A Lesson in Tabla With Samir Chatterjee
A beautiful and intimate night of Indian classical music in Midtown Manhattan
Event Details:
Date: March 30, 2024
Venue: Chhandayan Center for Indian Music (Manhattan)
Ticket Price: $27
Artists: Samir Chatterjee featuring Kedar Naphade
I have been my fair share of shows, the impetus for why I started writing these posts, yet I have never experienced anything like what I experienced tonight. I was recently on a short kick of listening to Indian classical music when I decided it would be interesting to try to find a live tabla performance. If you do not know what tabla music is, I highly recommend checking out this video to get a taste of this wizardly musicianship. Lucky for me, it did not take much searching before I found something in Midtown Manhattan at the Chhandayan Center for Indian Music.
The show started at 7:30 PM so I arrived about 15 minutes early to the Midtown address. On the north side of Bryant Park and a block away from Times Square, it could not be in a more undesirable location for a Saturday night. I entered the elaborate building lobby, was told to “follow those guys” and took the elevator to the sixth floor. I made my way around the corner and noticed everyone was removing their shoes. There was no signage and now I was practically standing in what could be any number of office spaces in New York City, unclear if I too needed to remove my shoes and where the show actually was. Good thing I put on a fresh pair of socks because I took the plunge and removed my smelliest pair of Jordan 1s (my cat Bia’s favorite pair).
There was a desk to check in, followed by a small room feeding into what looked like someone’s living room. Completely transformed from the surrounding chaos of Midtown Manhattan, it was a cozy setting with incense burning and a few dozen chairs packed tightly in the intimate space. I found a spot in the back corner of the “main room” where I managed to tuck my lanky body into one of the folding floor chairs.
They started with a beautiful introduction, explaining the setting of the performance and the relationship between the listener and the musicians. Apparently, these types of performances are meant to take place in small environments so the musicians can channel the energy of the room and build off their live interactions with the audience. The performance was mostly improvisation with small bits of organized arrangements mixed in. I will not even begin to attempt to explain the music theory of Indian classical music but it is primarily built on two foundations, raga and tala, or the melody and time cycle to oversimplify things.
After some minor technical difficulties and tuning of the instruments, the harmonium started to build the foundation and I was not sure if they were still tuning or if they started playing. Samir Chatterjee sat there with his tabla in front of him and a seemingly disinterested look on his face before he took a sip of presumably Starbucks tea, flashed a subtle grin and slowly began tapping his fingers on the small hand drums.
Before long, the room was filled with dozens of taps, pops, booms and various other sounds that embodied many percussive sounds from around the world into one, as his fingers magically danced with a possessed ferocity. The time signatures were bizarre and they flexed between slow and fast tempos, sometimes at speeds which I did not know were humanly possible for someone to coordinately move their hands. The dexterity to perform at that level continuously for over an hour straight was superhuman.
One of my favorite music historians,
, actually has a short video explaining the science behind the length of songs and that “if you listen to music long enough, your brain waves begin to match the rhythms of the music,” which I could not help but feel the effects of from tonight’s performance. I do not recall what time they started but when they played the final notes, gestured Anjali mudra and thanked the crowd, it was 9 PM and I felt like I had come out of some meditative state, similar to the feeling of a nice Shavasana at the end of a yoga session.I will certainly be looking out for more opportunities to expand my horizons with more worldly performances like this. What an incredible experience.
Cheers and keep rocking!