Note: please read the introduction to Mohammed Ali Khan and his family and style at the beginning of the "Mohammed Ali Khan Part One" page.
1998
After several months out of India, I returned to Delhi and had a short series of intense meetings with Mohammed Ali Khan.
On September 8, 1998, I was subjected to the Ustad's grandson Junaid's practice of rag Bhupali on the violin. The cacophony was intensified by Mohammed Khan chugging along on the harmonium. We shall meet Junaid again when we get to September 15th.
Then the Ustad sat with me, first rag Bhupali then Yaman. This ended in acoustic chaos with Junaid's violin interrupting inexplicably. But Mohammed Khan had given me a great gift, delineating so-called "gala-maara" tans in Yaman. This clip also has the harmonium's unfortunate presence.
Then we did more work on palta tans in Yaman, including one of the specialties of this gharana, fast palta tans that utilise rhythmic hammering onto melody notes interspersed with the unstopped first string.
On the 9th of September, we bagan with rag Darbari:
After some crazy jhala work on my sarangi, he morphed into a bandish ki thumri in Kafi:
Then rag Malkauns:
I returned the next day, and our entire sitting was focused on rag Alhaiya Bilaval. This was a strange sitting as the Ustad tried to teach by playing on the esraj, which he was in even less practice on than sarangi. There was also a lot of talk and interesting stories. In the end we focused on gamak.
Another day later, on the 11th, we worked on Malkauns, mostly tans. For some of this sitting, Mohammed Ali Khan tried to teach me using the unpleasant medium of his vertical violin playing.
Followed by Bhairavi. At the beginning I tuned the sarangi to the deafening roar of his electronic shruti box. Mohammed Ali Khan tought a bandish ki thumri, which forms the core of Bundu Khan's immortal 78-rpm recording. Then he demonstrated tans on sarangi.
On the 12th of September and we had an exciting session in which Mohammed Ali Khan played my sarangi with gusto, demonstrating many of the techniques and nuances which adorn Bundu Khan's recordings. To the uninitiated, It might sound noisy and marred by being occasionally out of tune. But, believe me, this is the pinnacle of sarangi culture. I am amazed at the precision and consistancy of Mohammed Ali Khan's left-hand technique, considering he had not had a sarangi of his own for three decades, and he had only played mine sporadically a few times in the last couple of years. Sure he missed some notes, but others are hit with excruciating exactness, sometimes using the extremely complicated and unconventional three-finger technique for which Bundu Khan was famous. And throughout this session, he tought me beautiful and unusual bandishes in the rags. The first rag was rag Gaud Malhar:
Followed by rag Kedar:
And finally rag Bihag:
I visited again on the 14th of September, 1998. On this day, he was focused mainly on imparting his huge knowledge of khayal bandishes. At the beginning of the recording Mohammed Ali Khan can be seen bending small lengths of thick wire, teaching me an ingenius method of instantly remedying cuts in the sungsris, eyelets theough which 15 of the sarangi's sympathetic strings emerge. I still regularly use this skill. The first rag was Tilak Kamod:
Then he moved onto rag Bilaval Bahar, a rare rag that I was somewhat familiar with from one of Bundu Khan's iconic recordings:
Next came rag Jaunpuri.
And finally rag Ramkali, a very Bhairav-pradhaan version.
The following three clips are from the next day, September 15th. In the first chip, we see Mohammed Ali Khan's grandson Junaid practising some of the 150 paltas he had been taught in rag Bhupali on the violin. It's an exceedingly abrasive experience. When I asked if it mightn't be a good idea for Junaid to pay more attention to intonation and sweetness of tone, Mohammed Khan answered in no uncertain terms that that would all come automatically if he just went on practising in this way. Now, twenty-seven years later, I wonder what his tone and intonation might be like. Note: this video includes two clips: one filmed before and one filmed after the discussion a which follows below.
Then Mohammed Ali Khan talked about the importance of palta practice and the history of his family:
Finally we had a lengthy session in rag Puriya Dhanashri, which included teaching me two bandishes, one vilambit and one drut.
On September 16, 1998, Mohammed Ali Khan taught me mostly by singing, sometimes demonstrating on my sarangi. He started with a lengthy exposition of Shri Rag.
This was followed by another good look at Malkauns including two bandishes:
That was our last meeting.
