May 1, 2023

Pandit Shankar Ghosh’s  Contribution to Tabla Orchestration With special reference to ‘Music of the Drums’

LOKOGANDHAR ISSN : 2582-2705
Indigenous Art & Culture
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Nabarun Kumar Datta, Research Scholar, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, Supervisor-Dr. Amit Verma. Email: nabarunkumardatta@gmail.com

West Bengal, especially Kolkata, has a very important place in the history of Indian classical music. All genres of Hindustani classical music were propagated with equal zeal in Kolkata. Tabla and specifically Farrukhabad Gharana has a special place in this propagation. Several known and unknown Musicians have contributed to bringing the tabla to the common masses of Kolkata and foremost among them was Pandit Shankar Ghosh.

Born in 1935, in a middle-class family in the Bagbazar area of ​​Kolkata to parents, Mohit Chandra Ghosh and Ranimala Ghosh, Pandit Shankar Ghosh took his initial tabla training from Pandit Sudarshan  Adhikari of Lucknow Gharana, Pandit Anath Nath Bose of Benaras Ghrana, and Ustad Feroz Khan Sahib of Punjab Gharana. But he realized his true potential only after being trained by param–Guru, Pandit Gyan Prakash Ghosh that helped him to attain the greats heights and the worldwide fame that he did later in his life. Pandit Shankar Ghosh had a multi-dimensional personality and this reflected in his tabla playing and his creations. A review his life and career reveals four particular aspects. They are: 1) a renowned tabla soloist, 2) an outstanding accompanist, 3) a matchless tabla guru, and 4) a composer par-excellence.

While still living in Bagbazar, he got a job offer from the Gun Shell Factory in England. On hearing this, his Guru, Pt. Gyan Prakash Ghosh, advised him not to take up the job and focus on his Tabla playing.  He paid heed to his Guru’s advice and devoted his life to learning and practicing the art of Tabla. He used to work as a tabla teacher in Pt. Gyan Prakash Ghosh’s home where music classes were conducted. From there he developed an interest in teaching tabla and he revolutionized Tabla’s teaching methods. He was the first to introduce grammatical fingering and proper hand-setting techniques to play the field of tabla pedagogy. With the ease of students in mind, he developed a notation system that was easy to understand and follow. While teaching compositions he would apply this notation system so that the students could do proper Riyaz (or practice at home). Very understandably, in the Classical music circles, Pandit Shankar Ghosh is known as the “Factory of Tabla” because of the fact that so many of his disciples went on to become world-renowned tabla players, like Pandit Bikram Ghosh (son), Pandit Sanjay Mukhopadhyay, Pandit Sunil Banerjee, Pandit Tanmay Bose, Pandit Parimal Chakrabarty, Pandit Arup Chatterjee, Pandit Subrata Bhattacharjee, Shri Madhusudan Barman, Shri Gopal Barman, Shri Sunayana Ghosh, and Shri Kaushik Konwar, to name just a few.

Pandit Shankar Ghosh was also a composer par excellence. He gave immense thought on how the “Mookam” of a Peskaar can be reached. He researched extensively on how to play “Bemancha[1]” and Tihai in Peskaar and also did extensive calculations needed to play such a Bemancha or a Tihai to come back to the Sam.  He also wrote about this unique method of calculation in his book “Tehai er Sutra” [2], published in Bengali at the end of his musical career, for the benefit of the next generation. He wrote  another book called “Anadha[3]”  which was divided into two parts.  He created his own compositions for Peshkar, Kaida, Rela, Tirukha, Gat, Paran, Chakradar, Laggi & Lari. One of his famous compositions in Teen Taal is given below

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But what Pt. Shankar Ghosh is most well known and still remembered is for his experimental orchestra, “Music of the Drums”.

 In 1967, Pandit Shankar Ghosh and his family moved to California. There he joined the Ali Akbar College of Music (AACM) as a tabla teacher. All Night Concerts used to be held every year at the AACM. On one such occasion, Pandit Shankar Ghosh decided to compose and perform a composition, only on Tabla, with all his students. After that performance, he received very enthusiastic applause. That is when he decided that he would work more on this when he returned to India [4]. He was one of the founding members of AACM.  Pandit Shankar Ghosh shares his very special experience of those days, in an interview, as follows:         

“So many musicians like George Harrison (of the Beatles) and Among the drummers in “Grateful Dead” were Mickey Hart and Bill they were my students. One day Micky Hart said, “Guruji let us Jam together, we have a program I want you to make a composition for the last item”. Then I asked how long and he said as long as you want and I made a thirty-minute-long composition. We rehearsed rigorously for a month. There were two drummers Mickey and Bill, me, and an Egyptian student of mine who was playing the darbuka. It was performed in front of 10,000 people at St. Francisco State Park.  The sound of the tabla, recitation of bols, etc. created such an atmosphere that all the previous performances turned lackluster and the audience started shouting for more. Then Mickey said there was no more. Then the audience started saying and we performed the same piece again[5].”

Pandit Shankar Ghosh parted ways with the AACM and returned to Kolkata with his family in 1971. From then on, he started thinking and composing different pieces for his tabla orchestration. He used to teach those compositions to his students and made them practice them hard. The first rehearsals for those compositions were always held at the Kabir Road residence. Those compositions are of a very standard, both aesthetically and musically. Moreover, the use of various percussion and rhythm instruments, the beautiful use of Ragas made every one of them unique and appealed greatly to the audience. After some time Pandit Sankar Ghosh gave the name ‘Music Of The Drums’[6] to his orchestral pieces.

On the 12th February 1979, the first full-fledged Music of the Drums was presented at the Mahajati Sadan in Kolkata. A packed auditorium experienced a new concept of music orchestration with the use of only percussion and rhythm instruments.

Poster of the first Music Of The Drums concert                                                            
                           
Pt Sankar Ghosh giving direction 
  • Aesthetics of  Music of the Drums composition:   

     Pt. Sankar Ghosh was a multi-dimensional talent in the field of world music. In an early age, Pt. Sankar Ghosh learned vocal music from Pt. Prasun Bandhopadhay, sarod from Us. Ali Akbar Khan (as a Ganda Bandh Shagird). He was a formidable harmonium player. He composed songs and compositions in vocal music and in instrumental music as well. All his training and experiences bore fruits when he started to compose Music of the Drums pieces.

     In an interview released from the Darbar Festival (UK), Pt. Sankar Ghosh said, 

“It was basically rhythm but it was music. From rhythm, you get music and when I composed these pieces, I always thought not only about tabla but also about different instruments, and different musical genres, I used vocal music in the form of Sargams. You know, because of all these things I used, it gave the compositions a different dimension and that is why it was called tabla orchestra. Not a tabla ensemble, but a tabla orchestra.[7]”

    Pandit Ghosh used many ragas of Hindustani classical music in his Music of the Drums compositions. The Music of The Drums’s compositions became musically rich due to the use of ragas like Hindoli, Deshkar, Kalavati, Kaushik Dhwani, etc. Tabla tuned according to the ragas Vaadi and Samvaadi Swaras and lower and higher tonics created the perfect ambiance of the Raga.

  • Music of The Drums Compositions
The first recording of Music of the Drums was released by the INRECO[8] Company. It was released as a long-playing (LP) record. Three compositions were recorded on that LP, namely Destiny, Inspiration (Boles), and Happiness (Dadra).

Pandit Shankar Ghosh composed a variety of compositions for the Music of the Drums. Such as

 (The data based on interviews taken by Researcher and the music video and recordings are available on Youtube, https://youtu.be/5PEJ6REEWgw, https://youtu.be/UGWnyYGg_fo,   https://youtu.be/Uu2mj5zblpA, etc.)

  1. Destiny – based on Raag Kaushik Dhwani, in Teental.
  2. Inspiration of Bols ( Recitation) – based on Raag Deshkar, in  Keherwa.
  3. Happiness  – in Dadra.
  4.  Khol Trio
  5. Nabami – based on Raag Kalawati, in Nasruk Taal.
  6.  The Garland – composed specially for Kathak dance, in Teentaal.
  7. Instruments used in Music Of The Drums
A large variety of percussion instruments like, Tabla in lower and higher Octaves, Tabla Tarang, Jal Tarang, Shri-khol (Bengali folk instrument), Madol (Bengali folk instrument), Dhak (Bengali folk instrument), Dhol, Kartal, Pakhawaj, Mridangam, Kara-Nakkara   Harmonium, Congo, Bongo, Drums, Cymbals, Darbuka, Maracas[9] were used in Music of The Drums. In this orchestra “Tabla-Tarang” and “Jal Tarang” were used for “nagma” and melody. He perfectly used Tabla-tarang and Jal-tarang to illustrate the form of Hindustani classical Ragas. By this method, he also created an ambiance of Raga music without using any traditional melody instruments. The use of so many instruments added to the beauty of the compositions and made them mesmerizing to the audience. Different pitches of tabla were used according to the raga on which a particular composition was based.  Harmonium was used only in “Recitation” compositions.
 
  • Participants of Music Of The Drums
All participants of Music of the Drums (mostly, his brilliant students – all renowned artists in their fields).
1) Tapan Roy, 2) Ashok Pandey,
3) Borun Debnath, 4) Arup Chatterjee, 5) Sunil Banerjee, 6) Naresh Mukherjee, 7) Sajal Karmakar, 8) Ashish Mukherjee, 9) Ram Mondal, 10) Manav Das, 11) Kajol De, 12) Debasish Sadhu Khan, 13) Bikram Ghosh (son), etc.

  • Performances of Music Of The Drums

After the February 1979 performance in Kolkata turned out to be a huge success, Music of the Drums was promoted all over India through various newspapers. Subsequently, performances were held in different parts of India.

In 1982, Music of the Drums got a huge breakthrough when it was staged at the closing ceremony of the Asian Games held in Delhi. It was covered by the foreign media who had come to report on the Games. As a result, the name and popularity of the Music of the Drums spread throughout the world.

 In the 1990s, this musical orchestra was performed in various cities across the UK and Japan.  BBC World News invited Music of the Drums to perform in their studio and also the performance was broadcasted by BBC World News.

Apart from Music of the Drums, he also composed for a different orchestral setup. Some of his other notable orchestrations are 1) Calcutta Drums Orchestra, 2) Calcutta Rag Rhythm Band, 3) “Sur -o- Chhand”, 4) “Zero to Ten”, 5) A very unique and beautiful composition called “Tridha”, where only three Tabla players can play a full solo concert. Surprisingly, there was no need for “Nagma”. That is to say that Pt. Sankar Ghosh invented the concept of a Tabla solo recital without “Nagma”!

It is not possible to assess the full impact of the contribution of Pandit Shankar Ghosh, but through this research, we are trying our best to analyze at least the scope of his work, his thought process, and his creations that are very important and invaluable resources for future generations of Musicians, especially Tabla players.

References

[1] Approaching the same with more than one Tihai, Anaddha page – 29.

[2] The book was written by Pt Sankar Ghosh, 2003, publisher- P/54, Senhati Colony, Behala, KOl-34.

[3] The book was written by Pt Sankar Ghosh in Two Parts, Part 1- 1994, part 2-2004, publisher- P/54, Senhati Colony, Behala, KOl-34.

[4] Data collected from the interview uploaded on youtube named ‘Pandemonium’ EP- 3, https://youtu.be/WZefyzkDpVc, 15:59 mint

[5] A short part of an interview uploaded on youtube named ‘Bandemonium’, EP -1, https://youtu.be/0aIjH4FRjc0,  19:20 mint

[6]  ‘Alap’ is a book written by Subhajit Majumder, page 302.

[7] https://youtu.be/_mL3e6w-Jks , 5:22 mint.

[8] Cover page of Music of the Drum’s first long-playing records.

[9]  Data was collected from an interview taken by researcher and Pt Sankar Ghosh interview  https://youtu.be/WZefyzkDpVc, 17:00 mint.

Bibliography

  1. Tablar etibritta’, by Sambhunath Ghosh,2008, Mira Nath Sangeet prakashan, Kolkata 42,
  2. ‘Parikhay Tabla’, by Dulal Bhattacharjee, 2009, Bishataka Prakashan, Kolkata 32,
  3. “Aalap”   by Abhijit Majumdar, 2019, Deij Publication,  Kolkata 73
  4. ‘Taal Kosh’ by Acharya Girish Chandra Srivastava, 2017,  Ruby Prakashan, Allahabad.
  5. Avantika II the world of performing arts magazine, Indo occidental Symbiosis Private Limited, volume 1 October 10, 2012
  6. Perfect rhythmic foil to music legend, The Hindu newspaper 6 April 2017.
  7. ‘Kalkattawali’ Ai-Samay  news paper,  26 November 2016.
  8. “Rhythm of life”, Telegraph newspaper, 11 October 2017.
  9. Recording of Music of the Drums,  https://youtu.be/5PEJ6REEWgw, https://youtu.be/UGWnyYGg_fo, https://youtu.be/z2TyyVXszvY,
  10. Interviews of Pt Shankar Ghosh in online media, https://youtu.be/3jajC8r048k      https://youtu.be/_mL3e6w-Jks,
  11. Documentary of Pandit Shankar Ghosh https://youtu.be/yw5MfSBxEAg,
  12. Live interviews taken by Researcher 1) Pt Bickram Ghosh 2) Pt Parimal Chakrabarty 3) Pt Subrata  Bhattacharjee 4) Madhusudhan Barman 5) Gopal Barman 6) Sunayana Ghosh, 7) Guardian Rayatt(UK) 8) Subrata Gupta 9) Biplab Bhattacharjee 10) Pt Swapan Chowdhury