Overview for Vintage Tabla Repertory: Drum Compositions of North Indian Classical Music
This is a book for tabla-players and those who want to learn more about North Indian drumming. For the first time the hitherto unpublished repertoire of the Laliyana gharana of Ustad Munir Khan is unlocked for the tabla-playing world. Now students of tabla have access to the untold treasures of this exclusive heritage which was available only to initiated disciples. Based on his twenty-four years of apprenticeship with the late Tabla virtuoso, Pandit Nikhil Ghosh, the author presents his entire repertoire of traditional tabla compositions in a meticulously transcribed and annotated form, along with recorded examples on CD. The accompanying text gives a wealth of information, explanation and helpful advice. Having learnt from Pandit Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Ustad Amir Hussain Khan and Ustad Admedjan Thirakwa, Nikhil Ghosh inherited a choice repertoire of tabla compositions from the traditions of Delhi, Ajrada, Lucknow, Farukhabad, and Punjab. Many more delightful pieces were added by the two great composers, Amir Hussain Khan and Jnan Prakash Ghosh. Nikhil Ghosh described his role as a guru, as a filter who selects and passes on only the best part of the repertoire to his disciples and discards what he deems unfit for further consideration. His aim was, to improve the quality of the repertoire and make good music available to all.
Gert-Matthias Wegner (Author)
Gert-Matthias Wenger is a musician and ethnomusicologist. Besides his early training in Germany in classical European music and twenty four years of tabla apprenticeship with Pandit Nikhil Ghosh in Bombay (resulting in a Ph.D. thesis on tabla, he has carried out research in various local musical traditioins of Nepal, producing several documentary films, publications and CDs. During the course of his research in Bhaktapur, he studied all the drumming traditions of this mediaeval Newar farmers’ town and taught many local players. He is the founder and Head of the Kathmandu University Department of Music, in Bhaktapur, Nepal, where he has been a resident for the past twenty years. To date, this is the only university department in South Asia conducting fully-fledged B.A. and M.A. courses in ethnomusicology, along with training in classical North India music and several Nepalese musical traditions. In 2003, Wegner has been appointed as Professor for Ethnomusicology at the Free University, Berlin.
Bagchee
