Demystifying INDIAN MUSIC

Self-taught musician, Kuljit Bhamra MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire), one of the most inspiring musicians in the British-Asian music scene, is best known as the record producer who pioneered the British Bhangra sound. He is the founder of Keda Records and has produced over 2000 songs, grooming numerous Bhangra and Bollywood stars. Bhamra’s main instrument is the tabla, and he is on a mission to demystifying Indian music and democratising Indian drumming. Bhamra with a team of designers and electronics experts, has created Tabla Touch – the world’s first electronic tabla. In the global music landscape, Tabla Touch is attracting musicians worldwide as a modern gateway to the traditional world of Indian music. He has worked on numerous film scores, including Bhaji on the Beach, A Winter of Love, Bend It Like Beckham and has appearances in The Guru, The Four Feathers, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

At the recently concluded India Mobile Congress 2024, in Delhi, Kuljit Bhamra gave a scintillating music performance together with LJ Rich, inventor, musician and international broadcaster, Perfect Pitch Productions. In an exclusive interview with Corporate Citizen, he takes us through his life journey, his commitment to promoting the understanding of Indian instruments, about Tabla Touch and more.

Corporate Citizen: You were trained as a civil engineer, what made you change your career path to love music and play Tabla? How did you get initiated in music?

Kuljit Bhamra: I have loved listening to music for as long as I can remember. My mother Mohinder Kaur Bhamra, now a prominent Punjabi folk singer in the UK, used to perform Shabad Kirtan in the Gurudwaras in London in the early 1960s. I was four years old and was encouraged to accompany her on the tabla. There were very few Indian musicians in the UK at that time. I found that I had a natural talent for picking it up and teaching myself to play.

Later, as a teenager, I learnt to play harmonium, guitar and some violin. I recorded my favourite songs onto a reel-to-reel tape machine running at high speed. This way, I could play them back at a slower speed to analyse the rhythms and explore how the professionals played. At that time, I also started recording my own compositions at home, by using two tape recorders to layer instruments over each other to sound like a band.

Despite my mother's support, my father constantly and firmly reminded me that “Music is just a hobby and should not be taken too seriously”. I was forced to follow a strictly academic career—to become a doctor (or an engineer just like him). He considered himself to be a man of logical-thinking, reality and fact. Art was too ‘airy fairy’ for him, even though he liked showing off my talent to his peers, when I played at family and social gatherings. He would accept the praise directed towards me (and him) but would always add “…and he's studying to be an engineer as well”. As if being a talented musician wasn't good enough on its own.

Later, at the age of 17, I found myself playing tabla in an album by singer A. S. Kang. It was an exciting experience for me, and because of my dabbling with tape recorders at home, I understood the recording process and how the various studio equipment was being used. I fantasised about having my own recording studio, but it was just a pipe-dream! My father's angry and controlling voice echoed in my head “Music is just a hobby!” I qualified as a Civil Engineer.

CC: You were born in Nairobi, Kenya— take us back to how you ended up settling in Southall, a large suburban town in West London and went on to become a pioneer of Bhangra music?

My grandfather worked in Kenya as a building supervisor at the time of British rule. Originally from Ludhiana in Punjab, they were skilled workers and chose to move to Kenya for a better lifestyle, and of course income. The move also enabled them to get a British passport if they wished. In 1961, there was a worldwide polio outbreak. I was two years old and contracted the disease which paralysed my left leg. At that time my father had just left to study engineering in London. When he heard that I was ill, he organised for my mother and I, to come to London to join him. I underwent a series of operations in hospitals to help me walk. I needed to wear a brace on my left leg, which I still do to this day.

Looking back, I realise that my keen interest in music might have been a way of dealing with my disability - more so the effect that it had on others, rather than on me. I knew I was different from others, but dealing with their emotions when they saw me (sympathy, guilt, sadness, apathy, anger and disgust) was tough for me. I soon learnt to use my quick wit and humour to diffuse these moments. Listening to music and playing instruments is where I found peace, meditation and a sort of purpose in life. It also provided the perfect arena for my insatiable curiosity - unlike science, there is no right or wrong answer or correct way of doing things. Yes, there are conventions, but no rules.

"With the aid of grant from Exeter University, we created the world’s first electronic tabla prototype. It was mind-blowing and I could change pitch at the turn of a dial"

-Kuljit Bhamra

CC: As a record producer you have pioneered the British Bhangra music, known to have started fusing some unique and traditional Indian and Bollywood sounds. Tell us about your humble beginnings and do you still keep track of Bollywood music that’s going on in India?

My obsessive curiosity with layering instruments and influences from other cultures led me to start releasing my own style of Punjabi folk music, which combined drum kits and bass guitars with tabla and synthesisers. Recording technology had become more advanced. Multitrack tape recorders (where you could layer up to 24 instruments on one machine) had become commonplace. Also, computers and electronic keyboards could now be connected to tape machines via a protocol called MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). This meant that there were no limits to creativity in sound. It was my obsession with these tools that allowed me to inject Punjabi folk music with a much needed 'punch' like western pop songs had. Experimenting with these ideas whilst working with Southall bands Premi and Heera, led me to produce a new style of music which soon became known as UK Bhangra. Until then, Bhangra was considered a dance form only - not a music genre. By the mid-1980s this music had become so popular amongst Indian communities worldwide that record sales topped many western pop bands. Even Bollywood producers began copying my songs and production style (for example Rail Gaddi and a few others in top-banner movies). Artists such as Gurdas Maan and playback singer Mahendra Kapoor, were flown over from India to work with me. I produced two albums for each of them and some songs became huge hits (Peer Tere Jaan Di by Gurdas Maan / Bhabi Gal Na Kari by Mahendra Kapoor).

CC: In your career as a musician, tell us about the moment when you got discovered—when you created a space that defined you?

It took me a while to realise my own unique skill set. It was later during my mid-thirties, I realised that I could take a musical idea and turn it into reality. I didn't need to be dependent on anyone else—I knew all the steps and could compose as well as operate the recording equipment. Mix and master the music, and get it out into the market. I had an unusual balance of creative and technical skills.

Coincidentally, it was about that time, some scientists invited me to take part in a brain-measuring experiment using something called bio-feedback. They strapped sensors around my head whilst asking me to imagine, think and concentrate. The results showed that my left brain and right brain worked in equal strength. I didn't understand it all fully, but it confirmed that my artistic skills matched my technical skills, and that somehow confirmed my own hunch.

"I believe that there is room for both worlds in any music or culture. Tradition itself also evolves and changes with time - it is not fixed"

CC: How did you get into the music business, founding Keda Records, a London based recording company dedicated to listeners of Brit-Asian music, old school bhangra and collaboration between musicians around the world?

One day, whilst at work as a civil engineer, I was reflecting on life in general and imagined that when my life was over, I didn't want these words written on my tombstone “He was a civil engineer”. There was more to my life than that, and I had unique talents that I knew could make a difference in the world. My father's voice “Music is just a hobby” still echoed in my head, but I now had the courage to create my own path. I realised that I was living my father's dream, not my own. I handed my notice in at work and set up my own record label and recording studio, launching myself full-time into the music business. It was tough for the first few years as I had three children to support, but then I received a call from Andrew Lloyd Webber's company. They wanted me to be in a musical theatre show called Bombay Dreams, with music given by A R Rahman. The show ran for two years and it was life-changing for me. Suddenly, I had a steady income which freed me up to create more new music of my own.

CC: From the age of six, you started playing Tabla whilst seated, similar to a drummer playing a drum kit, rather than seated on the floor, the usual practice for table players. Has it in a way helped you to develop your own technique of playing Tabla and engage in complex improvisations?

My long term life's desire has always been to celebrate Indian instruments and culture on all platforms around the world. Even today, Indian instruments are generally played only by Indians. This doesn't seem right to me. Surely, music is for everyone. I feel that us Indians have wowed the world with our virtuosic flair and mystique, but in the process we have scared people off from learning to play our beautiful instruments. Our teaching methods and our Guru-Shishya Parampara are exclusive and only work within the Indian community. This is a problem for many percussion students worldwide. They really want to play, but feel that they are forced to learn a new language and culture before they are allowed to touch the instrument. Learning tabla in the Indian way involves first speaking the Tabla Bols and pronouncing them correctly. I often wonder, why are we so stringent and strict with this? Imagine an English person forcing an Indian student to speak and pronounce English perfectly like a Londoner, before being allowed to touch a piano—that would be ridiculous.

I think that we need to relax a little and also stop selling the mystique and magic of India to the western world. Our music is already rich enough and doesn't need extra frills and tricks. The note Sa played on a sitar in India is no more mystical or magical than a note C played on a piano in London, but I have met many Indian maestros who still believe that it is true. India is a great country, no doubt, but our greatness can further grow, by us sharing our musical knowledge, rather than trying to impress or seem superior to others with musical techniques and gymnastics. This is what I think, and this is what I have seen so many times. Any musician who steps outside of India will notice this for themselves.

For example, in India, we are under the impression that everyone in the world knows what a Tabla is. However, if you walk down Oxford Street in London and ask one hundred people, I reckon only five will know. I have performed on thousands of stages during my lifetime, mainly to non-Indians, and most people have not seen the Tabla before. Difficult to believe, I know!

When performing with western musicians and artists from other cultures who are seated or standing, I feel that it's important to be at the same eye level as them. For this reason, I sit on a chair and play Tabla. I don't want to appear to be the odd one out in the band sitting on the floor. I feel that sitting on a chair gives me more stature as an artist and puts me on equal par with the others. Of course, if the whole band is floor-seated, then that's a different matter.

CC: What inspired you to create Electronic Tabla? Tell us about the idea and need behind it?

In Indian traditional music, the key or scale of the recital remains the same throughout the whole performance. So, when performing a Raga for example, the tabla player only needs to tune the tabla once, to that particular key (or Sa). It takes ten minutes or so to do this by tapping the platted rim of the drumhead with a hammer, until the desired pitch is achieved. Outside of India, for someone like myself, who plays with orchestras, string quartets and pop bands, it is necessary to have all 12 pitches of tablas available, especially if each song is in a different key. It would be impractical to wait ten minutes after each tune to re-tune the tabla. This became apparent to me when I began working with jazz saxophonist Andy Sheppard. I needed to carry five pre-tuned tablas with me to every concert, a hefty 25Kg or more. Also, when I worked in Bombay Dreams, each song was in a different key and they ran in immediate succession. There was almost no time to change tablas, and even when I could, they had gone out of tune due to the stage lighting and heat. It was during this show that I fantasised about inventing a tabla that could change pitch immediately.

My viola player friend, Clare Finnimore, knew about these challenges and suggested that I meet her husband Graham England, a product designer by profession. With the aid of grant from Exeter University, UK, we created the world's first electronic tabla prototype. It was mind-blowing and I could change pitch at the turn of a dial. I posted a clip on social media and it went viral. People wanted to purchase it, so we set up our company and began to develop the instrument further and start selling them. One of our first customers was singer and composer Arijit Singh, who bought two, for his UK and USA tour.

CC: Tabla Maestro, Zakir Hussain, is one of the legendary musicians you follow. How has he reacted to your innovation of the electronic tabla?

Hundreds of tabla players and percussionists have commented on the electronic tabla. The benefits of portability, immediate tuning and unlimited volume (without any microphone feedback whistle) are extremely attractive. Some people also like the fact that it is vegan and contains no animal products. Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain's student Amit Choubey, owns an electronic tabla and said that Zakir was asking him about it. I have recorded Zakir ji in my recording studio a couple of times and also collaborated with him on two projects. I would like to think that he would enjoy playing it, but it is designed for band-playing rather than classical recitals. The electronic tabla is designed as an option for musicians, not a replacement.

CC: The acoustic tabla is traditionally taught largely through a guru system, heavy in custom and mystique. Can tradition and innovation like the electronic version of Tabla, go hand in hand and will it help in demystifying Indian music?

I believe that there is room for both worlds in any music or culture. Tradition itself also evolves and changes with time - it is not fixed. I notice that many Indian classical recitals now use an electronic tanpura instead of an acoustic one. Also, I would argue that using an amplification system and stage monitors also makes people play in a non-traditional manner. Personally, I prefer the acoustic version in those cases. However, when playing with a band that has loud instruments such as drum kits, bass guitars, keyboards and electric guitars, then innovations such as the electronic tabla become absolutely necessary.

ABOUT TABLA TOUCH

• Tabla Touch offers featuring builtin sounds sampled from various traditional Indian instruments such as the Dholak, Khol, Mridangam, Pakhavaj, Ghatam, Hang, Tabla Tarang, Manjira, Temple bells, Jhanj, and over 30 high quality tabla dayan.
• There are three versions of the Tabla Touch: Studio, the most basic of the lot, encompassing three premium sound banks featuring professionally recorded sound banks of the Tabla, Dholak and Mridangam. Pro is the premium choice, which includes a wooden base and 18 sound banks from four Tabla sets, Dholak, Mridangam, Pakhavaj, Shree Kol, and metal percussions such as Jhanj, and Manjira. Lastly, the Solo version is a single Dayan that is designed specifically for acoustic performances. It comes with a built-in speaker, eliminating the need for external amplification. Its physical resemblance to a tabla sets it apart from the other two, enabling musicians to use it in its traditional seated position.
• Tabla Touch is lighter in weight and can be placed on a table, desk or mounted on a stand. Tuning can be adjusted by turning a dial and the unit can be connected to an amplifier or played through headphones. It can also be connected to a computer to create tabla score, or a MIDI module to access other sounds whilst playing its highly sensitive touch surface.