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Looper's Delight
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To continue this somewhat OT thread a bit: Jon wrote: >>Now if I want to learn to play the tabla, I mean really learn >>to play the tabla; would you tell me that its useless >> to move to India? That I can learn everything I need to >>know to make music by staying right where I am and >>playing tabla at clubs along with guitar players, and >>conga drummers? Stephen replied: >Since there are a load of folks from India all over the world (and >especially the US thanks to the Visa game!), it shouldn't be hard to find >someone to teach real Tablas to you, as well as send you in the direction >of >a good set. I assumed from the general tone of Jon's post that he was speaking hypothetically, comparing the relative merits of going directly to the source rather than trying to learn from a distance. Of course, this brings up the question of those hypothetical guitarists and congeros -- did they go to Spain (or the Mississippi Delta, or Nashville, Bakersfield, etc.) to learn guitar? Did the drummers move to Cuba, Puerto Rico, or some other point in the African diaspora to learn their rhythms? Stephen brought up a good point -- that it's not entirely necessary to travel to India to begin learning Indian music. It *is* important, though, to find a good teacher locally. In my personal experience I did not travel to India until I'd been studying with a teacher in the US for 5 years. When I finally did go to India (to learn from my teacher's teacher) I was glad that I'd waited, since I was familiar with the teaching method (rote instruction, or "learning by ear" -- imitating everything the teacher plays) and was comfortable enough with technique, theory, etc. that I could play things back without feeling I was wasting my teacher's time. I know I would have had a significantly harder time learning the music if I had simply moved to India at the beginning. A rough equivalent would be someone who has never played music and decides they want to learn to play guitar, then trying to go to Jim Hall or Bucky Pizzarelli to learn basic reading, strumming, scales, hand positions, etc. If anyone is interested in pursuing Indian music studies outside of India, here are a few links for teachers worldwide: http://chandrakantha.com/teachers/ http://www.tarang-classical-indian-music.com/indian_teachers_eng.htm http://www.batish.com/IMTD/ In terms of looping, though (to get back on-topic), I agree that it's far too diverse to lump what each of us does with our music and our looping tools into any kind of "school" or style of playing based solely on looping.