North Indian Slide Guitar

Conclusion

     While playing music with a santoor player named Shivkumar Sharma, Kabra began to develop as a musician. As the tempo of the duo's songs would increase Kabra realized he would have to do something to the instrument in order to play the jhala or closing movement of an instrumental performance that features an alternate bass pattern. It was at this time that Kabra added a chikari (drone) string to his instrument. He also started to experiment with other Indian instruments such as "the sitar, sarod, santoor, flute, and with a lot of vocal music, to get some ideas that I could produce on the guitar to increase its range and make it a full-fledged instrument." (Kaiser pg. 41)

     At this point Kabra realized that the instrument had a fantastic sustaining range, greater then other Indian stringed instruments. This made the instrument ideal for performing the alap section of a rag. Kabra stated to Henry Kaiser "For the most important part of Indian music, the alap, it is one of the most ideally suited instruments..." (Kaiser pg. 41) For Kabra one of the features of the guitar that he felt was primarily responsible for this was the fact that the guitar allowed you play two octaves on one string without a break. Kabra emphasizes this in his playing, avoiding the lack of continuity that occurs when shifting from one string to another. Due to this emphasis Kabra feels he achieves the goal of his music, which is to get as close as possible to the human voice. Kabra feels "That is the most important aspect of the alap-the modulations that the human voice can do, the grace notes it can produce-and that can be achieved very well on the guitar". (Kaiser pg. 42)

     Vishwa Mohan Bhatt also feels it is important to get as close to the human singing voice while playing the guitar. After absorbing his father's early vocal lessons and other musical training Bhatt was prepared to develop his instrument and musical style. He says "Vocal music is very important in Indian classical music, if you can come very close to singing style on your instrument that is very good." Bhatt saw the guitar, played with a slide to be very suitable for this because of limitations of other instruments such as the sitar. Bhatt sees the limitation of the sitar as being that it is hard to go form one note to without breaking the sound. Since you have to "pull" the string for bent note effects, the slide guitar is more suitable tnen the sitar because there is a much greater range for the musician to do this while achieving continuous sound.

     Bhatt also finds the vichitra vina to be less suitable as an instrument then the guitar. Although he listened to a great deal of vichitra vina while developing as a musician he says, "But I really must say I don't like the sound of vina much, because it's very shrill and thin." (Wald pg. 83) Bhatt also finds the size of the vichitra vina to be a hindrance. Because of its large size it is quite difficult to cover the two octaves continually as you can do on the much smaller guitar. The size also makes it very difficult to play at the speeds that one is able to play on the guitar.

     Over the years Bhatt has developed an instrument that is much more suitable to play Indian classical music then the standard six string guitar as well as other Indian instruments. Bhatt added a number of strings to transform his guitar into an Indian instrument. Bhatt uses three melody strings, four drone strings, and twelve sympathetic strings. These modifications help him to achieve a synthesis of Indian stringed instruments, the sarod, sitar, and vina. Bhatt sees the "deep" sound he can achieve as indicative of the sarod. The higher octaves enables him to achieve sounds similar to the sitar and vina. He states, "This instrument has no limitations, its only in your skill." (Wald pg. 83)

     In order to achieve the necessary skill, Bhatt feels the instrument takes much more practice. While the sitar has frets which enable one some guidance in pitches on the instrument on the slide guitar the instrumentalist has to rely on his ear to her the correct pitches. Bhatt told Elijah Wald, "You cannot see the notes, so you just have feel and listen to the music with your ears." (Wald 83)

     Debashish Bhattacharya also see the importance in practicing and studying the guitar. In 1986, Debashish began to study the guitar with Brij Bhushan Kabra due to the "need to deepen his command of the guitar as an instrument of India's classical tradition." (Humphrey pg. 19) Debashish received training from Kabra and gained a deep respect from him as his "guru". Debashish told Mark Humphreys "The guru is my god, guru is my father, guru is my mother first, then my family who gave birth." While many guru-disciple relationships feature the guru demanding the disciple to be a "relentless marionet", Kabra's teaching method was a result of his unique way of learning how to play the instrument and encouraged Debashish to try new things. As a result of their relationship Debashish also became affiliated with the gharana of Ali Abkar Khan, since this was a primary influence in Kabra's musical training.

     When Debashish began to modify his guitar to better suit his musical expressions Ali Abkar Khan had a great influence. Debashish said to Mark Humphrey "In this regard I am a staunch follower of our gharana's great Ustad, Ali Abkar Khansab, he also has got the supporting strings on his sarod. I like his style of strumming chikari, bass and supporting strings to create an envirionment with much more use of open strings." (Humphrey pg. 23) While Bhattacharya's guru Brij Bhushan Kabra added a chikari string and changed the normal gauge (thickness) of the standard strings, as well as tuning it in a manner more suitable for Indian music Bhattacharya has made many more modifications to his guitar.

     Debashish added two chikari string as well as twelve sympathetic strings to his Gibson flat-top guitar that Kabra had given to him as a gift. This customization of the instrument made it a combination of sitar, sarod, and guitar. This instrument enables Debashish to emulate these three instruments while creating a new instrument that doesn't have the limitation of either. While at first these changes were met with disapproval by Kabra, Kabra soon realized, that these changes would help Debashish to further develop his playing and bring to life what he heard in his head. Debashish says, "I tried to combine all advantages of vocal music, sarod, and sitar. I gave another shape to this instrument. The point of view I am supporting is that this instrument is more versatile than any other instrument." (Humphrey pg. 25)

     The versatility of the three above guitar players has enabled the guitar to receive a well respected place in the North Indian classical music world. Due to Kabra's determination the guitar has been placed on the curriculum at several universities and earned him "every honor an instrumentalist can receive in his own country." (Kaiser pg. 44) Kabra also has began teaching and passing on the knowledge he has accumulated, a duty he felt he had. One of his students, Debashish Bhattacharya, has furthered the techniques of the instrument taking it to new places. During Kabra's teaching of Bhattacharya he encouraged Bhattacharya to develop his own creativity while learning what he was teaching him. Kabra states of his own playing, "I never had the chance to hear anybody else play the guitar. I think that has been very fortunate for me because it didn't impair any of the things I was doing. So I developed my technique according to the music I wanted to play by trial and error, and it kept getting better and better. If I had been trained by somebody, I would have had fixed ideas, and I wouldn't have been able to do what I am doing today on the guitar." (Kaiser pg. 44) Kabra teaches with this in mind. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt also sees the need to teach.

     While the guitar has some difficulties Bhatt sees it as a means to encourage the youth of today to study Indian classical music. In India today many young people are influenced by MTV and popular film music. His aim is "to get them and not let them get away. Because our music is so rich. My goal is to reach the young people that are behind the music like pop, jazz, rock, disco, so that they should know this music is so great." (Wald pg. 84) In order to achieve this task along with Indian classical music, he has also recorded a number of "fusion" albums with Western artists. His "Meeting By the River" recorded with western guitarist Ry Cooder earned him a grammy in 1994. This recording gave him the opportunity to increase the world's knowledge and pleasure of North Indian classical music.

     Debashish Bhattacharya also has a mission to elevate the world's knowledge of North Indian classical music and guitar. In recent years he has gone on a number of tours in the United States playing in a "World of Slide" concert presentation of slide guitar traditions from different parts of the world. He also teaches a number of students in India. Debashish states, "I have my mission not only to play guitar but to do something with my students also. If it is good for Indian classical musical, I wish to encourage the students of guitar not to only play filmi music but to play our own country's wealth. That is classical music, always the treasure of any nation". (Humphreys HS pg.20)