Over the next few days I’ll be going through the archives to show you what Sound Travels has been up to over the last year. We’ll start with the fabulous Rajasthan International Folk Festival trip of October 2012, where ten happy Sound Travellers, who booked through Songlines magazine, explored the music of my favourite desert state.

We began the trip with a party and an interactive session with Iranian daf and tonbak maestro Fakhroddin Ghaffari… and out came the cameras!

Next we headed to Shekhawati, where we received traditional Rajput hospitality from Jai Sinhh and his family – here are the group outside his ancestral home in a village near Churu

The darun-playing worshippers of Gogaji, the Rajasthani snake god played to us in their village of Bajrangsar. Their twin-faced drum resembles the African ‘talking drum’, and similarly, its pitch can be changed by squeezing the leather strap wrapped around the narrow centre. The musicians sing, jump up high and make rhythms by stamping their feet and jangling the gunguru bells wrapped around their ankles.

Nick enjoys a shisha(or at least he claimed to) with Mamphula Ram, the famous chang player.

Playing the chang drums – Mamphula Ram and party demonstrate the music and dance usually performed during the February festival of Holi at celebrations and in competitions

Next we headed to Jaipur where we spent a magical evening meeting dancers and musicians from the snake-charming Kalbeliya community. Bad lighting, but you get the feeling!

After a day of site-seeing and shopping in Jaipur, we then had a surprise dinner in Amber, and concert from UK beatboxer and sound artist Jason Singh, in collaboration with morchang-player and multi-percussionist Rais Khan.

Our next stop after Jaipur was the holiest of holy pilgrimage sites, the Ajmer Sharif.

It’s an intense experience visiting the shrine to Sufi Saint Moinuddin Chisty, and the group came away feeling inspired

Forty-minute drive from Ajmer is the the beautiful lake-town of Pushkar, home to Nathoo Lal Solanki, the best nagara player in the world! After a tour round Pushkar with my favourite babu/guide Mukesh, Nathoo led us in a drumming workshop.

Last stop – the glorious Rajasthan International Folk Festival – with beautiful music from dawn…

…throughout the day…

… til the small hours.

What a fantastic fortnight with a wonderful bunch of people. Was sad to wave goodbye, but have met up with most of the group since, in London, Delhi and Assam (for those who came back for more on my Assamese Musical Adventure)

“This trip opened up a box of magical music for me and in surroundings that were absolutely stunning. Georgie put it all in context and added her own great knowledge which made the journey unforgettable…. She really ‘made’ the trip for us all. Her research, knowledge and good humour were excellent. Full marks! Give her a bonus!” – Nick Hudson

Click here to read more about how the group felt about the trip

A wonderful performance by Flamenco guitarist Titi Robin and the outstanding kalbeliya singer Gulabi Sapera.

http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xahtqw
Titi Robin ‘Shadi Ke Badh’ by karteltv

Three things you should know about Rajasthani Musicians

Tony Gatlif made a beautiful musical history of the Roma people, ”Latcho Drom’ (‘Safe Journey’). Watch this first section, shot in Rajasthan.

2. Folk musicians in Rajasthan are geneologists and oral historians too.

For generations rajput royals, as well as their carpenters, tailors, cooks and iron mongers, have relied on these turbaned minstrels-cum-geneologists to keep track of birth, deaths and marriages in their families, so they don’t accidentally marry a cousin, or worse.

This party of Manganiyars, from near Barmer, are particularly wonderful

3. The ‘bahrupiyas’ (Rajasthani comedians) may have been considered lower caste, but they alone have the right to abuse the king

Check out this film trailer about Hajari Bhand, an especially cheeky ‘bahrupiya’  and listen to his style of cursing!

When London underground drivers go on strike, BA workers walk out or teachers throw down their red pens, the consequences might seem drastic. London comes to a standstill; tens of thousands are stranded at airports across the globe and children run riot across the country. Employers are under a huge pressure to negotiate a settlement, and quickly.

Collectively, workers who provide a technical service  in crucial areas have huge bargaining power.

But when a musician finds himself  faced with a mean employer – one who defers on payment or cancels performances with no notice –  what can he do? Throw down his flute in a rage and refuse to play? Big deal.

But the musicians of Rajasthan -where artistic unions are barely operable – have developed a few methods of their own. Some of which have far further-reaching consequences than a mere 24-hour strike on the London underground.

In the following excerpt from ‘Musicians for the People’, Komal Kothari describes the increasingly serious steps that can be taken by a Rajasthani musician to show his disgruntlement.

Step 1:  “In a dispute, a musician’s first step… is to cease reciting subraj [poetic stanzas of respect] for his patron. When this occurs, other people may mediate between the parties.”

Step 2:  “If the conflict is not resolved, the musician buries his turban in front of his patron’s house or hut.”

Step 3: “If the dispute still persists, he takes the strings off his instrument and buries them.”

Step 4: “If even this does not help, he prepares an effigy (lolar) of the patron, ties it to a donkey’s tail, and parades the donkey among the patron’s relatives, insulting the effigy, beating it with shoes, and loudly abusing it […] There are many reported cases where patrons have had to marry their children into lower caste and endure other social penalties as a result of this”

Alternative Steps: Performers can compose “poems of censure or abuse, which remain known for many generations.”

Extreme Steps: “The Charans (Rajasthan’s bardic caste) used to go to extreme lengths. In the case of a serious dispute, a Charan would take a big knife and gradually cut off first his fingers, and then other parts of his body, until he eventually died. The patron would then bear the heavy curse of having been responsible for a Charan’s death. This gruesome tradition is known as taga, and there have been occasions when many Charans committed this kind of suicide together as a form of protest.”

Unite the Union, eat your heart out.

Excerpts taken from Komal Kothari, ‘Musicians for the People: The Manganiyars of Western Rajasthan’, pp. 205 – 237, in Schomer, Erdman, Lodrick, Rudolph (ed.’s) The Idea of Rajasthan: Explorations in Regional Identity