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Forums - The lounge
Subject: Holy crap, it's still here!
Original Message Date: 09-Jan-09 @ 07:23 AM - Holy crap, it's still here!
It was down so long I just stopped trying after a while.
I still talk with Beds every now and then on IRC, but who else is still around?
I still talk with Beds every now and then on IRC, but who else is still around?
Message 51/76 12-Jul-09 @ 08:45 PM - RE: Holy crap, it's still here!
Duisburg - sorry i spelled it wrong - it's with a 'u' - duisbUrg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duisburg
we also were in and out of Essen everyday to get a shower at one musicians apartment.
damn man it is such a clean country, there is rabbits hopping around here and there, even they are hopping around on the lawn outside govt buildings in Berlin center, lol
also i like that they dont remove grafitti on railway sidings, so all thru any local train journey you get great grafitti to see, and they have some talented grafitti artists actualy.
i might relocate their tbh, i spent time in dusseldorf before and liked it alot, and a cursory investigation says the whole area is a bit lacking in recording studio facilities - add to that VERY affordable premises because the Germans dont do the whole property-buying sketch we have in usa and uk, and you can get studio space very cheap indeed!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duisburg
we also were in and out of Essen everyday to get a shower at one musicians apartment.
damn man it is such a clean country, there is rabbits hopping around here and there, even they are hopping around on the lawn outside govt buildings in Berlin center, lol
also i like that they dont remove grafitti on railway sidings, so all thru any local train journey you get great grafitti to see, and they have some talented grafitti artists actualy.
i might relocate their tbh, i spent time in dusseldorf before and liked it alot, and a cursory investigation says the whole area is a bit lacking in recording studio facilities - add to that VERY affordable premises because the Germans dont do the whole property-buying sketch we have in usa and uk, and you can get studio space very cheap indeed!
___________________________________
"In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent business man!" - Babbit
Message 52/76 13-Jul-09 @ 03:13 PM Edit: 13-Jul-09 | 03:21 PM - RE: Holy crap, it's still here!
thanks for the link. i always find germany to be amazingly clean. i come back to nyc and it's like
a junkyard in comparison. there are a lot of things about germany i love. if you get a chance,
spend a few days in munich. check out the city center...the fussgängerzone and the quarter
called schwabing. in the summer you can't beat their biggest park (10 times the size of central
park in nyc), the englischer garten. Of course you have a ton of beautiful parks in london and i'm
guessing the rest of the uk. i need to visit norway some day. whenever i'm in europe nobody
wants to go to norway because the weather is usually shite. lol
oh and there is that part of the englisher garten...behind the university...where people sunbath
nude. at least they used to. i don't know if they still do. i used to do the same there. one time i
hopped in the stream that runs through the park. the water flows rather quickly. i floated
downstream for a while when it dawned on me that i was no longer in the nude sunbathers area.
i hopped out and had to make my way back past people who were fully clothed, many on their
lunch breaks from work. i made it back and was never so relieved to see a bunch of nude
people in my life.
a junkyard in comparison. there are a lot of things about germany i love. if you get a chance,
spend a few days in munich. check out the city center...the fussgängerzone and the quarter
called schwabing. in the summer you can't beat their biggest park (10 times the size of central
park in nyc), the englischer garten. Of course you have a ton of beautiful parks in london and i'm
guessing the rest of the uk. i need to visit norway some day. whenever i'm in europe nobody
wants to go to norway because the weather is usually shite. lol
oh and there is that part of the englisher garten...behind the university...where people sunbath
nude. at least they used to. i don't know if they still do. i used to do the same there. one time i
hopped in the stream that runs through the park. the water flows rather quickly. i floated
downstream for a while when it dawned on me that i was no longer in the nude sunbathers area.
i hopped out and had to make my way back past people who were fully clothed, many on their
lunch breaks from work. i made it back and was never so relieved to see a bunch of nude
people in my life.
Message 53/76 13-Jul-09 @ 08:39 PM - RE: Holy crap, it's still here!
lol classic!!
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 55/76 14-Jul-09 @ 10:22 PM - RE: Holy crap, it's still here!
hehe, hey sitar, yknow in all this time i never really asked you about the whole sitar thing
do tell......... i mean that is one serious m*thafuckin intrument, int it like sposed to be the hardest of all instruments to master?
do tell......... i mean that is one serious m*thafuckin intrument, int it like sposed to be the hardest of all instruments to master?
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 56/76 15-Jul-09 @ 05:07 PM - RE: Holy crap, it's still here!
hey k...oh boy lol. before i start to answer....the budweiser ad reminds me of a joke. i think if first
heard the joke on the forum here. people who drink budweiser piss water. people who drink
guinness piss budweiser. it's old i know but still classic.
Here's the story on the sitar. Pull up a chair. It's going to be lengthy. :P I grew up listening to
classical music (until my teens when Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, and that guy who sang "Fire. I
want you to burn" took over lol). I studied piano and sang in school choirs. In high school I
auditioned before NYSMA (New York State Music Association) judges and qualified for first the all
county choir, then the all state choir, and finally the all nation choir. The all nation choir toured
through 6 European countries. That was my first out of country experience and it was great. One
day after one of our first rehearsals in London a few altos came up to me to say I had the most
beautiful tenor voice in choir. Looking back I should have used that as leverage for sex but I was
still pretty shy in those days lol. Every single judge I sang for, either solo or as part of quartets, had
a conference with my music teacher and me. Each and every one said they'd never heard such a
voice. One judge asked me if I wouldn't mind doing the sight reading portion again because he or
she had never heard someone sight read with such feeling.
I didn't jump right into college out of high school but about a year later I started going with a friend to
the commuter college he attended. I didn't sign up for classes at first but sat in on some of his. I
checked out the choir and spoke with the conductor. He asked if I would sing something for him.
After I did he said I could be part of the choir even though I was not enrolled at the college and I
sang a solo for the christmas concert. The conductor didn't dare put my name in the program
because technically I wasn't supposed to be in the choir. He instead listed me as a guest singer on
a sign in the lobby of the auditorium.
So I had a lot of confidence in my musical ability.
I enrolled in the school the next semester but because i enrolled late there were only night classes
available. I didn't have a driver's license because my mom, with whom I still lived, didn't want me to
drive. She was afraid I'd get into an accident. My friend took day classes and I had to hitchhike to
and from the college every night. It's odd my mom would rather I hitchhike than drive. There were
nights I didn't get rides and had to turn around and go home. None the less I passed all of the
classes and made the dean's list the next semester.
The next 2 semesters I enrolled for day classes and went to and from school with my friend. I was
very interested in science and math, especially astronomy and took courses on that path.
Meanwhile, over the years my musical tastes had gone from Alice Cooper through rock like the
Cream, Jack Bruce had made a couple of jazz albums, one in particular called "Things We Like"
that eventually led me to John Mclaughlin, who led me to Miles Davis, who led me to John Coltrane,
Ornette Coleman, Dewey Redman, and a ton of other jazz musicians in my musical taste.
Eventually I was exposed to sitar music which fascinated me but playing and singing music had
taken a backseat to science, playing frisbee on campus and lots of girls.
After my third semester my friend transferred to a college far away where he would live on campus
There went my ride and with it my aspirations of attending college. I couldn't imagine going back to
hitchhiking. Around the same time I met someone who played sitar. He said he could get me either
a sitar or tablas. The tablas, which I was also intrigued by would be less expensive so I went with
tablas, moved to Queens, and found a teacher in NYC, a great guy with western sensibilities
named Badal Roy who had played many times with Miles Davis. Check out his discography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badal_Roy
I stopped due to a change in jobs and circumstances. Then one day a friend of mine who had
traveled around the world for 2 years returned with a sitar. He lent it to me one night and something
in my heart, it was actually a physical feeling, jumped out of me as if to tell me I had to play this
instrument. I bought one and looked for a teacher. The most prolific Indian Musician in NYC was a
sarod player named Vasant Rai. He also taught sitar and I started with him. This statement about
the late Vasant Rai was absolutely true: "He is just as great and beautiful a person as he is a great
and beautiful musician" -- George Harrison I always thought he looked a bit like Burt Lancaster.
http://vasantrai.com/
Vasant Rai had been a student of Ustad Allaudin Khan, the father of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Vasantji
soon regarded me as his most talented student and after about a year had me teaching beginning
sitar students when he couldn't. I actually lived with him and his family for several months.
Again this boosted my confidence.
At that time I had only listened to recordings of two sitar players, Ravi Shankar first and a bit later,
Nikhil Banerjee. I found I personally preferred the style of Banerjee over Shankar. I was trying to
learn to play not only a new instrument with 19 strings but also an entirely new musical language
but still I had every confidence that I could do it.
At some point I was looking through records in an Indian record store and came across a
recording called "A Night At The Taj". I read the liner notes. The sitarist' name was Ustad Vilayat
Khan. His younger brother Ustad Imrat Khan played the bass sitar called "Surbahar" with him. The
tabla accompanist was Ustad Nizammudin Khan. As happened when I first played my friend's
sitar, something jumped out of me as I held this album in my hands. I took it home and threw it on
the turntable. It took all of 30 seconds for a voice inside me to say, "This is what sitar is supposed
to sound like". I listened to the album over and over. I told Vasant Rai about the recording and he
only said, "Yes Vilayat Khan is also a very good sitar player" but added, "Some people believe him
to be the best but his school of playing is not the Allaudin Khan school". None the less I found
myself buying any Vilayat Khan and Imrat Khan recording I could get my hands on. There was
something that sounded to my ear as being both very clean and simple, yet very powerful about
Vilayat Khan's playing. I couldn't understand though how his every note sounded so flawlessly silky
and smooth. How was he getting his sitar and his music to sound so deep and eloquent? I wasn't
going to find out for over a year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilayat_Khan
I met a beautiful journalist from Germany who was among other things fluent in 8 languages. Her
English was better than mine lol. We married after being together for only 3 months and soon
moved to Munich, one of the greatest and most eye opening experiences of my life. I immediately
connected with the "European mentality". I felt like I was finally at home. In Munich I asked around
and learned that there was one accomplished sitar player in Munich named Al Gromer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gromer_Khan
I contacted him and he invited me to come by. During the following year I went to Al's home 3 or 4
times a week where we drank chai as he taught me for several hours each day. He never charged
me a dime. He had been for 12 years a student of Ustad Imrat Khan. Imrat Khan played Surbahar
and sitar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imrat_Khan
Al played beautifully. He was far advanced compared to me, especially in Alap, the portion of
classical Indian music that is played without tabla accompaniment and which the artist uses to
introduce the character of a raga before tabla joins in. In concert the Alap portion of the
performance often lasts as long as an hour, the raga unfolding as the sitarist gradually weaves
more and more notes and phrases together, while quite naturally showing off his command of the
instrument and the raga. It is much like a jet, taxiing to the runway and slowly picking up speed until
it takes off. Of course at the time I couldn't get the plane off the ground and Al was often frustrated
with me in that the sitar techniques I had learned in the Allauddin school kept creeping in, abruptly
destroying the mood of anything we were playing. None the less Al didn't give up on me. I broke old
habits and gradually moved into the direction Al was teaching me and we performed together in
Munich.
After living in Munich for about a year, my wife and I moved back to NYC. Things were soon to
become difficult. I went back to studying with Vasant Rai but realized the musical style I wanted to
pursue was going to be in conflict with Vasantji's. Soon after I got word that Imrat Khan was
performing in NYC. I bought tickets for my wife and I. Also the night before Ravi Shankar was
scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall. I bought tickets for that concert too. During the Ravi
Shankar concert my wife leaned over to me and said "in two or three years you'll be playing like
that. I'm sure of it". I was flattered although I thought it might take longer. Still, I was confident that it
was within my grasp.
Then it all went south. The next night we went to see Imrat Khan. Imrat Khan has 4 sons. Two of
his sons performed first. The oldest, Nishat and age 19, played sitar and the youngest son, a tabla
player named Shafaat accompanied him on tabla. From the first pull of the sitar wire by Nishat I
realized why Vilayat Khan's music was so powerful and so sublime. I had never seen anyone play
the instrument like this. Nishat looked to me like a magician. I was like OMG how can anyone do
that on the sitar with such precision and with each passing moment, each stroke of the wire, every
pull of the wire, my heart sank another inch as I realized not only what Al Gromer was trying to
show me about their style but how far away I was from doing even one thing Nishat was spinning
off effortlessly. He played a raga called Puriya for what for me was a wonderful and at the same
time excrutiatingly painful hour. Then, as if to drive the nail into the coffin my wife turned to me and
said "I don't know if you'll ever play like that". Oh thanks a lot but she was only saying what I was
feeling. One hour wiped out all the confidence I had. I was a clean slate, wondering if I should give
up the idea of ever playing this instrument. Then the father played, followed by a "jugalbandi"
meaning Nishat and his father played together. It was fantastic and magical. It was like watching a
flowing river in which every drop of water was intentionally and precisely placed even though one
can't imagine how that could be possible. They were like magicians who with each new slight of
hand took more and more breath out of their audience. Nishat would make eye contact with people
in the audience. He'd offer a sly smile as he pulled out yet another trick. He had all the confidence
of the lion's cub, the lion being his father. He was almost like a precocious kid saying, "If you think
that was amazing, watch this". I'll explain why they could play like this a bit later. Meanwhile I
wanted to shoot myself lol.
I went backstage and met Nishat and Shafaat, then introduced myself to Imrat Khan as a student
of his student in Germany, Al Gromer. Imrat was very gracious and told me to call him where he
was staying and he would listen to me and see what he could do.
I called the next day. He was staying with a long time student of his. The guy told me Imrat had
gone out and to call back in about 2 hours which I did. Imrat was again not there. This went on for 2
or 3 days until this phone call. I called again and realized I had been put on speaker phone. The guy
said just a minute. Then I heard him whisper, "It's that guy that keeps calling. I keep telling him not
to call but he won't stop". At that point I yelled at the guy, telling him that he has told me to call back
in one hour, two hours, in the evening, and I did exactly that every time. I said if he doesn't want me
to call all he needs to do is tell me and I won't. At that point I heard Imrat's voice and then Imrat got
on the phone. As it turned out that guy was a real bastard.
Imrat invited me to come the next day. After listening to me He said that he would have to "fix my
right hand" so that I could have more control over the instrument. He also said it was amazing to
listen to me play. He said that although there were technical problems, I played with more genuine
feeling for this music than his Indian students in Calcutta. He took me as his student. He constantly
encouraged me not to worry, that I could someday play like his sons.
Over the next 20 years I studied under him. He stayed with us many times in NYC. I traveled to visit
him in London. His youngest son moved to New Jersey, near NYC and Imrat spent a lot of time in
his son's home. Of course I was there a lot. Imrat loved the fact that his 4 boys and I got along
great. He'd hear us laughing late into the night. I remember a precious moment when guests came
to visit. Imrat introduced me. He said, "This is Mark" then paused and said, "Mark is my 5th son" at
which point he looked at me as if to say, "how did you get me into this. I thought I could relax after i
raised my 4 sons to be concert musicians and then you came along". Although Imrat was my
teacher we also became good friends. He loved jokes and that was of course my forte.
In school I had gone through extensive musical ear training and while Imrat was not around I'd
listen to recordings and play phrases back on the sitar. I was able to collect man bootleg live tapes
and teach myself things from them. One night when Imrat was staying with us in NY he came to a
restaurant in which I was playing. I played a bandesh (a composition) in a raga called Mishra Piloo.
It was a composition I picked up from a tape of a Vilayat Khan performance. When I finished
playing I sat down at the table with Imrat and other people who were there. After asking me how I
had learned that composition he said that he remembered sitting in a room with his brother,
watching his brother compose it back in the early 60s. He said that still to this day rarely does
anyone dare attempt to play that composition "and yet here I sit in new york and watch this boy
playing my brother's composition. It's like I saw my brother shoot an arrow into the air and only
now, 30 years later am I seeing where it landed".
Over the years I performed in many places and in many venues. One highlight was playing at
Lincoln Center but A huge moment for me came when finally I met the Illustrious Ustad Vilayat
Khan backstage after his Lincoln Center concert. Unfortunately Imrat and Vilayat had a big falling
out, long before I met Imrat. None the less I introduced myself as his brother's student. He told me
that the next day he was meeting a record producer at the apartment of a tabla player named
Misha whom i knew very well and had played with many times. He said I should come and he
would listen to me. He said he would be there at noon.
I got there 2 hours before Vilayat was to arrive and Misha let me practice in her bedroom. Noon
came and went with no sign of Vilayat. I kept practicing. The phone rang and Misha came into the
bedroom to answer it. I stopped practicing so she could hear the caller. I assumed it might be
Vilayat. After a moment she covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said "keep playing. he's
listening". I wondered how much he could hear over the phone but started playing again. She
walked out of the room still talking and I stopped, anxious to hear if he was still coming. She came
back into the room, covered the mouthpiece of the phone again and said "keep playing. he's still
listening" then again walked out. Now I thought, this is ridiculous. What could he possibly hear over
a phone in the next room but again I started playing. After several minutes she came in and hung
up the phone. I asked if he was still coming. She looked at me as if surprised by my question. She
said, "No he's been here with the producer for 20 minutes. He came in, heard you're playing, sat
down and didn't say a word for 10 minutes. He just sat and listened. I wish you could have seen
this. He asked me, 'Misha...who's recording is this?' and I answered 'Vilayatji, that's not a
recording. It's Mark playing in the next room." She said his mouth literally dropped open.
At that point I got up and went out to greet him. He told me that hearing me play was like listening to
one of his own recordings. I had come along way since the night I almost gave it all up.
Eventually I had to stop playing because of severe pain in my right knee caused by sitting the way
one has to sit to play the sitar properly. I didn't grow up sitting like that.
As for the sitar being the most difficult instrument in the world to play, I would say it is debatable. I
believe that any instrument is very easy to play but extremely difficult to play well. That being said,
the sitar is a bear of an instrument.
I said above that I'd explain why they could play the way they did. Imrat's sons are the 8th
generation of sitar players in that family. It is all they do. They are born into the music. They first
learn how to sing, usually from the maternal side and as soon as they can hold a child's sitar they
begin to learn from their father, their uncles, in this case Vilayat and from other great musicians in
the community. To give you an example of what it's like to grow up in that family...practice comes
first and foremost. When dinner is made everyone has to come to the table *unless* they are
practicing. If one of the boys is practicing he can eat whenever he's finished and nobody will
disturb him. Like in any family the boys had a bedtime but if they were practicing they could stay up
until they finished, even if it meant they'd go to be at sunrise and they were allowed to sleep in.
They have a music room in their house in Calcutta. People have said that sometimes they'd heard
music coming out of the room when nobody was playing. The youngest son took up tabla because
there were already two sitar players and a sarod player amongst his other brothers. Shafaat also
plays sitar beautifully but it was decided it made more sense for him to play tabla and he could be
the main accompanist for his brothers. Imrat hired a great tabla teacher to teach Shafaat. The
teacher came to their home every day. He often spoon fed Shafaat so that Shafaat didn't have to
interrupt his practicing to eat. The family secrets of both technique and composition is held close
to the vest. I was very lucky in that Imrat entrusted me with many of those secrets. Each was like a
jewel. Each was like a piece of the puzzle I was trying to unravel.
Another example of what it is like to be in that family. I was staying with them in London. I woke up
earlier than everyone and went into the music room to practice. I was a bit concerned about
waking everybody so I played on the soft side. One of the boys came into the room and told me he
was listening. He said "I'm going to grab some breakfast and then I'll teach you something". A few
minutes later another one of the boys came in and said, "After i eat something I want to teach you
something". Then the third and then the fourth. lol. I was like, OMG.
I never did get to their level but I became very good and gained a reputation that reached places
where I'd never been. I was an odd candidate for sitar. A girl once came up to me in a restaurant
and asked if she could interview me for her Columbia University paper. When I saw the article it
started something like this. "I walked into a restaurant one evening and was immediately taken by
the swirling of notes that sounded like they could have been played by Vilayat Khan. I assumed it
was a recording until I turned the corner and saw a man playing who had more the frame of a
linebacker than a sitarist."
Well k...you asked. lol...but I'm not finished. :P
I had to take many different jobs in my life in order to sustain myself while I studied the sitar. In that
time I was taken under the wing of a chef who taught me how to cook in restaurants. I worked two
restaurants with him and in several others afterwards. One restaurant I worked in during the late
70s was in the east village. It was a cool place and attracted customers like Brian Eno. I was well
into sitar playing and studying by then but I remember hearing beats in the restaurant that I liked
very much. It was many years later that I went back and tried to find out what that music was
about. It was that search that led me to techno. I sucked at writing tracks which I don't need to tell
you lol. I just never got my head around how to create the right mix. Maybe it was that I did all of my
writing with headphones and couldn't crank up the music on my Events loud enough to really get a
feeling of what anything I did sounded like. I don't know. Anyway. There it is.
heard the joke on the forum here. people who drink budweiser piss water. people who drink
guinness piss budweiser. it's old i know but still classic.
Here's the story on the sitar. Pull up a chair. It's going to be lengthy. :P I grew up listening to
classical music (until my teens when Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, and that guy who sang "Fire. I
want you to burn" took over lol). I studied piano and sang in school choirs. In high school I
auditioned before NYSMA (New York State Music Association) judges and qualified for first the all
county choir, then the all state choir, and finally the all nation choir. The all nation choir toured
through 6 European countries. That was my first out of country experience and it was great. One
day after one of our first rehearsals in London a few altos came up to me to say I had the most
beautiful tenor voice in choir. Looking back I should have used that as leverage for sex but I was
still pretty shy in those days lol. Every single judge I sang for, either solo or as part of quartets, had
a conference with my music teacher and me. Each and every one said they'd never heard such a
voice. One judge asked me if I wouldn't mind doing the sight reading portion again because he or
she had never heard someone sight read with such feeling.
I didn't jump right into college out of high school but about a year later I started going with a friend to
the commuter college he attended. I didn't sign up for classes at first but sat in on some of his. I
checked out the choir and spoke with the conductor. He asked if I would sing something for him.
After I did he said I could be part of the choir even though I was not enrolled at the college and I
sang a solo for the christmas concert. The conductor didn't dare put my name in the program
because technically I wasn't supposed to be in the choir. He instead listed me as a guest singer on
a sign in the lobby of the auditorium.
So I had a lot of confidence in my musical ability.
I enrolled in the school the next semester but because i enrolled late there were only night classes
available. I didn't have a driver's license because my mom, with whom I still lived, didn't want me to
drive. She was afraid I'd get into an accident. My friend took day classes and I had to hitchhike to
and from the college every night. It's odd my mom would rather I hitchhike than drive. There were
nights I didn't get rides and had to turn around and go home. None the less I passed all of the
classes and made the dean's list the next semester.
The next 2 semesters I enrolled for day classes and went to and from school with my friend. I was
very interested in science and math, especially astronomy and took courses on that path.
Meanwhile, over the years my musical tastes had gone from Alice Cooper through rock like the
Cream, Jack Bruce had made a couple of jazz albums, one in particular called "Things We Like"
that eventually led me to John Mclaughlin, who led me to Miles Davis, who led me to John Coltrane,
Ornette Coleman, Dewey Redman, and a ton of other jazz musicians in my musical taste.
Eventually I was exposed to sitar music which fascinated me but playing and singing music had
taken a backseat to science, playing frisbee on campus and lots of girls.
After my third semester my friend transferred to a college far away where he would live on campus
There went my ride and with it my aspirations of attending college. I couldn't imagine going back to
hitchhiking. Around the same time I met someone who played sitar. He said he could get me either
a sitar or tablas. The tablas, which I was also intrigued by would be less expensive so I went with
tablas, moved to Queens, and found a teacher in NYC, a great guy with western sensibilities
named Badal Roy who had played many times with Miles Davis. Check out his discography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badal_Roy
I stopped due to a change in jobs and circumstances. Then one day a friend of mine who had
traveled around the world for 2 years returned with a sitar. He lent it to me one night and something
in my heart, it was actually a physical feeling, jumped out of me as if to tell me I had to play this
instrument. I bought one and looked for a teacher. The most prolific Indian Musician in NYC was a
sarod player named Vasant Rai. He also taught sitar and I started with him. This statement about
the late Vasant Rai was absolutely true: "He is just as great and beautiful a person as he is a great
and beautiful musician" -- George Harrison I always thought he looked a bit like Burt Lancaster.
http://vasantrai.com/
Vasant Rai had been a student of Ustad Allaudin Khan, the father of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Vasantji
soon regarded me as his most talented student and after about a year had me teaching beginning
sitar students when he couldn't. I actually lived with him and his family for several months.
Again this boosted my confidence.
At that time I had only listened to recordings of two sitar players, Ravi Shankar first and a bit later,
Nikhil Banerjee. I found I personally preferred the style of Banerjee over Shankar. I was trying to
learn to play not only a new instrument with 19 strings but also an entirely new musical language
but still I had every confidence that I could do it.
At some point I was looking through records in an Indian record store and came across a
recording called "A Night At The Taj". I read the liner notes. The sitarist' name was Ustad Vilayat
Khan. His younger brother Ustad Imrat Khan played the bass sitar called "Surbahar" with him. The
tabla accompanist was Ustad Nizammudin Khan. As happened when I first played my friend's
sitar, something jumped out of me as I held this album in my hands. I took it home and threw it on
the turntable. It took all of 30 seconds for a voice inside me to say, "This is what sitar is supposed
to sound like". I listened to the album over and over. I told Vasant Rai about the recording and he
only said, "Yes Vilayat Khan is also a very good sitar player" but added, "Some people believe him
to be the best but his school of playing is not the Allaudin Khan school". None the less I found
myself buying any Vilayat Khan and Imrat Khan recording I could get my hands on. There was
something that sounded to my ear as being both very clean and simple, yet very powerful about
Vilayat Khan's playing. I couldn't understand though how his every note sounded so flawlessly silky
and smooth. How was he getting his sitar and his music to sound so deep and eloquent? I wasn't
going to find out for over a year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilayat_Khan
I met a beautiful journalist from Germany who was among other things fluent in 8 languages. Her
English was better than mine lol. We married after being together for only 3 months and soon
moved to Munich, one of the greatest and most eye opening experiences of my life. I immediately
connected with the "European mentality". I felt like I was finally at home. In Munich I asked around
and learned that there was one accomplished sitar player in Munich named Al Gromer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gromer_Khan
I contacted him and he invited me to come by. During the following year I went to Al's home 3 or 4
times a week where we drank chai as he taught me for several hours each day. He never charged
me a dime. He had been for 12 years a student of Ustad Imrat Khan. Imrat Khan played Surbahar
and sitar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imrat_Khan
Al played beautifully. He was far advanced compared to me, especially in Alap, the portion of
classical Indian music that is played without tabla accompaniment and which the artist uses to
introduce the character of a raga before tabla joins in. In concert the Alap portion of the
performance often lasts as long as an hour, the raga unfolding as the sitarist gradually weaves
more and more notes and phrases together, while quite naturally showing off his command of the
instrument and the raga. It is much like a jet, taxiing to the runway and slowly picking up speed until
it takes off. Of course at the time I couldn't get the plane off the ground and Al was often frustrated
with me in that the sitar techniques I had learned in the Allauddin school kept creeping in, abruptly
destroying the mood of anything we were playing. None the less Al didn't give up on me. I broke old
habits and gradually moved into the direction Al was teaching me and we performed together in
Munich.
After living in Munich for about a year, my wife and I moved back to NYC. Things were soon to
become difficult. I went back to studying with Vasant Rai but realized the musical style I wanted to
pursue was going to be in conflict with Vasantji's. Soon after I got word that Imrat Khan was
performing in NYC. I bought tickets for my wife and I. Also the night before Ravi Shankar was
scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall. I bought tickets for that concert too. During the Ravi
Shankar concert my wife leaned over to me and said "in two or three years you'll be playing like
that. I'm sure of it". I was flattered although I thought it might take longer. Still, I was confident that it
was within my grasp.
Then it all went south. The next night we went to see Imrat Khan. Imrat Khan has 4 sons. Two of
his sons performed first. The oldest, Nishat and age 19, played sitar and the youngest son, a tabla
player named Shafaat accompanied him on tabla. From the first pull of the sitar wire by Nishat I
realized why Vilayat Khan's music was so powerful and so sublime. I had never seen anyone play
the instrument like this. Nishat looked to me like a magician. I was like OMG how can anyone do
that on the sitar with such precision and with each passing moment, each stroke of the wire, every
pull of the wire, my heart sank another inch as I realized not only what Al Gromer was trying to
show me about their style but how far away I was from doing even one thing Nishat was spinning
off effortlessly. He played a raga called Puriya for what for me was a wonderful and at the same
time excrutiatingly painful hour. Then, as if to drive the nail into the coffin my wife turned to me and
said "I don't know if you'll ever play like that". Oh thanks a lot but she was only saying what I was
feeling. One hour wiped out all the confidence I had. I was a clean slate, wondering if I should give
up the idea of ever playing this instrument. Then the father played, followed by a "jugalbandi"
meaning Nishat and his father played together. It was fantastic and magical. It was like watching a
flowing river in which every drop of water was intentionally and precisely placed even though one
can't imagine how that could be possible. They were like magicians who with each new slight of
hand took more and more breath out of their audience. Nishat would make eye contact with people
in the audience. He'd offer a sly smile as he pulled out yet another trick. He had all the confidence
of the lion's cub, the lion being his father. He was almost like a precocious kid saying, "If you think
that was amazing, watch this". I'll explain why they could play like this a bit later. Meanwhile I
wanted to shoot myself lol.
I went backstage and met Nishat and Shafaat, then introduced myself to Imrat Khan as a student
of his student in Germany, Al Gromer. Imrat was very gracious and told me to call him where he
was staying and he would listen to me and see what he could do.
I called the next day. He was staying with a long time student of his. The guy told me Imrat had
gone out and to call back in about 2 hours which I did. Imrat was again not there. This went on for 2
or 3 days until this phone call. I called again and realized I had been put on speaker phone. The guy
said just a minute. Then I heard him whisper, "It's that guy that keeps calling. I keep telling him not
to call but he won't stop". At that point I yelled at the guy, telling him that he has told me to call back
in one hour, two hours, in the evening, and I did exactly that every time. I said if he doesn't want me
to call all he needs to do is tell me and I won't. At that point I heard Imrat's voice and then Imrat got
on the phone. As it turned out that guy was a real bastard.
Imrat invited me to come the next day. After listening to me He said that he would have to "fix my
right hand" so that I could have more control over the instrument. He also said it was amazing to
listen to me play. He said that although there were technical problems, I played with more genuine
feeling for this music than his Indian students in Calcutta. He took me as his student. He constantly
encouraged me not to worry, that I could someday play like his sons.
Over the next 20 years I studied under him. He stayed with us many times in NYC. I traveled to visit
him in London. His youngest son moved to New Jersey, near NYC and Imrat spent a lot of time in
his son's home. Of course I was there a lot. Imrat loved the fact that his 4 boys and I got along
great. He'd hear us laughing late into the night. I remember a precious moment when guests came
to visit. Imrat introduced me. He said, "This is Mark" then paused and said, "Mark is my 5th son" at
which point he looked at me as if to say, "how did you get me into this. I thought I could relax after i
raised my 4 sons to be concert musicians and then you came along". Although Imrat was my
teacher we also became good friends. He loved jokes and that was of course my forte.
In school I had gone through extensive musical ear training and while Imrat was not around I'd
listen to recordings and play phrases back on the sitar. I was able to collect man bootleg live tapes
and teach myself things from them. One night when Imrat was staying with us in NY he came to a
restaurant in which I was playing. I played a bandesh (a composition) in a raga called Mishra Piloo.
It was a composition I picked up from a tape of a Vilayat Khan performance. When I finished
playing I sat down at the table with Imrat and other people who were there. After asking me how I
had learned that composition he said that he remembered sitting in a room with his brother,
watching his brother compose it back in the early 60s. He said that still to this day rarely does
anyone dare attempt to play that composition "and yet here I sit in new york and watch this boy
playing my brother's composition. It's like I saw my brother shoot an arrow into the air and only
now, 30 years later am I seeing where it landed".
Over the years I performed in many places and in many venues. One highlight was playing at
Lincoln Center but A huge moment for me came when finally I met the Illustrious Ustad Vilayat
Khan backstage after his Lincoln Center concert. Unfortunately Imrat and Vilayat had a big falling
out, long before I met Imrat. None the less I introduced myself as his brother's student. He told me
that the next day he was meeting a record producer at the apartment of a tabla player named
Misha whom i knew very well and had played with many times. He said I should come and he
would listen to me. He said he would be there at noon.
I got there 2 hours before Vilayat was to arrive and Misha let me practice in her bedroom. Noon
came and went with no sign of Vilayat. I kept practicing. The phone rang and Misha came into the
bedroom to answer it. I stopped practicing so she could hear the caller. I assumed it might be
Vilayat. After a moment she covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said "keep playing. he's
listening". I wondered how much he could hear over the phone but started playing again. She
walked out of the room still talking and I stopped, anxious to hear if he was still coming. She came
back into the room, covered the mouthpiece of the phone again and said "keep playing. he's still
listening" then again walked out. Now I thought, this is ridiculous. What could he possibly hear over
a phone in the next room but again I started playing. After several minutes she came in and hung
up the phone. I asked if he was still coming. She looked at me as if surprised by my question. She
said, "No he's been here with the producer for 20 minutes. He came in, heard you're playing, sat
down and didn't say a word for 10 minutes. He just sat and listened. I wish you could have seen
this. He asked me, 'Misha...who's recording is this?' and I answered 'Vilayatji, that's not a
recording. It's Mark playing in the next room." She said his mouth literally dropped open.
At that point I got up and went out to greet him. He told me that hearing me play was like listening to
one of his own recordings. I had come along way since the night I almost gave it all up.
Eventually I had to stop playing because of severe pain in my right knee caused by sitting the way
one has to sit to play the sitar properly. I didn't grow up sitting like that.
As for the sitar being the most difficult instrument in the world to play, I would say it is debatable. I
believe that any instrument is very easy to play but extremely difficult to play well. That being said,
the sitar is a bear of an instrument.
I said above that I'd explain why they could play the way they did. Imrat's sons are the 8th
generation of sitar players in that family. It is all they do. They are born into the music. They first
learn how to sing, usually from the maternal side and as soon as they can hold a child's sitar they
begin to learn from their father, their uncles, in this case Vilayat and from other great musicians in
the community. To give you an example of what it's like to grow up in that family...practice comes
first and foremost. When dinner is made everyone has to come to the table *unless* they are
practicing. If one of the boys is practicing he can eat whenever he's finished and nobody will
disturb him. Like in any family the boys had a bedtime but if they were practicing they could stay up
until they finished, even if it meant they'd go to be at sunrise and they were allowed to sleep in.
They have a music room in their house in Calcutta. People have said that sometimes they'd heard
music coming out of the room when nobody was playing. The youngest son took up tabla because
there were already two sitar players and a sarod player amongst his other brothers. Shafaat also
plays sitar beautifully but it was decided it made more sense for him to play tabla and he could be
the main accompanist for his brothers. Imrat hired a great tabla teacher to teach Shafaat. The
teacher came to their home every day. He often spoon fed Shafaat so that Shafaat didn't have to
interrupt his practicing to eat. The family secrets of both technique and composition is held close
to the vest. I was very lucky in that Imrat entrusted me with many of those secrets. Each was like a
jewel. Each was like a piece of the puzzle I was trying to unravel.
Another example of what it is like to be in that family. I was staying with them in London. I woke up
earlier than everyone and went into the music room to practice. I was a bit concerned about
waking everybody so I played on the soft side. One of the boys came into the room and told me he
was listening. He said "I'm going to grab some breakfast and then I'll teach you something". A few
minutes later another one of the boys came in and said, "After i eat something I want to teach you
something". Then the third and then the fourth. lol. I was like, OMG.
I never did get to their level but I became very good and gained a reputation that reached places
where I'd never been. I was an odd candidate for sitar. A girl once came up to me in a restaurant
and asked if she could interview me for her Columbia University paper. When I saw the article it
started something like this. "I walked into a restaurant one evening and was immediately taken by
the swirling of notes that sounded like they could have been played by Vilayat Khan. I assumed it
was a recording until I turned the corner and saw a man playing who had more the frame of a
linebacker than a sitarist."
Well k...you asked. lol...but I'm not finished. :P
I had to take many different jobs in my life in order to sustain myself while I studied the sitar. In that
time I was taken under the wing of a chef who taught me how to cook in restaurants. I worked two
restaurants with him and in several others afterwards. One restaurant I worked in during the late
70s was in the east village. It was a cool place and attracted customers like Brian Eno. I was well
into sitar playing and studying by then but I remember hearing beats in the restaurant that I liked
very much. It was many years later that I went back and tried to find out what that music was
about. It was that search that led me to techno. I sucked at writing tracks which I don't need to tell
you lol. I just never got my head around how to create the right mix. Maybe it was that I did all of my
writing with headphones and couldn't crank up the music on my Events loud enough to really get a
feeling of what anything I did sounded like. I don't know. Anyway. There it is.
Message 57/76 15-Jul-09 @ 09:28 PM Edit: 15-Jul-09 | 10:01 PM - RE: Holy crap, it's still here!
my teacher's website:
http://www.imratkhan.com/
and a youtube vid of the last portion of a performance by his oldest son, Nishat. I used play
some of these compositions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH0fGO76FOs
This is worth watching. Rag Darbari. This shows him playing the portion called Jor Jhala. It
comes at the end of the Alap when Rhythm is brought into the music but still solo, without tabla.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFTy821JmqQ
and this starting in the middle of the alap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCXv4ooBsPo
http://www.imratkhan.com/
and a youtube vid of the last portion of a performance by his oldest son, Nishat. I used play
some of these compositions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH0fGO76FOs
This is worth watching. Rag Darbari. This shows him playing the portion called Jor Jhala. It
comes at the end of the Alap when Rhythm is brought into the music but still solo, without tabla.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFTy821JmqQ
and this starting in the middle of the alap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCXv4ooBsPo
Message 58/76 15-Jul-09 @ 10:37 PM - RE: Holy crap, it's still here!
This is a fantastic video of Imrat with 3 of his sons probably from the late 80s or early 90s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXMSV-4Y5WQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXMSV-4Y5WQ
Message 59/76 20-Jul-09 @ 11:02 AM - RE: Holy crap, it's still here!
blimey man, youve had some life.
so is the sitar fixed tuning i assume?... you play always in one key right? or do you shift up to a higher drone string or set of strings to go up a key or something? is there any good vids that describe the mechanics of playing it simply?
and before modern technology how did they make the strings ffs?
so is the sitar fixed tuning i assume?... you play always in one key right? or do you shift up to a higher drone string or set of strings to go up a key or something? is there any good vids that describe the mechanics of playing it simply?
and before modern technology how did they make the strings ffs?
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 60/76 21-Jul-09 @ 04:37 AM - RE: Holy crap, it's still here!
I've had some life alright lol. I've had many different types of jobs, mostly to support myself while
studying sitar. I was a professional photographer for a while, working for Jeannie Trudeau. She
was a wonderful woman and sister of Gary Trudeau, the Doonesbury cartoon guy. Because of
Jeannie's standing in wealthy society (the Trudeau family founded the Trudeau Cancer Institute
and I believe it was her uncle who was the Canadian prime minister) she, and I on her coat tails,
were hired as private photographers. We were allowed into events and parties where press
photographers had to stay outside photographing celebrities and society people as they came and
left. I'm talking people like Frank Sinatra, Walter Cronkite, David Rockefeller, Lawrence
Rockefeller, Anthony Quinn, Cornelia Guest, royalty from Europe....mostly at small parties. It was
pretty cool.
About the sitar...it is a fixed tuning. Generally it is tuned to C# but that varies depending on the artist
but by no more than a half tone either way. Sometimes a sitarist will tune slightly above C# as the
bridge wears down. The bridge is a nightmare lol. The surface is made of animal bone. I forget
what kind of animal. As you play the instrument the strings (we call them wires...many buy rolls of
piano wire of the various guages) dig into the bridge and it gets to the point every few months
where the sound and the action deteriorates. At that point you need to do something called "jawari"
which is using sandpaper to smooth the bridge out again. It's a nightmare because you need to get
a back to front curve in the bridge that looks something like the cross section of a jet wing. If you
don't get it just right the instrument doesn't sound right and the action of the wire makes it nearly
impossible to play.
You don't always play in one key. There are 6 wires on the upper bridge and 13 sympathetic
strings which you tune to the raga you are playing. The sympathetic strings vibrate as you play
their corresponding notes on the main wire. The main playing wire is always tuned to the same
note but as are 3 others but 2 strings are sometimes tuned to different notes, changing the
resounding chord and therefore the key.
There are two setups on sitars. The traditional setup is what I played. 6 strings on top with 1
droning bass string. Another was developed by Allaudin Khan. It has 7 strings of which 3 are base
strings. It was an attempt to sort of combine the bass sitar (surbahar) and sitar. It's kind of like
adding cello strings to a violin.
I'm not sure what you mean by making the strings ff before technology.
As far as a vid, I don't know, probably. Maybe on youtube. I'll try to find something but I'm not sure
even what keywords would bring it up.
studying sitar. I was a professional photographer for a while, working for Jeannie Trudeau. She
was a wonderful woman and sister of Gary Trudeau, the Doonesbury cartoon guy. Because of
Jeannie's standing in wealthy society (the Trudeau family founded the Trudeau Cancer Institute
and I believe it was her uncle who was the Canadian prime minister) she, and I on her coat tails,
were hired as private photographers. We were allowed into events and parties where press
photographers had to stay outside photographing celebrities and society people as they came and
left. I'm talking people like Frank Sinatra, Walter Cronkite, David Rockefeller, Lawrence
Rockefeller, Anthony Quinn, Cornelia Guest, royalty from Europe....mostly at small parties. It was
pretty cool.
About the sitar...it is a fixed tuning. Generally it is tuned to C# but that varies depending on the artist
but by no more than a half tone either way. Sometimes a sitarist will tune slightly above C# as the
bridge wears down. The bridge is a nightmare lol. The surface is made of animal bone. I forget
what kind of animal. As you play the instrument the strings (we call them wires...many buy rolls of
piano wire of the various guages) dig into the bridge and it gets to the point every few months
where the sound and the action deteriorates. At that point you need to do something called "jawari"
which is using sandpaper to smooth the bridge out again. It's a nightmare because you need to get
a back to front curve in the bridge that looks something like the cross section of a jet wing. If you
don't get it just right the instrument doesn't sound right and the action of the wire makes it nearly
impossible to play.
You don't always play in one key. There are 6 wires on the upper bridge and 13 sympathetic
strings which you tune to the raga you are playing. The sympathetic strings vibrate as you play
their corresponding notes on the main wire. The main playing wire is always tuned to the same
note but as are 3 others but 2 strings are sometimes tuned to different notes, changing the
resounding chord and therefore the key.
There are two setups on sitars. The traditional setup is what I played. 6 strings on top with 1
droning bass string. Another was developed by Allaudin Khan. It has 7 strings of which 3 are base
strings. It was an attempt to sort of combine the bass sitar (surbahar) and sitar. It's kind of like
adding cello strings to a violin.
I'm not sure what you mean by making the strings ff before technology.
As far as a vid, I don't know, probably. Maybe on youtube. I'll try to find something but I'm not sure
even what keywords would bring it up.
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