Summer Tabla Workshop with Pt. Sharda Sahai

Dear friends,

In my last post, I spoke about Pandit Sharda Sahai's performance in Montreal. Now it's time for a small report on his tabla workshop that I hosted at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. This was the 26th edition of the Annual Summer Tabla Workshop with Pandit Sharda Sahai, and the second one that I have organised, in Montreal. Like last time, Guruji was assisted in teaching by Dr. Frances Shepherd (London, UK), Niel Golden (Victoria, BC), and myself. The workshop took place from June 22 through to July 5.

The workshop included group classes, group practice sessions, a series of three lectures, and two listening sessions. The lectures were open to the public and I was happy to see a few people from outside the workshop in attendance.

Niel Golden opened up the lecture series with a presentation of the tabla in various fusion settings. He is a very experienced tabla player, and over the years has participated in numerous fusion projects. He played recordings of a number of pieces from a variety of artists and styles, ranging from the Beatles to Steve Wonder (!), as well as some of his own compositions.

The next day, we had Todd Hammes, who is a tabla player and Western-trained percussionist, presenting a lecture on Pandit Sharda Sahai and his influence on contemporary Western compositions for tabla. The lecture demonstrated the connection between traditional tabla repertoire and the newly composed repertoire from such composers as Bob Becker, Payton MacDonald, and Robert Aldridge. Rather than use recordings of the pieces, Todd asked me to sit in to demonstrate the compositions for the audience.

The last lecture was presented by Dr. Frances Shepherd on the subject of Guru-shishya-parampara, the teacher-disciple tradition. During the course of the lecture, she presented a video of a recent Guru Vandan ceremony in Benares, in which Guruji was honored by numerous dignitaries and disciples.

The two listening sessions took place during the second week of the workshop. First up was Eric Phinney, who presented numerous audio recordings in order to demonstrate some of the main differences between the tabla gharanas. One of the big topics was peshkar, as opposed to Benarsi theka. He also demonstrated differences in technique and fingering, especially between Delhi and Benares styles.

Ravi Singh gave a presentation on sangat, and used numerous videos to demonstrate his points. He discussed accompaniment of dhrupad, khyal (vocal and instrumental), and lighter forms such as thumri, ghazal, and dadra.

Last, but not least, the workshop couldn't have taken place without the generous participation of Pandit Sharda Sahai, and the 20 students who travelled to Montreal from across Canada and the USA. Students had four tabla classes per week, and daily group practice sessions. The group practice sessions involve all the students, doing technique practice together; a combination of hard work and good fun! We were also fortunate to receive Bob Becker for a few days, a senior disciple of Guruji. In fact, it was Bob who got this workshop series started in Toronto, sometime around 1980.

These annual workshops are a great experience for all involved. Old friends who haven't seen each other since the previous workshop; new friendships forming with first-time participants; overall, a great sense of community and cameraderie. After two intense weeks of playing tabla, everyone was definitely energized and motivated. Until next year!