“my first lesson on the mridangam!”
Today, on January 1st, 2023 it is EXACTLY 55 years since I met my mridangam guru P.S. Devarajan and had my first lesson on the mridangam!
Hear Mridangam lesson 1!
This is how mridangam lesson 1 (1:46) sounds when Devarajan does it. The four basic strokes Ta Di Tum Nam are recited and then played at multiple speeds.
at Swamy Haridhos´concert on January 1
When my tabla guru left Bombay for U.S. in 1967 to teach at CalArts I looked south and thru Swamy Haridas (who later changed his name to Swamy Haridhos (for “numerological” reasons) I found my mridangam guru in Tirunelveli where I spent more than a year studying the mridangam, staying in his house in true guru-shishya parampara tradition.
At the photographer’s in Tirunelveli
In 1968, while my friends were trying to get the revolution going in Sweden, my mridangam teacher and I went to the photographer’s in Tirunelveli.
Hear his Konnakol, spoken mridangam rhythms:
Devarajan was often accompanying the charismatic Swamy Haridhos durimg the time I was with him, so I was also going along for yatras (pilgimages) and a lot of other religious functions, including visits to his Guru Swamy Gnanananda in Tirukkoilur and other holy places. Haridhos was a fantastic singer of bhajans and later constructed a beautiful temple town in Thennangur, a work which is carried on by his successor Swamy Namananda, Namaji and after his demise by Swami Namanandagiri. More about that soon on the Swamy Haridhos page.
Devarajan’s recordings
Devarajan appears on the albums with Swamy Haridhos, on the triple Nedunuri Krishnamurthy album, on Karnatic Harmonium and on his own album of mridangam teaching
