Another Teaching Session to Remember: 10 Variations of Delhi Kayda
Everytime Guruji teachs, you walk away inspired (and at times overwelmed) at vastness of the world of tabla. There is so much to learn, so much to enjoy, so much to experience. When people hear about the amount of compositions Guruji has made (tens of thousands), I have heard the reaction – why do so much composing, when there is so much wonderful material already in existence? The answer I think is very straightforward. Music is about innovation and creativity. Different gharanas would not have come into existence, if someone did not chose to innovate.
Innovation has always been apart of music. An example of this one teaching session that a few of us were lucky to be apart of.
“You all know the kayda dha te dha ge na dha tirakita dha te dha ge tin na kin na. Let’s look at variations of this kayda today.”
One of the disciples present smiled. ”Guruji, I was actually just thinking about that composition today and was going to mention it to you.”
This composition is a very famous and beautiful composition of the Delhi gharana. Even thought it is so great on its own, maestros still innovated and composed variations of this composition. That night we explored the ocean of dha te dha ge. We learnt ten variations, from a difficult and wonderful variation by Ustad Game Khan (Delhi Gharana) using repeated na and a variation by Ustad Chand Khan (Delhi Gharana) using multiple ge ge. There was a range of compositions, some could only be played by very tayar hands. Each composition has its own flavour and impact. They were compositions in their own right (not paltas), but its origin can be traced back to dha te dha ge.
We all went home that evening inspired and armed with the task of preparing the new compositions.
