Reading Raga Resonance: Bow, Beat, and Breath

A tabla solo puts the tabla in the lead. The player builds compositions across a fixed cycle of beats, the taal, while a melody instrument, often a sarangi or harmonium, keeps time with a short repeating tune called the lehra. For the rest of an Indian classical concert the tabla keeps time behind the melody instrument.

Each cycle runs the same length, and every new cycle starts on beat one. That beat is the sam.

You do not need to count. Listen for the lehra to repeat, then listen for the tabla to land on the sam. New to the drum? See What is a tabla?

Two separate concerts at The Great Hall, Reading, on 12 September, each with its own ticket. Bow, Beat, and Breath starts at 12pm: sarangi and tabla, the two players swapping lead and accompanist at the interval. Slide & Strum on The Mystic Frets starts at 6pm, with Indian slide guitar, Western guitar and tabla playing a classical raga half, then a fusion half after the interval.

The afternoon concert ends around 2.30pm and evening doors open at 5.30pm, so you can attend both. The Full Day ticket covers the pair.

Park at the White Gates Car Park on the University of Reading's London Road Campus. Set your sat nav to RG1 5AG, the car park's postcode, and drive in from Crown Place, off the London Road (A4).

The campus has up to 200 spaces for Great Hall events. Spaces go first come, first served, and they get tight at busy times. Evening and weekend events need no parking permit.

Coming by train or bus? See how to get to The Great Hall.

Yes, The Great Hall in Reading is accessible.

You need to book a wheelchair space ahead of the concert. Write to [email protected] once you have your ticket, and we will arrange it with the venue.

KalaSudha presents Indian classical music in Reading and lists each concert on its Reading page, with a link to book. To hear when the next Reading date is set, press Register for updates there or join the KalaSudha newsletter.

KalaSudha has presented concerts at The Great Hall on the London Road Campus, the University of Reading's original home, as part of the Kala Festival.

Satwinder Pal Singh is a London-based sarangi player from Moga, Punjab. He took up the sarangi at 11 under his father, Shaminder Pal Singh, a Top Grade artist of All India Radio, and in 2012 studied in Delhi with his father's teacher, Sabri Khan. He has also trained under Ram Narayan and Harsh Narayan. He plays the saranda, israj, dilruba and taus too, instruments his family has carried through generations of Sikh music. He and his father both hold Top Grade status for sarangi from All India Radio.

Ustad Shahbaz Hussain is a tabla player who teaches across the north of England. He first studied under his father, the vocalist Mumtaz Hussain, then learned from Faiyaz Khan of the Delhi gharana and from Shaukat Hussain Khan and Allah Rakha of the Punjab gharana. He leads the fusion group Indus and accompanies touring classical artists. He teaches at the University of Newcastle and the University of Huddersfield, and received the Son of Lahore Award from the Government of Pakistan in 2008.

The sarangi is a short bowed instrument with three gut playing strings and around 35 sympathetic strings that resonate beneath them.

Players stop the strings from the side with the backs of their fingernails. Many musicians hold that, of all Indian instruments, the sarangi sits closest to the human voice.

The Senia-Maihar gharana is the sarod lineage that Allauddin Khan founded at Maihar, a former princely state, in the early 20th century. Most sources treat it and the Maihar gharana as one school spanning several instruments. "Senia" names the Tansen line, which Allauddin Khan joined as a disciple of Wazir Khan of Rampur. He brought a dhrupad approach to the sarod, sitar, violin and bansuri. Among KalaSudha's artists, Pandit Debasis Chakroborty plays in the gharana.