Techno taal

Tabla adds a live element to the DJ set. It adds a lot of texture to a club event, says Tapan Raj,of the duo MiDival Punditz. The musicians recently travelled across nine cities in the country to promote their latest album Hello Hello. Their gigs featured a jugalbandi with New York-based tabla maestro Karsh Kale,who has been playing the tabla for over a decade now.

Playing the tabla with a DJ set is not about layering its beats over electronic music. It is an entire process of adapting to the sound and adding to the overall attitude. There is a musical interaction that goes on between two musicians doing two different things at the same time, says Kale. Acts like Blot and Jalebee Cartel have also taken to such live jamming.

If clubbers are grooving to the trance of the tabla,it is a logical conclusion to several Indian music acts experimentation with the instrument. While the traditional tabla was all about keeping the beat,electronic artists and percussionists are now using technology to distort beats and morph the sound. Kale has modified the instrument and called it the electric tabla. When I started playing the tabla,I wasn8217;t aware of any other tabla players in New York. So I modified the instrument according to my needs. In the electric tabla,the mic is fixed internally and played through processors with an amplified sound, says Kale.

Arjun Vagale,who does the mixing and scratching for Jalebee Cartel,says the tabla is being used with greater flexibility at night clubs and gigs. Morphing this instrument gives musicians like us a chance to experiment and create a different sound. Once it is plugged into a laptop,you can get the same sound effects from the tabla as from a guitar, he says.

Again,it was Talvin Singh who in 1990 conceived the Tablatronic,a hybrid electronic/analog instrument which allows the player multiple sonic-processing possibilities. It was then picked up by acts in New York and San Francisco before it finally reached India a few years ago.

JONQui though hasnt gone electronic with his instrument. Layering progressive house tracks with impromptu grooves on his conventional tabla,he believes its about doing your homework before heading out to perform. I follow the beat and the rhythm. After that bring on any genreBollywood,hip-hop,electro,houseand I can jam with it, he says.

Midival Punditzs Raj asserts that at no point should a percussionist be considered a sideshow to the jam session. It is not about just layering tabla beats on music from another genre. Tabla is an intelligent and a unique instrument which needs to be tuned according to the requirement of the song, he says.

Kale agrees. Tabla is not a genre,it can be applied to any sound. It was picked up by jazz musicians and even hip-hop artists used tabla loops. But certainly there are similarities between electronic and classical music, he says. In both the genres,it is the beat pattern one is listening to. That is then broken down into tukdas and the groove is played accordingly on the percussion.

And what do classical musicians have to say about this techno makeover? Tabla is the only Indian instrument being used with such flexibility. It is good that the youth is being exposed to it,even if in a different manner, says tabla maestro Fazal Qureshi.