• Tours
• Events Calendar
• Education
  • Asian Music Centre
  • Summer Schools
  • Outreach
• Artists
• News and Comment
• Shop
• Membership
• Links
• Press Releases

A presentation made by Viram Jasani at a conference on the SITAR held at Leeds College of Music.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am grateful to Leeds College of Music for inviting me to speak about technique in sitar playing. It's a special privilege to join such a distinguished panel that includes Pandit Buddhaditya Mukherjee with whom I totally agree when he says that he speaks through his hands. However, my own view is also that many instrumentalists are in secret frustrated singers and for the large part hear the voice in themselves and this is then transferred on to the instruments of their choice using the technique and style of their choice!

For me music is a very real live activity and not only a matter of academic study and research. Music is an interaction between the performer and the listener - a fusion of their joint and mutual experience. It is not a matter of academic study - it real, live, actual, spontaneous and creative; it is proactive and not a passive object of academic interest. The practice and performance of music - and indeed the act of listening - is itself a journey of discovery. I see music as a form of knowledge as it creates awareness of the spiritual, the deeper reality of life. The musician can increase our understanding of life just as the musician does so for himself or herself.
Historically, musicians did not study from books which were mostly written in Sanskrit; rather they learnt in the oral tradition and by imitation, by intuition and by practice in its classical sense. The two approaches - that of the academic, intellectual and analytical and that of the performer - intuitive and spiritual, always seemed to go on parallel but nevertheless different roads, meeting only when the academic analysed the work of the artist.

Technique and performance are intrinsically linked. For me there are three aspects to performance:
a) the musical system that one is working in - in the case of Indian music it is the
Rag - Tal system
b) the command over the medium of expression - sitar - voice etc - in other words TECHNIQUE
c) the expression of the artist - the musical ideas of the performer - what the artist has to say.
All these are interlinked. The success of a performance and the artist depends upon how well the artist can communicate his ideas to the audience.

a) For me there is nothing so refined and beautiful as Indian music or indeed comparable with the Indian Rag-Tal system which has been evolving over centuries
and is much larger than all of us . It not only gives the most superb framework which acts as springboard for creativity but it is also infinite in the possibilities it affords to the artist to explore the whole world of human emotions and experience. Indian music is unique in the way in which it allows the individual to express himself. I see music as a way for the performer to tell the world his views and discoveries about life.

The musician in a sense lends us his eyes and we the audience see with them.

Indian classical music is very much "solo" oriented - there is always only one melodic line - even in a duet - and of course this "dove-tails" into the TAL or rhythm. It is on one level a personal experience for the performer and the listener and on another level it is a mutual experience and discovery of the inner reality of things.

b)
Technique implies command over the sitar; it not only means how clearly or fast you can play but it also means how well you are able to work within the RAG-TAL framework and how well you can stretch that framework without destroying it.
Technique is a means to freedom and is closely linked with the third aspect of performance namely -

c)
The expression of the artist - his ideas; in other words what he has to say.
The artist can have great ideas but no technique to put them across. Conversely, he can have a fantastic technique but nothing to say with it.

Hence technique cannot be isolated or be seen in isolation. The meaning of "practice" in my view is really to develop all three strands of performance - understanding the
RAG-TAL system - specifically the particular RAGS one is practising - developing one's own ideas and views not just about that RAG but also how to use it to " open" windows on to a world of experience beyond the physical AND develop a technique to do the other two.

Practice is therefore an activity that is at once physical and spiritual - where technique acts as a physical springboard for creativity. In a sense technique can be seen as a means to free oneself from physical constraints. How often we must have wished that we could execute any idea that came into our mind without first having to work out how to play it, and then practice it!

I would like to draw an analogy with language; when we speak we do not stop to think whether the words are in the right order or whether we have used the correct tense for a verb or as in many languages the correct word-ending to denote whether it is subjective, objective or genitive. We simply speak - and the clearer, more correct language we use the better our idea come across - the wider the vocabulary, the more ideas we can express. Such command over language usually derives from reading, listening to others and practice and is intuitive and not just academic study ; it also comes from personal search and inner development of thoughts towards a better understanding of life where the ideas expressed are beyond and far more important than grammar and syntax.

I see Indian music in these terms. The performer is having a discourse with the audience: the more understanding and command over RAG and TAL, the better the physical technique, the better the artist will be able to express himself and get his views over to the audience, who following the artist's logic and train of thought, may in appreciation of the idea and the way in which it was executed, spontaneously respond with "VAH VAH" or "HOW BEAUTIFUL".
How much we all crave that illusive "VAH VAH"!!

I would like you to consider the effect of public taste on the musicians' technique. The public may not appreciate or understand slow, melodic or expressive phrases which show the beauty of individual notes, but may instead prefer something more rhythmic and fast. So artists have met such demand and worked on their techniques accordingly- sometimes at the cost of the other two strands of performance - an understanding of the RAG and a deeper development of their ideas and understanding of the nature of things. This may lead to a "fight" between speed and virtuosity and the destruction of RAG-TAL on the one hand and beauty, spirituality, peace and a heightened state of mind which a full performance including virtuosity can lead to on the other. Tabla players will play with great virtuosity without rhyme or reason to get a clap from the audience who in many instances will clap even if the tabla player has made a mathematical error and quite oblivious of what is happening as far as the RAG is concerned. Such is the state amongst other things of Indian music these days and I am reminded of that great phrase of Virgil - "lacrimae rerum".

I would like you also to consider the " styles" of playing sitar - popularly referred to as the vocal or "gayaki" style ( reminiscent of KHYAL) and the instrumental or "beenkar" ( reminiscent of DHRUPAD). The first seeks to emulate the voice through the use of MEEND (the deflection of the wire to create glissandi and vibrato thus placing large importance on the left hand) and the second perhaps recalling the original technique used in playing plucked instruments and much older style of musical rendition (placing more importance on the right hand which is used to pluck the strings). Good technique must encompass both. If you consider the voice as the ultimate instrument in Indian music, then the " gayaki" style must be moving in the right direction; but of course the sitar is an instrument after all and you can do things on it which the voice perhaps cannot (for example - KRINTAN and JHALA). Perhaps both approaches give the sitar player more scope for expression when used together.

Developing technique does mean long hours of disciplined practice and is very hard work - building up coordination as well as stamina. The role of the teacher is not just to ensure the students hands are in the right position and the wires are plucked correctly - it is also to ensure coordination between both hands, that stamina is constantly built and more importantly, it is to lead the student towards a deep understanding of RAGS, to play with TAL, to help develop the students' creative abilities and individuality and finally to help connect with the spiritual reality through music. There is a big difference between playing "parrot - fashion" with a great technique and being original and creative. A transition takes place as ones technique gets better, exercises become music and a search for something more beautiful.
Ultimately, the journey is one which the artist makes himself - a journey of constant improvement, of discovery of oneself as of reality. Only then does music - to quote my favourite philosopher Dr Radhakrishnan - "give us a sense of the meaningfulness of life and evoke in us ideas of the larger beauty, justice and charity of the universe".

top