Date: August 13, 2011
Venue: Chhandayan Center for Indian Music (NY)
Concert review and video by Sarah Rihani
As you take off your shoes and walk into the Chhandayan room, located on 43rd Street between 5th and 6th Avenue, it is immediately evident you have entered an oasis in the middle of the city. Incense is burning, and everything is serenely quiet. There is a cozy and well lit room that has an oriental rug – a humble home to all visiting Indian musicians who come to play at Chhandayan on a weekly basis – and then about 20 small, but unbelievably comfortable, floor cushions facing the performer’s rug, which is where the audience sits.
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I was there to see the remarkably talented Gauri Guha. Originally from Culcutta, she has trained in the classical Hindustani musical tradition. Guha holds a degree in music, a Masters in literature, teaches all over the world, and has eight albums to her credit. She is now based in Toronto and performs all over North America, Europe and India.
Guha played with two musicians – a Tabla player whom she met only 30 minutes prior, and her daughter. Guha’s daughter, we learned after the show, has had no musical training whatsoever, and has learned entirely by ear. Impressive to say the least.
As the show began, with only about 10 of us in the audience, Guha explained the meaning behind each composition. She also told us the Raga it is in, and the region in India it is from. Although she is trained in the Northern Hindustani style, and the Raga’s were also Hindustani, she incorporated Northern and Southern singing. Just to catch you all up – a “Raga” is roughly the name given to the 5 notes that make up the key or scale that the melody is in. The artist then improvises the melody and time signature within that scale. Indian music aficionados know about which specific Raga’s are meant for which times of day – morning, noon or night. Joep Bor – from the Rotterdam Conservatory of Music – defines Raga as the “tonal framework for composition and improvisation.”
As a seasoned musician Guha switches back and forth with her daughter, playing both the Sitar and the Tanpura, all while she sings. She directs her two musicians with absolute confidence. One small hand motion dictates a complex rhythmic change that takes the Tabla into a busy pattern in a time signature that certainly baffled my western ears. Guha’s daughter intently watched her mother, mimicking her improvised movements, much like a horn player in a jazz ensemble might do with the singer.
Guha began to improvise, utilizing the very lowest and breathy parts of her voice – not common in western music – all the way up to the very highest and most nasal signature twangs which we associate with Indian music. As I looked around at my fellow audience members, it was clear that we were all being carried away into a semi-meditative trance. The voice, Sitar and Harmonium would all land on the same note and let it ride in a chant-like way. At other times, Guha would slide up a Raga scale with ease and then end on one of the quarter-tone notes that we don’t have in western scales and my ears would shy away thinking that we were going out of tune, but then almost smile – if ears could smile – to hear the pleasing resolution to this foreign scale.
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Guha explained the meaning of the lyrics that were being used in the Raga, and most of them had some kind of religious tone. One that was near the beginning of the show was about getting one’s home ready for the arrival of her ‘beloved’ – in this case, the ‘beloved’ is God. Another song was God telling people “Why are you searching for me in the temple, the mosque, I am within you. Look within yourself.”
My personal favorite composition was “Mero Mano Hara Lino” which is in Raga Jinjoti, and was composed by Pt. S.N. Ratanjhankar who was a direct disciple of Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, who created the modern notation system for Hindustani (North Indian) music. In this piece Guha improvised on the words “Mero Mano” and truly shined. She lived in the space of each note, much like the great Jazz singers did – making the standards their own.
I was struck by how different this music experience was to anything I had seen or heard before. But I was equally mesmerized by its similarities to Jazz – the importance of musical interpretation and improvisation, communication between musicians, and working under the direction of the singer. Most of all, both genres are built on the foundation of letting each instrument shine. This may be why Guha has also done some cross over Indo-Jazz fusion.
It was a wonderful and mind opening night of music that inspired me as a singer and a music lover.
Chhandayan has Indian musicians and singers each week, and Gauri Guha has many performances in North America.
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