Until the 1960s, the Hawaiian Slide Guitar had been
heard mainly in film songs, and in the regional music of Bengal. The credit for
elevating the instrument to the Hindustani art music platform goes to Pandit
Brijbhushan Kabra.
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| With friend and collaborator: Pt. Shivkumar Sharma |
In the basic model, the shell of the instrument is an
F-hole Guitar of European design, acoustically and structurally enhanced to
support a multitude of strings. But, the design of the Indian adaptation is far from
standard yet. There are several variants in circulation, with some of them even
sporting names suggesting the identities of their “creators”.
The Vichitra Veena legacy
The Vichitra Veena receded from the
mainstream almost simultaneously with the Dhrupad/ Dhamar genre of mainstream
music, of which the instrument was once an integral part. The major reason for its
decline would appear to be its cumbersome handling, and an acoustic
quality unsuited for the contemporary environment, governed by the electronic
manipulation of musical output.
The Hawaiian slide-Guitar appeared to solve both these
problems simultaneously while offering the distinctive quality of the slide-Veena
-- the ability to reproduce every nuance of Indian vocalism with minimum
interference from the sound-priming [plucking] activity. Admittedly, the
slide-Guitar was inferior in this role to the Sarangi, a bowed instrument. But,
within the plucked lute family, and as a successor to the Vichitra Veena, it could have no peer as a mimic of the vocal
expression. Because of this advantage, the Hawaiian slide-Guitar offered a much
wider range of stylistic options than the Sitar and Sarod, both of which
required a higher frequency of plucking.
The only trigger the slide-Guitar required
for reviving the Vichitra Veena legacy was towering musicianship, which
could demonstrate its musical potential, especially relative to the dominant plucked lutes -- the Sitar and
Sarod. The instrument found its champion in Brijbhushan Kabra.
Kabra’s Guitar
Brijbhushan, a qualified mining geologist, came from a
business family with a deep involvement in music. His father had studied the
Sitar under the legendary Ustad Enayet Khan, the father of Ustad Vilayat Khan.
Brijbhushan’s elder brother, Damodarlal, was a distinguished Sarod player
trained by Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. In defiance of acute cynicism within the
family, Brijbhushan said “no” to the Sitar as well as the Sarod, and accepted
the challenge of elevating the slide-Guitar to a level of parity with them
under the tutelage of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
Inevitably, Kabra went along with the established
musical approach of the major plucked lutes, the Sitar and Sarod. The first
step in this direction was the introduction of chikari [drone] strings. As on
the Sitar and the Sarod, his chikari set is mounted on a post midway up the
stem of the Guitar on the bass [inward] side. His repertoire includes a
three/four tiered alap-jod-jhala movement, slow tempo compositions primarily of
Masitkhani format in Tritala, medium tempo compositions in Rupak [seven beats]
and Jhaptala [ten beats], and fast tempo compositions in Tritala [sixteen
beats] followed by a jhala. As with the Sitar and Sarod, light and
semi-classical compositions in a variety of tala-s [rhythmic cycles] became an
important part of a comprehensive repertoire to satisfy contemporary audiences.
Despite the benefit of guidance from Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, a colossus
amongst instrumentalists, Kabra had to rely on his own resourcefulness for technique.
Kabra’s musical vision is deeply entrenched in vocalism. It might even be said
that, in the melodic content of his music, he has pitted his instrument against
the Sarangi, rather than the Sitar or Sarod. He places the highest premium on
the capabilities of the slide-Guitar for delivering the melodic continuity and
microtonal subtleties of Hindustani vocalism. This logically meant the
development of an idiom and technique that would minimize the frequency of
strokes, and maximize the melodic density achievable under the impact of each
stroke. These became the guiding principles of Kabra’s musical endeavors.
Within the raga presentation format of the plucked
lutes, Kabra’s musical vision, and the instrument’s capabilities, led him to
develop the anarhythmic and melodically rich alap form as his forte. In order
to pack the maximum power into each stroke, Kabra dispensed with the picks
conventionally used by slide-Guitarists, and opted to play with wire plectra
[mizrab-s] used by Sitarists.
Once he had harnessed additional stroke power with
Sitar plectra, he could achieve the desired manipulation of timbre, volume, and
sustain without the addition of sympathetic strings. In an interview with the
present author, Kabra expressed the view that the slide-Guitar is so rich in the
delivery of microtonal values and melodic continuity, that the Sitar/ Sarod model of acoustic design
is irrelevant for the instrument. Kabra also argued that the sympathetic
strings, which support only the discrete swara-s in the raga scale, have the effect
of drowning out microtonal subtleties on the Slide guitar. As a result, the
delivery of melodic value is limited, rather than enhanced, by the sympathetic
strings, which his juniors amongst Guitarists have widely adopted.
In order to minimize the melodic discontinuity in his
music, Kabra reduced the role of multiple-string execution by opting, once
again, for a Sitar-style solution -- of using the first string as the main
melodic string, and tuning the second and third strings also in the Sitar style
. This enabled him to execute melody across two full octaves on the main
string, requiring the second and third strings only for the lower octave. In
his interviews to the American press, he has argued that Hindustani music, with
its vocalist model, does not require a melodic canvas larger than three
octaves.
Kabra’s
music
Kabra’s repertoire is basically mainstream music,
biased in favour of popular raga-s like Puriya Kalyan, Bageshri, Bihag
Madhuwanti, Jaijaiwanti, Hameer and Nat Bhairav. His discography shows a fair
representation of light music – melodies like Kafi, Gara, Rajasthani folk,
Mand, and Piloo. The patent raga-s of the Maihar Senia lineage, such as Gauri
Manjari and the Carnatic raga Kirwani appear to have only a small presence in
his performing material.
With his design of the instrument, and his novel
technique, Kabra has achieved an acoustic richness in the musical output of the
Slide Guitar, which approaches the more mature plucked instruments like the
Sitar and the Sarod. In the presentation of raga-based music, Kabra strongly
favors the alap-jod-jhala forms, often even as stand-alone pieces of music,
without rhythm-accompanied forms following it. Even on a mass medium like the
radio, he is known to have performed a 40-minute alap-jod-jhala as a
self-sufficient rendition. This predilection is consistent with his highly
vocalized melodic imagination, and his belief that these movements are the best
vehicles for the unique melodic capabilities of his instrument. Kabra’s percussion-accompanied
music largely follows the orientations of the Maihar Senia lineage. His
bandishes are composed in vilambit, madhyalaya or drut Tritala, or in
madhyalaya Roopak or Jhaptala.
Kabra has also been an immensely successful duet
musician. His partnership with Shivkaumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia
produced the “Call of the valley” album, which is now the stuff of legend. His
duets with Shivkumar Sharma – particularly the LP recording of Jhinjhoti – ia
also amongst the most memorable pieces of duets produced in recent history.
Kabra established himself and the slide-Guitar in
Hindustani music at a time when three giants -- Ustad Vilayat Khan, Pandit Ravi
Shankar, and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan – were at the peak of their creative and
technical prowess. In such an environment, the mere novelty of the slide-Guitar
could not have assured the instrument a future in Hindustani music. Kabra’s
success can be explained only as a victory of his perception, and exploitation, of the
distinctive musical value that the Hawaiian slide-Guitar had to offer.
After Kabra
In response to the changes in the environment of
Hindustani music, Kabra’s successors on the slide-Guitar scene, including his
own disciples, have drifted away from the technical and stylistic choices he
made. Most of them have chosen a stylistic direction with a much higher stroke
density than Kabra’s, and an extensive use of multiple-string execution as an
important element in their music. The slide-Guitar idiom is now drifting closer
to the idiom of the Sarod, but surpassing it in dazzling potential, thanks to
the slide-Guitar’s superior ergonomics. The technical decisions of the younger
Guitarists reflect these directions.
A melodic canvas spanning four octaves, and across
five strings, is now in favour. Sympathetic
strings have now become a stable feature of the Indian classical Guitar. The
emphasis is now on kaleidoscopic tonal patterning and dazzling virtuosity,
rather than elaborate raga presentation and melodic richness. Strokes therefore
need ergonomic facility more than depth or power. To this end, Guitar-style
picks have replaced Kabra’s mizrab. Some Guitarists have also found it
efficient to shift the chikari drones to the treble [outward] side of the
instrument.
Whether as an acoustic machine, or as the presenter of
a well-defined style of instrumental music, the Indian classical Guitar is
still in a state of evolution. While the succeeding generations of Hindustani
Slide Guitar maestros have successfully sent the instrument into international
orbit, Kabra's pioneering and formidable musicianship remains a landmark in the history of Hindustani instrumental music. .
(c) Deepak Raja. April 2005
