It's a world apart from the shiny linoleum floor and drip-drip-drip of the Mr. Coffee machine in my childhood classical piano teacher's waiting room, but some aspects of the experience are similar: the music's complex beauty and long tradition, the teacher's mastery, and my own strong desire to do it well. I'm nervous, excited, and happy to be a music student.
This week I'm among 24 singers from around the world -- all students of Silvia Nakkach's Vox Mundi School of Voice -- who have come to Varanasi, India, to learn Dhrupad, an ancient form of Indian classical singing. Dhrupad's roots go back a millennium or more and it's been practiced in its current form since about 1400, when it became popular in Indian royal courts.
A strictly oral tradition, unlike Western classical music, Dhrupad has been passed along through lineages such as the Dagar family, now in its 19th generation of musicians. Our teacher for the week is Professor Ritwick Sanyal, who learned from the Dagars and is a master in his own right
I quickly learn oral traditions are much more than the "rote learning" sometimes decried by music educators who prioritize literacy. Dhrupad's complexity of structure and extraordinary subtlety of pitch are engraved in the ear, mind and body, through repeated call and response with the teacher, in ways that would be impossible to notate; hand's are constantly in motion as they express the character of each tone and it's relationship to the other tones; memory is challenged and exercised in ways we've become unaccustomed to in our age; and, the frequent use of microtones and glissandi are about as far from Western practice as you can get.
Ritwick quickly finds the edge of my ability and admonishes me to sing "from the heart," "from the chest" or, when simulating the scooping sound of a tabla drum, "with an added breath force." He demonstrates several gradations of microtones as he corrects my intonation. As the phrases become increasingly complex I realize if my attention strays for even a moment, I'm lost.
Direct, and somewhat formal in bearing, but kind, Ritwick delights in the soft, melting beauty of the music and he's compassionate towards my struggles. He asks me to sing down to a low C# - considerably beyond the average male range -- and I think I've done respectfully well since I can at least make a sound. But he smiles sweetly and says: "you're closed." He keeps challenging me, though, scooping up and down and making the phrases increasingly long and unusual. I hesitate. "Sing" he says. I don't think I can do it, but the fact he does makes me happy and willing to try. It reminds me of my piano lessons, when my teacher Mrs. Waxman saw possibilities in me that I couldn't see. That's a gift.
Varanasi (a.k.a. Banaras) is at least 6,000 years old and considered by Hindus to be the holiest city. I've been told that for millennia, though, there wasn't actually much of a civilization here; it was considered an auspicious place to worship or to die, but not to engage in anything distracting from the truth of life's ineffability. The intentional prominence of Varanasi's cremation sites on the Ganga's banks are to this day a constant reminder of the inevitability of death.
While this may seem an austere view, it's not meant to be depressing but rather a reminder of how precious is every living moment. I like Dhrupad because rather than seeking to amuse, it reminds us through its challenges and beauty of some of music's deeper possibilities. Its purpose, according to the Dagars, is "seeking not to entertain, but to induce deep feelings of peace and contemplation in the listener."
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