
• Each note in a grand piano has more than 35 points of adjustment; over 3,080 adjustments for the entire piano.
• The total string tension in a concert grand is close to thirty tons.
• Pianos do not require electricity to operate.

Images & Content courtesy: Furtados Music

Continuing our journey to explore traditional Indian Musical Instruments, we take a look at some more of these master pieces.

BANSURI

There are two varieties of bansuri: the transverse, and the fipple. The fipple variety is usually played in folk music and is held away from the lips like a whistle. Because of the flexibility and control it offers, the transverse variety is preferred in classical music.

The Bansuri

Pandit Pannalal Ghosh (1911–1960) elevated the Bansuri from a folk instrument into serious classical music. He improvised with the length and number of holes and eventually came up with longer bansuris with larger bores and a seventh hole placed 90 degrees around from the line of the other six holes. Longer bansuris provided better coverage in the lower octaves.

Playing style

Bansuris vary in length. They range from about 12 inches up to about 40 inches. 20-inch bansuris are common. Another common and similar Indian flute played in South India is the venu. The index, middle, and fourth fingers of both hands are usually used to play the six hole bansuri. For the seven hole bansuri, the fifth finger of the right hand is usually used.

The sound from a bansuri comes from resonance in the air column inside it. The length of this column can be varied by closing or opening the holes. At the same time, keeping a hole half-open helps in getting a flat note. The Sa (on the Indian sargam scale, or equivalent “do” on the octave) note is obtained by covering the top three holes from the mouth-hole. The higher and lower octaves are played by changing one’s embouchure. The flat portion of the fingers, and not the tips, are used to cover the holes as this gives better control and ease while playing the half-holes. While playing, the sitting posture is also important and care must be taken so that the back is not strained for long hours. Bansuris of different sizes are used to play different octaves. The longer bansuris with larger bore are usually for lower octaves and the slimmer ones for higher octaves.

Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia

In order to play diatonic scale on a bansuri, it is important to find where the notes lie. E.g. in a bansuri where Sa or the tonic, played always by closing the first three holes, is equivalent to D, one can play sheet music by creating a finger notation that corresponds to different notes. A bansuri player is able to achieve the complexities of Raga music such as microtonal inflections, ornamentation, and glissando by varying breath, fast movement while playing both half and full holes, and covering the holes gradually.

Maestros

• Hariprasad Chaurasia
• Rajendra Prasanna
• Devendra Murdeshwar

Fun fact

• In traditional Indian metaphysics, it is noted how remarkable it is the way the life force (pran, or literally ‘breath’) is converted into a musical resonance (sur).
• In Indian mythology the bansuri has a special significance as it is the chosen instrument of the Hindu god Krishna, who is often depicted playing it.
• Hariprasad Chaurasia was a trained wrestler before he moved on to play the flute, (His students dare not play a wrong note!)

The sarod is believed by some to have descended from the Afghan rubab, a similar instrument originating in Central Asia and Afghanistan. The name Sarod roughly translates to “beautiful sound” or “melody” in Persian (which is one of the many languages spoken in Afghanistan). Although the sarod has been referred to as a ‘bass rubab’ its pitch range is only slightly lower than that of the rubab. Lalmani Misra opines in his Bharatiya Sangeet Vadya that the sarod is an amalgamation of the ancient chitra veena, the medieval rubab and modern sursingar. There is also a speculation that the oud (a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in Middle Eastern music) may be the origin of the sarod. Among the many conflicting and contested histories of the sarod, there is one that attributes its invention to the ancestors of the present-day sarod maestro, Amjad Ali Khan. Amjad Ali Khan’s ancestor Mohammad Hashmi Khan Bangash, a musician and horse trader, came to India with the Afghan rubab in the mid-1700s and became a court musician to the Maharajah of Rewa (now in Madhya Pradesh). It was his descendants – notably his grandson Ghulam Ali Khan Bangash who became a court musician in Gwalior – who gradually transformed the rubab into the sarod we know today. A parallel theory credits descendants of Madar Khan (1701–1748) – Niyamatullah Khan in particular – with the same innovation in 1820. It is possible that Ghulam Ali Khan and Niyamatullah Khan came to the similar design propositions either independently or in unacknowledged collaboration. The sarod in its present recognizable form dates back to 1820, when it started gaining recognition as a serious instrument in Rewa, Shahjahanpur, Gwalior and Lucknow. In the twentieth century, the sarod received some finishing touches from Allauddin Khan, the performer-pedagogue from Maihar, best known as Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan’s guru.

Construction

The Sarod

The conventional sarod is a 17 to 19 – stringed lute-like instrument – four to five main strings used for playing the melody, one or two drone strings, two chikari strings and nine to eleven sympathetic strings. The design of this early model is generally credited to Niyamatullah Khan of the Lucknow Gharana as well as Ghulam Ali Khan of the Gwalior-Bangash Gharana. Among the contemporary sarod players, this basic design is kept intact by two streams of sarod playing. Amjad Ali Khan and his disciples play this model, as do the followers of Radhika Mohan Maitra. Both Amjad Ali Khan and Buddhadev Dasgupta have introduced minor changes to their respective instruments which have become the design templates for their followers. Both musicians use sarods made of teak wood, with the playing face covered with goat skin. Buddhadev Dasgupta prefers a polished stainless steel fingerboard for the ease of maintenance while Amjad Ali Khan uses the conventional chrome or nickel-plated cast steel fingerboard. Visually, the two variants are similar, with six pegs in the main pegbox, two rounded chikari pegs and 11 (Amjad) to 15 (Buddhadev) sympathetic strings. The descendants of Niyamatullah Khan (namely Irfan Khan and Ghulfam Khan) also play similar instruments. The followers of Radhika Mohan Maitra still carry the second resonator on their sarods. Amjad Ali khan and his followers have rejected the resonator altogether.

Another type is the one designed by Allauddin Khan and his brother Ayet Ali Khan. This instrument, referred by David Trasoff as the 1934 Maihar Prototype, is larger and longer than the conventional instrument, though the fingerboard is identical to the traditional sarod described above. This instrument has 25 strings in all. These include four main strings, four jod strings (tuned to Ni or Dha, R/r, G/g and Sa respectively), two chikari strings (tuned to Sa of the upper octave) and fifteen tarab strings. The main strings are tuned to Ma (“fa”), Sa (“do”), lower Pa (“so”) and lower Sa, giving the instrument a range of three octaves. The Maihar sarod lends itself extremely well to the presentation of alap with the four jod strings providing a backdrop that helps usher in the ambience of the raga. This variant is, however, not conducive to the performance of clean right-hand picking on individual strings. They tune to C.

Playing Style

The lack of frets and the tension of the strings make the sarod a very demanding instrument to play, as the strings must be pressed hard against the fingerboard.

There are two approaches to stopping the strings of the sarod. One involves using the tip of one’s fingernails to stop the strings; certain strength and stiffness of the fingernails is a prerequisite for accuracy of pitch. The other uses a combination of the nail and the fingertip to stop the strings against the fingerboard. The technique which uses the fingernails produces a ringing tone, while the fingertip technique produces a flatter tone.

Ustaad Amjad Ali Khan with sons Amaan and Ayaan

Left hand fingering technique of the sarod is not as well-defined as it should have been in order for sarod players across the board to understand each other. Fingering techniques and how they are taught depend largely on the personal preferences of musicians and are not even distinguishable on the basis of school affiliation. Radhika Mohan Maitra, for example, used the index, middle and ring finger of his left hand to stop the string, just like followers of Allauddin Kha. Maitra, however, made much more extensive use of the third fingernail for slides and hammers. Amjad Ali Khan, while a member of approximately the same stylistic school as Radhika Mohan, prefers to use just the index and middle fingers of his left hand. Amjad Ali is, however, pictured in 1960 playing with all three fingers.

Maestros

• Ali Akbar Khan
• Allauddin Khan
• Sharan Rani Backliwal
• Debojyoti Bose
• Mohammad Amir Khan

Fun Fact

A student of Ali Akbar Khan once mentioned,

“He could find out within a hundred and fifty students, which student had which string out of tune and by how many semitones off, and a sarod can have upto 25 string!”

Images & Content courtesy: Furtados Music

In a 2 part series starting this month, The Big M brings to you traditional musical instruments that form the essence of Indian Classical Music.

A number of musical instruments have come to be associated with Indian classical music. These have a rich history and literature surrounding them. The veena, a string instrument, was traditionally regarded as the most important, but few play it today and it has largely been put out of fashion by its cousins the sitar and the sarod, both of which owe their origin to Persian influences. Other plucked/struck string instruments include the surbahar, sursringar, santoor and various versions of the modern day slide guitar. Among bowed instruments, the sarangi, esraj and violin are popular. The bansuri (bamboo flute), shehnai and harmonium are important wind instruments. In the percussion ensemble, the tabla and the pakhavaj are the most popular. Various other instruments have also been used in varying degrees.

VEENA

A veena can be traced back to the lute family of the European stringed instruments.

It is by far one of the most revered of traditional instruments. A veena player is called a Vainika.

It first mention on written records dates back to 1500 BC.

Playing

The Veena

It can be plucked, bowed or struck. A Vainik plays by sitting cross-legged with the instrument held tilted slightly away from the player. The small gourd on the left rests on the player’s left thigh, the left arm passing beneath the neck with the hand curving up and around so that the fingers rest upon the frets. The palm of the right hand rests on the edge of the top plank so that the fingers (usually index and middle) can pluck the strings. The drone strings are played with the little finger. The veena’s large resonator is placed on the floor, beyond the right thigh.

Construction

About four feet in length, its design consists of a large resonator (kudam) carved and hollowed out of a log (usually of jackwood), a tapering hollow neck (dandi) topped with 24 brass or bell-metal frets set in scalloped black wax on wooden tracks, and a tuning box culminating in a downward curve and an ornamental dragon’s head (yali). A small table-like wooden bridge (kudurai)—about 2 x 2½ x 2 inches – is topped by a convex brass plate glued in place with resin. Two rosettes, formerly of ivory, now of plastic or horn, are on the top board (palakai) of the resonator. Four main playing strings tuned to the tonic and the fifth in two octaves (for example B flat, E flat below bass clef & B flat, E flat in bass clef) stretch from fine tuning connectors attached to the end of the resonator across the bridge and above the fretboard to four large-headed pegs in the tuning box. Three subsidiary drone strings tuned to the tonic, fifth, and upper tonic cross a curving side bridge leaning against the main bridge, and stretch on the player’s side of the neck to three pegs matching those of the main playing strings. All seven strings today are of steel, with the lower strings either of solid thick gauge wire or round wound.

Acoustics

The veena has a unique construction. The string terminations at both ends are curved and not sharp. Also, the frets have much more curvature than any other instrument. Unlike in guitar, the string does not have to be pushed down to the very base of the neck, so no rattling sound is generated. This design enables a continuous control over the string tension, which is important for glissandi, producing more harmonics than any other instruments.

Fun fact

The veena has a recorded history that dates back to the Vedic period (approximately 1500 B.C.). Earlier veenas ranged from one string to one hundred, and were composed of many different materials like eagle bone, bamboo, wood and coconut shells.

Maestros

• Veena Dhanammal
• Desamangalam Subramanya Iyer
• K.S. Narayanaswamy
• Rugmini Gopalakrishnan

The sitar is often said to have been developed in the thirteenth century AD by Amir Khusro, the Godfather of Hindustani Classical, from a member of the veena family of Indian musical instruments called the tritantri veena and to has been named by him after the Persian setar. The sitar is, like the setar, a member of the lute family while the north Indian veena is a zither, but it shares the veena‘s resonating gourds and sympathetic strings. Amir Khusro does not mention the sitar but he does mention the tanbur and, by the mid 18th century, Indian tanburs were referred to as sitars.

In his Bharatiya Sangeet Vadya, Dr. Lalmani Misra traces its development from the tritantri veena through the nibaddh and anibaddh tanpuras and later the jantra. Construction of the similar tanpura was described by Tansen. During the time of Moghul rule, Persian lutes were played at courts and may have provided a basis for the sitar. However, there is no physical evidence for the sitar until the time of the collapse of the Mughal Empire.

Construction

The sitar’s curved frets are movable, allowing fine tuning, and raised so that sympathetic strings (tarb, also known as ‘taarif’ or ‘tarafdaar’) can run underneath them. A sitar can have 21, 22, or 23 strings, among which are six or seven playable strings which run over the frets: the Gandhaar-pancham sitar (used by Vilayat Khan and his disciples) has six playable strings, whereas the Kharaj-pancham sitar, used in the Maihar gharana, to which Pt. Ravi Shankar belongs, has seven. Three of these (or four on a Kharaj-pancham sitar), called the chikaari, simply provide a drone; the rest are used to play the melody , though the first string (baajtaar) is most used.

The Sitar

The instrument has two bridges; the large bridge (badaa goraa) for the playing and drone strings and the small bridge (chota goraa) for the sympathetic strings. Its timbre results from the way the strings interact with the wide, sloping bridge. As a string reverberates its length changes slightly as its edge touches the bridge, causing the creation of overtones and giving the sound its distinctive tone. The maintenance of this specific tone by shaping the bridge is called jawari. Many musicians rely on instrument makers to adjust this.

Playing

The instrument is balanced between the player’s left foot and right knee. The hands move freely without having to carry any of the instrument’s weight. The player plucks the strings using a metallic pick or plectrum called a mizraab. The thumb stays anchored on the top of the fretboard just above the main gourd. Generally only the index and middle fingers are used for fingering although a few players occasionally use the third. A specialized technique called ‘meand’ involves pulling the main melody string down over the bottom portion of the sitar’s curved frets, with which the sitarist can achieve a 7 semitone range of microtonal notes (it should be noted, however, that because of the sitar’s movable frets, sometimes a fret may be set to a microtone already, and no bending would be required).

Fun Fact:

Sitar has a cousin called the Surbahar which can count as a bass sitar, downtuned by 2 – 5 steps.

Sitar has been used in western pop music more than one can imagine. Pt. Ravi Shankar playing on The Beatle’s ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ is the most noticeable and of course The Rolling Stones using it in ‘Paint it Black’.

Niladri Kumar has also put pick-ups on his sitar! Any takers for an Electric Sitar?

Maestros:

• Ravi Shnakar
• Enayat Khan
• Krishna Bhatt
• Anoushka Shankar
• Niladri Kumar
• Vilayat Khan

Images and Content Courtesy: Furtados Music

I have always been passionate about music and have written and composed songs since I was 6 years old. Since my upbringing was mostly in American schools in Europe and my influences in music were all the classic bands such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix, etc., most of the music and lyrics that I wrote were in English and of western style.

Visionary - Aditya Bhasin

On moving back to India I joined rock bands in school and college, took some training from Delhi School of Music and also learnt informally from my friends. But even though I had this hobby which I loved, I never thought I’d make it my career. So I got busy with professionally educating myself and joined the field of hospitality management. I managed hotels here in India and in US, but after 8 years of work and an amazing promotion waiting for me back in Mumbai, I realized something was missing. This instinctual feeling coupled with angry guests and the whole corporate scene altogether forced me to realize that my underlying and nagging problem was that I needed a change.

It was at that time that I met up with good family friends – John and Faith Singh, who had successfully run a contemporary hand block printing company – Anokhi, for 30 years and had spent the years of their retirement working in the field of heritage conservation. They’d started an NGO called Jaipur Virasat Foundation along with running the Jaipur Heritage International Festival.

Potful of talent: Some artists forming Rajasthan Roots

After one meeting with John, discussing the possibilities of working with thousands of artists from different communities of Rajasthan, the scope for experimentation, production, freedom of expression, and thus empowering them and providing a stable livelihood – seemed like a mission and a vision that I just couldn’t walk away from. So without any job confirmation with the foundation, I came back to Delhi, turned down my promotion, quit my job and went on to settle down in Rajasthan.

The next few years were a crash course for me in every sense – a new language – Marwari, songs and traditional beats I’d never heard before with many different instruments and sounds. Vinod Joshi – the anthropologist who worked with the foundation was a storehouse of knowledge and a genuine grass root contact. We would get a call at any random hour, informing us that there was something happening in some remote village like storm chasers, etc. Vinod and I would jump into John’s SUV and drive off into the countryside. Sometimes it would be all night Jagrans, an opportunity to meet Jasnath Ke Bhope – dancing barefoot on burning embers of coal, or a whole village of Tejaji ke Bhope – dancing with hundreds of defanged cobras and sometimes it would be Momasar – where on every Holi, for 3 days everyone dresses up in drag, in unimaginable characters and they dance, act and perform street theatre.

Also an effort to discover the best artists of Rajasthan was made by JVF, organizing talent hunts and regional festivals in small villages. The response and outcome was tremendous, attracting hundreds of undiscovered artists and thousands of spectators. All this ground work was a seed which spawned the collective and soon many of these artists began performing in concerts in Jaipur and all over India.

Gifted: Kutle Khan on Kartals

When the work load of touring and performing became overwhelming I had to leave my day job in the foundation and concentrate entirely on production. Soon with support from John and the others, we saw the beginning of Morchang Studios – the production house and Rajasthan Roots – a collective of folk musicians.

We stayed away from the typical fusion – either with western drums or drum beats and allowed for the sound to evolve on its own. By introducing instruments which made the music and tone warmer such as the bass guitar and other melodic instruments such as the bamboo flute, guitar and saxophone, the outcome was an easily palatable sound to people all around the world across all age groups.

7 years went by and we’d showcased performances all over the world. In places like England, Singapore, Japan, Europe, Abu Dhabi and the middle east, as well as prestigious events in India such as the Times Delhi and Kolkata Festivals, blueFROG in Mumbai and Central Park and Garden of Five Senses in Delhi.

Production and collaboration has always stressed upon learning from other world cultures such as Cuban, Latin American and Mali of Africa while collaborating with different musicians such as Idan Rachel and Shye Ben Tzur.  Rodney Branigan from US, Raghu Dixit from Bangalore and many others from France, England, and Middle East provided training, learning and a cultural exchange for all musicians involved. So you will find in our music, traces from different folk cultures and styles. My favorites are the African Blues, the Middle Eastern scales and of course the Sufi traditions.

Rajasthan Roots has been able to promote some of the finest musicians and dancers in a contemporary representation of Rajasthan’s folk culture. The vision is and always has been for the music of Rajasthan to evolve and to represent a current state and emotion. Once the musicians are given the freedom of expression and guided to stay away from songs which have become a stereotype or in some ways a novelty, the new and real sounds of Rajasthan can emerge.

Article by Aditya Bhasin with Divya Srinivasan