Foundation Level

Meet the slide guitar your teacher plays, sit with it flat on the lap, and learn its string groups: main strings, chikari and tarab where the instrument has them.

Ready to move on when: You can set the instrument on the lap and name each string group and what it does.

Resources: Demo video · Notes: the instrument and its string groups · Recording of your teacher playing a short piece

Tune the main strings to the tuning your teacher sets for your instrument, set the chikari to Sa, and hear what the tarab add.

Ready to move on when: You can tune every string group to the reference within a few passes and hear a string that has drifted.

Resources: Demo video · Reference note track · Notes: your teacher's tuning, string by string (needs making per teacher)

Hold the bar so it touches the strings with no buzz and no pressure past the point of clarity.

Ready to move on when: You can sound one clean note eight times with the bar still and no buzz.

Resources: Demo video, close on the left hand · Reference recording of a clean note

Set the right hand on the strings, then play the inward stroke Da and the outward stroke Ra at equal volume.

Ready to move on when: You can play sixteen alternating Da and Ra strokes on one string with no difference in volume you can hear.

Resources: Demo video, close on the right hand · Notation: Da and Ra marked

Find Sa and Pa on the main string by ear against the tanpura, then confirm them with the tuner.

Ready to move on when: You can land Sa and Pa from a cold start, in tune with the tanpura, five times in a row.

Resources: Demo video · Tanpura track

Play the seven shuddha swaras of the middle octave up and down, landing each one rather than sliding into it.

Ready to move on when: You can play the saptak up and down twice in slow laya with every swara in tune.

Resources: Demo video · Tanpura track · Notation: the saptak

Move the bar from one swara to the next and stop it there, with no slide heard between them.

Ready to move on when: You can move between any two neighbouring swaras eight times with no audible glide.

Resources: Demo video · Tanpura track

Play one swara many times and keep its tone, length and volume the same each time.

Ready to move on when: You can play twelve repeats of one swara that sound alike on the recording.

Resources: Demo video · Reference recording

Play the first three paltas (alankar patterns) your teacher sets, in slow laya, up and down the octave.

Ready to move on when: You can play three paltas up and down at slow laya with no stopped or missed swara.

Resources: Demo video · Notation: the paltas · Tanpura track

The instrument as Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra set it for raga, with chikari and tarab, and his hand: the thumb on the chikari, index and middle on the main strings.

Ready to move on when: You can hold the hand position through a slow saptak and strike the chikari without losing the main string.

Resources: Demo video · Notes: the Kabra setup and hand (needs making)

The Mohan veena as Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt set it: its string groups, how it sits, and how its tuning differs from other slide instruments.

Ready to move on when: You can name the Mohan veena's string groups and tune the main strings to your teacher's reference.

Resources: Demo video · Notes: the Mohan veena and its strings (needs making)

Sing Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa against the tanpura, then play what you sang, so the ear leads the bar.

Ready to move on when: You can sing and then play Sa to Pa with the played swaras matching the sung ones.

Resources: Tanpura track · Demo video

A guided rehearsal: play the module's material to your teacher and fix the swaras that drift, one at a time.

Ready to move on when: Your teacher hears no swara drift in a slow run of the saptak and Sa-Pa.

Resources: Your recordings from this module · Tanpura track

Present setup, tuning, clean notes, Da and Ra and the saptak in one short sitting.

Ready to move on when: Your teacher closes the module after reviewing your presentation recording.

Resources: Checklist: what the presentation covers

Check the seating, bar and right hand set in 1A and correct what has slipped since.

Ready to move on when: Your teacher sees no posture or contact fault in a short run of 1A material.

Resources: Your 1A presentation recording · Checklist: posture and hand

Carry the paltas from 1A into the lower and upper octaves.

Ready to move on when: You can play five paltas across the instrument's range at slow laya with every swara in tune.

Resources: Demo video · Notation: the paltas across octaves · Tanpura track

Raise the Da-Ra pair from slow to medium laya without the Ra stroke going weak.

Ready to move on when: You can play Da-Ra at medium laya for one minute with both strokes equal on the recording.

Resources: Demo video · Metronome or lehra track

Count the sixteen-beat cycle with claps and waves, find sam and khali, and follow a lehra.

Ready to move on when: You can count Teentaal against a lehra for four cycles and land on sam each time.

Resources: Teentaal lehra track · Notes: theka, tali and khali

Read and write sargam and tala in the notation the course uses, with Da and Ra marked.

Ready to move on when: You can write a palta you play in notation and play one you are given from notation.

Resources: Notes: the notation system · Notation exercises

Hear short recordings from four slide lines (Kabra, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Debashish Bhattacharya, Barun Kumar Pal) and name what you hear differ: tone, ornament, stroke.

Ready to move on when: You can say, for two recordings, one thing each player does that the other does not.

Resources: Listening list: one short track per line (suggested, teacher to confirm) · Notes: the instruments of the slide lines

Count Keherwa and play a palta inside it.

Ready to move on when: You can play a palta over a Keherwa lehra for four cycles, landing on sam.

Resources: Keherwa lehra track · Notes: Keherwa theka

Move between main strings with the bar and right hand so no open string or bar noise sounds.

Ready to move on when: You can play a phrase across two strings four times with no stray sound.

Resources: Demo video, both hands in view

Find any swara your teacher names, from a cold start, without sliding to search for it.

Ready to move on when: You can land eight named swaras in a row, each in tune at the first touch.

Resources: Tanpura track · Notes: board markers you may use

Play paltas at double speed against the same lehra, two swaras to each beat.

Ready to move on when: You can switch a palta from single to double speed on sam without losing the cycle.

Resources: Teentaal lehra track · Notation: the paltas in dugun

The alankar and palta drills of Ustad Allauddin Khan's Maihar teaching, with the chikari struck between phrases the sarod way.

Ready to move on when: You can play two Maihar paltas with chikari strokes placed where your teacher marks them.

Resources: Demo video · Notation: Maihar paltas with chikari marked (needs making)

Phrasing from the sitar line, as Pandit Barun Kumar Pal carried it from Pandit Ravi Shankar onto the Hansa veena: how a phrase is struck and shaped.

Ready to move on when: You can play two sitar-ang phrases your teacher sets with the strokes and shape they ask for.

Resources: Demo video · Notation: the phrases · Listening: a Hansa veena recording (suggested)

Play the module's paltas over a Teentaal lehra with your teacher correcting laya and landing.

Ready to move on when: Your teacher hears every palta start and end on sam over the lehra.

Resources: Teentaal lehra track · Your recordings from this module

Present the paltas across the range, Da-Ra at medium laya and the counted cycle.

Ready to move on when: Your teacher closes the module after reviewing your presentation recording.

Resources: Checklist: what the presentation covers · Teentaal lehra track

Play back the 1A and 1B material and fix the swaras and strokes that still slip.

Ready to move on when: Your teacher hears no drifting swara in the saptak or paltas.

Resources: Your 1B presentation recording · Tanpura track

Learn the ascent, descent and catch phrase of the first raga (suggested: Yaman), and which two swaras carry its weight.

Ready to move on when: You can play aroha, avaroha and pakad in tune and name the vadi and samvadi.

Resources: Demo video · Tanpura track · Notation: aroha, avaroha, pakad · Notes: vadi and samvadi

Play three phrases of the raga and keep their contour under repetition.

Ready to move on when: You can play the three phrases six times each without the shape flattening.

Resources: Demo video · Tanpura track · Notation: the three phrases

Open the raga slowly from Sa, adding one swara at a time and returning to Sa.

Ready to move on when: You can play two minutes of alaap that stays inside the raga and returns to Sa.

Resources: Demo video · Tanpura track · Reference alaap recording

Glide between two neighbouring swaras and arrive exactly on the second.

Ready to move on when: You can play five short meends that arrive in tune, checked against the tanpura.

Resources: Demo video, close on the bar · Tanpura track

Play the raga's phrases over live or recorded tabla and keep them landing on sam.

Ready to move on when: You can play your phrase set with tabla for four cycles, landing every phrase on sam.

Resources: Teentaal tabla track · Notation: the phrase set

Place the raga's altered swara (tivra Ma, if the first raga is Yaman) and hear the moment it drifts.

Ready to move on when: You can play the altered swara and its shuddha neighbour as two distinct pitches on request.

Resources: Demo video · Tanpura track

End a phrase on a resting swara and let it ring before the next one starts.

Ready to move on when: You can play the phrase set with a clear rest after each phrase.

Resources: Demo video · Tanpura track

Fit a short fixed set of the raga's phrases into the cycle so it starts and ends on sam.

Ready to move on when: You can play the set over a lehra for four cycles with every ending on sam.

Resources: Teentaal lehra track · Notation: the phrase set

Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra's 1967 recording with Shivkumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia: how the guitar first carried raga phrases.

Ready to move on when: You can point to two phrases on the recording and say how the bar shapes them.

Resources: Listening: Call of the Valley, tracks chosen by your teacher

How Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt's line sings a phrase on the slide: long held swaras and soft entries.

Ready to move on when: You can play two phrases of the raga with the held swaras and entries your teacher sets.

Resources: Demo video · Listening: a Mohan veena recording (suggested)

In Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya's line the phrase is sung first. Sing each phrase of the raga, then play it so the slide follows the voice.

Ready to move on when: You can sing and then play three phrases with the played contour matching the sung one.

Resources: Demo video · Listening: a chaturangui recording (suggested)

Rehearse the Foundation presentation with your teacher: alaap, phrases, and phrases with tabla.

Ready to move on when: Your teacher hears the whole set once through without a stop.

Resources: Checklist: the Foundation presentation

Present alaap and phrases in the first raga in one sitting.

Ready to move on when: Your teacher closes Foundation after reviewing your presentation recording.

Resources: Checklist: the Foundation presentation