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0 pointsabdullahkhalids2y ago0 comments

Tabla. These are drums from the South Asian region, which are probably the "most" harmonious drums you can construct. I am learning to play, but also slowly working out the physics of them. There is some work in the area, including foundational work by Ramen, the Nobel prize winning physicist.

But there is quite a lot still to be done. I would like to turn some of the art of making Tabla into the science of making Tabla.

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davesque2y ago

Who's your favorite Tabla player? I became oddly obsessed with this instrument for about two or three years of my life. It helped that I had an extremely competent teacher. My favorite player was Anindo Chatterjee. Of course, there are also a lot of extremely talented younger players.

abdullahkhalidsOP2y ago

I was training for a few years under Ustaad Khursheed Hussain, one of the finest Tabla players Pakistan produced. But he unfortunately died recently.

While you are training under a master, it's hard to have a favorite player, because you are also learning the style of your Ustaad. And doing that requires making that your favorite style, because that is the best way to imbue the master's style in your being.

davesque2y ago

Yeah, I'm aware that this is often the arrangement between teacher and student in India or Pakistan. My teacher was Nepali and studied both with his childhood teacher in Kathmandu and also with Suresh Talwalkar in New Delhi. We were actually about exactly the same age when I studied with him (both in our late twenties). So it was a much less formal arrangement because he was not exactly my elder. Also, it was an American setting as he was living around Denver, Colorado in the US.

Regardless, I still felt I owed him a great deal of respect because he took his music very seriously. He was legitimately a virtuoso at Tabla. Truly an amazing player. And I was committed to practicing diligently. Since life in the US didn't permit me to study all day with him, I spent a lot of time finding recordings of performances on Youtube to learn from. As I mentioned, my favorite performer other than my teacher was Anindo Chatterjee. My teacher also knew of Chatterjee and enjoyed his playing as much as I did. Since he was from a younger generation, I don't think he was bothered by my trying to learn from watching other players while I wasn't practicing with him.

Anyhow, nice to see mention of Tabla on Hacker News :).

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davesque2y ago

abdullahkhalidsOP2y ago

I was training for a few years under Ustaad Khursheed Hussain, one of the finest Tabla players Pakistan produced. But he unfortunately died recently.

davesque2y ago

Anyhow, nice to see mention of Tabla on Hacker News :).

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