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The Sound of Music
R U S H hour crowds jostle for position on the jostle: push
roughlyunderground train platform. A slight girl, looking slight: small
and younger than her seventeen years, was nervous yet thin excited as
she felt the vibrations of the approaching
train. It was her first day at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music
in London and daunting enough for any teenager fresh from a Scottish
farm. But
this aspiring musician faced a bigger challenge than most: she was profoundly deaf.
2.
Evelyn Glennie’s loss of hearing had been gradual. Her mother
remembers noticing something was wrong when the eight-year -old
Evelyn was
waiting to play the piano. “They called her name
and she didn’t move. I suddenly realised she hadn’t
heard,” says Isabel Glennie.
For quite a while Evelyn
managed to
conceal her growing deafness from
friends and
teachers. But by the time she was
eleven her marks
had deteriorated and her
headmistress urged her parents to take her to a daunting: frightening
aspiring musician: aperson who wants
to be a musician specialist. It was then discovered that her hearing
was severely impaired as a result of gradual nerve damage. They were
advised that she should be fitted with hearing aids and sent to a
school for the deaf.
“Everything suddenly looked black,” says Evelyn.
3.
But Evelyn was not going to give up. She was determined to lead a
normal life and pursue her interest in music. One day she noticed a
girl playing
a xylophone and decided that she wanted to play it too. Most of the
teachers discouraged her but percussionist Ron Forbes spotted her
potential. He
began by tuning two large drums to different notes.“Don’t listen
through your ears,” he would say, “try to sense it some other way.”
Says Evelyn, “Suddenly
I realised I could feel the higher drum from the waist up and the lower
one from the waist down.” Forbes repeated the exercise, and soon Evelyn
discovered that she could sense certain notes indifferent parts of her
body. “I had learnt to open my mind and body to sounds and vibrations.”
The rest
was sheer determination and hard work.
4.
She never looked back from that point onwards.She toured the United
Kingdom with a youth orchestra and by the time she was sixteen, she had
decided to make music her life. She auditioned for the Royal Academy of
Music and scored one of the highest marks in the history of the
academy. She
gradually moved from orchestral work to solo performances. At the end
of her three-year course, she had captured most of the top awards.
5.
And for all this, Evelyn won’t accept any hint of heroic achievement.
“If you work hard and know where you are going, you’ll get there.” And
she got
right to the top, the world’s most sought-after multi- percussionist
with a mastery of some thousand instruments, and hectic international
schedule.
6.
It is intriguing to watch Evelyn function so effortlessly without hearing. In our two-hour
discussion she never missed a word. “Men with bushy beards give me
trouble,” she laughed. “It is 18 / Beehive impaired: weakened
xylophone: a musical instrument with arow of wooden bars of different
lengths percussionist: a person who plays the
drum, the tabla, etc.potential: quality or ability that can be
developed auditioned: gave a short performance so that the director
could decide whether she was good enough intriguing: fascinating and
curious It is intriguing to watch Evelyn function so effortlessly
without hearing not just watching the lips, it’s the whole face,
especially the eyes.” She speaks flawlessly with a
Scottish lilt. “My speech is clear because I could hear till I was
eleven,” she says. But that doesn’t explain how she managed to learn
French and master basic Japanese.
7.
As for music, she explains, “It pours in through every part of my body.
It tingles in the skin, my cheekbones and even in my hair.” When she
plays
the xylophone, she can sense the sound passing up the stick into her
fingertips. By leaning against the drums, she can feel the resonances
flowing into her body. On a wooden platform she removes her shoes so
that the vibrations pass through her bare feet
and up her legs. flawlessly: without a fault or mistake lilt: a way of
speaking tingles: causes a slight pricking or stinging sensation
resonances: echoes of sounds The Sound of Music / 19 Not surprisingly,
Evelyn delights her audiences.
In 1991 she was presented with the RoyalPhilharmonic Society’s
prestigious Soloist of the YearAward. Says master percussionist James
Blades,“God may have taken her hearing but he has given her back
something extraordinary. What we hear, she feels — far more deeply than
any of us. That is why she expresses music so beautifully.”
9. Evelyn confesses that she is something of aworkaholic. “I’ve just
got to work . . . often harder than classical musicians. But the
rewards are enormous.” Apart from the regular concerts, Evelyn also
gives free concerts in prisons and hospitals. She also gives high
priority to classes for young musicians. Ann Richlin of the Beethoven
Fund for
Deaf Children says, “She is a shining inspiration for deaf children. They see that there is nowhere that they cannot go.”
10.
Evelyn Glennie has already accomplished more than most people twice her
age. She has brought percussion to the front of the orchestra, and
demonstrated that it can be very moving. She has given inspiration to
those who are handicapped, people who look to her and say, ‘If she can
do it, I can.’ And, not the least, she has given enormous
pleasure to millions.
PART II
1. EMPEROR Aurangzeb banned the playing of a musical instrument called
pungi in the royal residence for it had a shrill unpleasant sound.
Pungi became the generic name for reeded noisemakers. Few had thought
that it would one day be revived. A barber of a family of professional
musicians, who had access to the royal palace, decided to improve the
tonal quality of the pungi. He chose a pipe with a natural
hollow stem that was longer and broader than the pungi, and made seven
holes on the body of the pipe. When he played on it, closing and opening
some of these holes, soft and melodious sounds were generic name: a name
given to a class or group as a whole reeded: wind instruments which have reeds like the
flute, the clarinet, etc. The Sound of Music / 21 produced. He played
the instrument before royalty and everyone was impressed. The
instrument so different from the pungi had to be given a new name.
As the story goes, since it was first played in the
Shah’s chambers and was played by a nai (barber),
the instrument was named the ‘shehnai’.
Pungi
Shehnai
The sound of the shehnai began to be considered
auspicious. And for this reason it is still played in
temples and is an indispensable component of any
North Indian wedding. In the past, the shehnai was
part of the naubat or traditional ensemble of nine
instruments found at royal courts. Till recently it
was used only in temples and weddings. The credit
for bringing this instrument onto the classical stage
goes to Ustad Bismillah Khan.
3.
As a five-year old, Bismillah Khan played gilli-
danda near a pond in the ancient estate of Dumraon
in Bihar. He would regularly go to the nearby Bihariji
temple to sing the Bhojpuri ‘Chaita’, at the end of
which he would earn a big laddu weighing 1.25 kg,
a prize given by the local Maharaja. This happened
80 years ago, and the little boy has travelled far to
earn the highest civilian award in India — the
Bharat Ratna.
4.
Born on 21 March 1916, Bismillah belongs to a
well-known family of musicians from Bihar. His
grandfather, Rasool Bux Khan, was the shehnai-
nawaz of the Bhojpur king’s court. His father,
Paigambar Bux, and other paternal ancestors were
also great shehnai players.
2.
22 / Beehive
auspicious:
promising to bring
good fortune
indispensable:
without which a
piece of work cannot
be done
ensembles
(pronounced
‘onsomble’): things
(here, instruments)
considered as a group
paternal ancestors:
ancestors of the
father
The young boy took to music early in life. At the
age of three when his mother took him to his maternal
uncle’s house in Benaras (now Varanasi), Bismillah
was fascinated watching his uncles practise the
shehnai. Soon Bismillah started accompanying his
uncle, Ali Bux, to the Vishnu temple of Benaras where
Bux was employed to play the shehnai. Ali Bux would
play the shehnai and Bismillah would sit captivated
for hours on end. Slowly, he started getting lessons
in playing the instrument and would sit practising
throughout the day. For years to come the temple of
Balaji and Mangala Maiya and the banks of the Ganga
became the young apprentice’s favourite haunts where
he could practise in solitude. The flowing waters of
the Ganga inspired him to improvise and invent raagas
that were earlier considered to be beyond the range
of the shehnai.
6.
At the age of 14, Bismillah accompanied his
uncle to the Allahabad Music Conference. At the
end of his recital, Ustad Faiyaz Khan patted the
young boy’s back and said, “Work hard and you shall
make it.” With the opening of the All India Radio in
Lucknow in 1938 came Bismillah’s big break. He
soon became an often-heard shehnai player on radio.
7.
When India gained independence on 15 August
1947, Bismillah Khan became the first Indian to
greet the nation with his shehnai. He poured his
heart out into Raag Kafi from the Red Fort to an
audience which included Mahatma Gandhi and
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who later gave his famous
‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech.
8.
Bismillah Khan has given many memorable
performances both in India and abroad. His first
trip abroad was to Afghanistan where King Zahir
Shah was so taken in by the maestro that he gifted
him priceless Persian carpets and other souvenirs.
The King of Afghanistan was not the only one to be
fascinated with Bismillah’s music. Film director
Vijay Bhatt was so impressed after hearing
Bismillah play at a festival that he named a film
5.
on end: for a very
long time without
stopping
taken in by: attracted
or charmed by
souvenirs: things
given in memory of a
place, person or
event
The Sound of Music / 23
after the instrument called Gunj Uthi Shehnai. The
film was a hit, and one of Bismillah Khan’s
compositions, “Dil ka khilona hai toot gaya ...,” turned
out to be a nationwide chartbuster! Despite this
huge success in the celluloid world, Bismillah
Khan’s ventures in film music were limited to two:
Vijay Bhatt’s Gunj Uthi Shehnai and Vikram
Srinivas’s Kannada venture, Sanadhi Apanna. “I just
can’t come to terms with the artificiality and
glamour of the film world,” he says with emphasis.
9.
Awards and recognition came thick and fast.
Bismillah Khan became the first Indian to be invited
to perform at the prestigious Lincoln Centre Hall in
the United States of America. He also took part in
the World Exposition in Montreal, in the Cannes
Art Festival and in the Osaka Trade Fair. So well
known did he become internationally that an
auditorium in Teheran was named after him —
Tahar Mosiquee Ustaad Bismillah Khan.
10.
National awards like the Padmashri, the Padma
Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan were
conferred on him.
11.
In 2001, Ustad Bismillah Khan was awarded
India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.
With the coveted award resting on his chest and
his eyes glinting with rare happiness he said, “All I
would like to say is: Teach your children music,
this is Hindustan’s richest tradition; even the West
is now coming to learn our music.’’
12.
In spite of having travelled all over the world —
Khansaab as he is fondly called — is exceedingly
fond of Benaras and Dumraon and they remain for
him the most wonderful towns of the world. A
student of his once wanted him to head a shehnai
school in the U.S.A., and the student promised to
recreate the atmosphere of Benaras by replicating
the temples there. But Khansaab asked him if he
would be able to transport River Ganga as well.
Later he is remembered to have said, “That is why
whenever I am in a foreign country, I keep yearning
24 / Beehive
chartbuster: record-
breaker
celluloid: old-
fashioned way of
referring to films
ventures: projects
that often involve
risk
conferred: given,
usually an award or
a degree
coveted: much
desired
SHEKHAR GUPTA: When Partition happened, didn’t you and your
family think of moving to Pakistan?
BISMILLAH KHAN: God forbid! Me, leave Benaras? Never! I went
to Pakistan once—I crossed the border just to say I have been
to Pakistan. I was there for about an hour. I said namaskar
to the Pakistanis and salaam alaikum to the Indians! I had a
good laugh.
(Readers’ Digest, October 2005)
to see Hindustan. While in Mumbai, I think of only
Benaras and the holy Ganga. And while in Benaras,
I miss the unique mattha of Dumraon.”
13.
Ustad Bismillah Khan’s life is a perfect example
of the rich, cultural heritage of India, one that
effortlessly accepts that a devout Muslim like him
can very naturally play the shehnai every morning
at the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
