Week 2

Hi Students,

This week I saw several concerts and got the chance to sing with a great accompanist. Her name is Rupashree Bhattacharya and she plays the harmonium. The harmonium is the main instrument for accompanying vocal concerts in Indian music. It is like an accordion that sits on the ground and you pump air into it with one hand and play notes with the other on a keyboard, just like a small piano. When you press a note on the keyboard the air goes past the reed that goes with that note and makes a sound.

Rupashree accompanies many of the great singers in India so it was really special to have her play along with me. I was practicing singing at my teachers' house and she was visiting and decided to play with me. It was really an honor.

Now I'm learning a song in the Urdu language called "Ranjish hi Sahi." It is in a style called Ghazal. It has a lot of words and I've never sung in Urdu before so I have to listen very closely to some recordings to get the details.

Scavenger hunt questions:

Older:
1. What is a double reed instrument? (describe and give an example)
2. Name a great singer of Ghazals.

Younger:
1. How does a reed instrument make a sound when you blow through it?
2. Where do they speak Urdu?

Week 1

Hi Guys,

I've been staying very busy here. I have lessons a few times a week where I learn to sing from my teacher. Her name is Madhumita Saha but I call her Guruma. Guru means teacher and Ma means...well you probably understand that. Her husband -I call him Guruji- is a great musician also and he takes me to his concerts in many different places. Sometimes they are in Kolkata -the very big city where I am staying- and sometimes they are outside the city. For example he will be traveling to Pakistan to play some concerts at the end of January. And for another example, both Guruji and Guruma will be coming to the US (and Canada) in the fall to play concerts and teach. I hope you guys will get to meet them.

When I have lessons I learn to sing raags. Raags are like scales but they have many different rules about which notes go with which others and which notes are sung or played the most and which are played the least. Each raag has a certain mood that it makes everyone feel, maybe joyful or sad (or many others), or a mixture of different moods.

Ok here are your scavenger hunt questions:

Older students: What do taals in Indian music and measures in Western music have in common?

Younger students: When someone improvises in music, what are they doing?

Greetings!

Hi All, This is my blog for my students. I will post reports about my trip as it goes along and some of your homework will come from reading the blog and emailing me the answers.

When I go to India I stay in Calcutta (or Kolkata as many local people write it). When I stay in Kolkata I live in an apartment that my teachers own and rent to their visiting students (like me). It is in a neighborhood called Tollygunge where many great musicians live (like my teachers) and it is close to their house where I go to eat and have lessons. I mainly learn to sing but my voice teacher's husband is a great tabla player so I learn a lot about Indian music from him too.

Kolkata is a major Indian city and it is part of the region of Bengal where people speak bangla. People also speak bangla in the neighboring country of Bangladesh but for political reasons there is a separate country there now where it used to be one region with no border in the middle. I will ask more about that in the scavenger hunt. Let me explain, I will be having two research scavenger hunts for my older and younger students during the time I am gone and those students who answer the most questions will get prizes. If you are in elementary school then you are in the younger group, jr. high and high school students are older.

Why don't we begin now?

Older students: In what general region of India do they play Hindustani music and where do they play Carnatic music?

Younger students: What kind of instrument is the tabla? (percussion, string, wind, brass)

Take care,
Andrew