He was all of seventeen years old, an American, longhaired and hippie like when he accosted vocalist Kalpana Mazumdar after hearing a classical music LP and asked her if she would teach him classical vocal music. “YOU want to learn classical vocal music?” was her stunned reply.
Today almost two decades later Warren Senders is an internationally acclaimed vocalist in Hindustani classical vocal music with Khayal gayaki as his forte. His cd “ Khayal” is a must buy. “ Warren Senders is an amazing man. He can give you a better lecture on Khayal than the maestro Bhimsen Joshi” says Prof Balwant Dixit of the University of Pittsburgh’s classical performing Arts Center. “Its truly amazing how much understanding he has of the Indian performing arts, the history, the theory, the stylistic differences, the gharanas, individual performances, none of the others singing greats even the Indian ones are 5 percent of what Warren Senders is.”
Senders also heads an indo-jazz ensemble Anti-Gravity, and is with the New England Conservatory faculty and uses the techniques and knowledge of Indian, African, and Western music toward cross-cultural aspects of learning through music programs in public elementary schools.
In an exclusive interview with Kavita Chhibber, Senders retraces his steps and talks of what led him to master a very difficult and alien style of classical vocal music.
So lets start at the beginning. Tell me a little bit about your background.
I had been fascinated from my early teens by improvisation and intrigued by jazz music. I pulled away from things that were on the beaten path, and deliberately wanted to be different. Born to two psychologists who were brilliant academicians, you grow up recognizing that the possibilities for creative work are endless, that with the right kind of thinking and mental processes and understanding, there is nothing that is outside your realm of competence. They were highly accomplished, creative and unconventional so if I put my mind to excel in something, which was unconventional, they were certainly not going to say well you cannot do that.
So when you decided to take lessons from Kalpana Mazumdar, did you have any idea what you were getting into, and how tough it was going to be?
I was too young to form expectations of what learning Hindustani vocal classical music would be like. Had I read more books, based on autobiographical accounts of several Hindustani vocalists I d have imagined that I would have to go visit a stern guru who would look at me and be cross if I sang a note out of tune. All I knew was these were magical sounds and here was a lady who seemed to posses that sound and I wanted to be close to that sound. I was always an instrumentalist. I was playing base and learnt guitar and studied western instrumental music. Many non-Indian instrumentalist musicians felt vocal music was something they had to learn but not necessarily to enjoy it for its own sake. I was always fascinated by vocal music and by the time I was twenty I would do data entry night shift jobs and would plug in 8 hours of khayal recordings, and when the last tape ended it was time to go home.
When I had been learning for about two years it dawned on me that if I actually practiced the things Kalpana was giving me to learn I might improve and so again because I had been very avidly reading books I looked at what they had to say in books about practice. It was daunting. I would read that as an infant so and so practiced 16 hours a day and after that he learnt to speak, and here I was 20 years old and nothing much to write home about, and getting intimidated. Then I realized you cannot just begin practicing 18 hours a day just as you can’t say well I want to be healthy so I’ll go to the gym and start by lifting 500 pounds in weights .I just sang SA for an hour every morning and I began to improve. Then I practiced more and applied myself and found that practice indeed makes you perfect.
How did you end up with Bhimsen Joshi?
I had been collecting recordings and listened to a lot of Bhimsen Joshi’s renditions and also saw him perform in Boston. By 1983 a lot of my friends had started applying for scholarships to go to India. I wrote to Bhimsen Ji and was accepted by him as his student. Then I received the indo American fellowship award to do research in khayal gayaki..the relationship of the different sub styles of kirana gharana.. I went to see Bhimsen Joshi and realized that there was an interesting disconnect between the style that he taught and what I really needed. Bhimsen ji was a performer not a teacher. I needed some one who could correct my mistakes and he couldn’t.
So are you saying performers can’t be good teachers and vice versa?
They can be but these are two totally different skills. Many good teachers are not good performers because they have stage fright or just because they are not interested in putting the energy into performing and many good performers are not good teachers, because they use energies differently. I was there for a year, and very rarely would he show me something. One day he taught me a bandish and I sang it for 2 months only to be told I was singing it incorrectly. Bhimsen ji did not have an interest in diagnosing the diction for an American kid. At the time I felt very sad but now I think he cannot help who he is. Why should he be bothered but at the time it was very frustrating. Concerts and musicians and the music I loved surrounded me and yet I had been in Pune for a year and what had I achieved? Just one bandish only to be told after 2 months that I was singing it all wrong. But then it seems to be intrinsic in the lives of many top Hindustani musicians to have to go through some kind of deprivation before you find the right teacher and appreciate them.
And so did you before you met your true guru.
I was introduced to Rajeev Vanasthali a tabla player and he was hearing my complains and struggles and said one day to me, I want you to meet my father who is a singer and he will be interested in teaching you. I met his father Shreeram Devasthali, a very distinctive man, and he agreed to teach me. He asked me what do you want to do with this music? No one had asked me this question before . I said I want to sing in mehfils. and what I really meant was I had observed concerts and the mehfils and I saw the difference in the quality. The music of the mehfils where the rasikas were 18 inches away from the musicians, the giving of daad a very joyous and reciprocal dialogue between the artist and the listener and the musical imagination of the artist is manifested in the artist’s singing and vice versa, and the room seemed to light up when there’s a good audience. the room is filled with light when the audience gives genuine appreciation. That was magic. I wanted that magic. I couldn’t care about big stages or audiences and this answer pleased him very much and said we can do it but we have to work very hard.
The first day he gave me a 4-hour lesson without interruption in bhairav with all manners of permutations and combinations and made me stop and change the shape of my mouth to change the shape of the vowel. It was very meticulous taleem. We’d meet in the evening at 6.30 and he would teach me till 11.30 p.m. I continued to study with Devasthali ji, till 1994-95.
When and where did you make you professional debut?
It was at a festival in Delhi through Oddissi dancer Sharon Lowen who organizes a Videshi Kala Ustav . I think I sang reasonably well and got a couple of good reviews and an interesting comment from a journalist who was somewhat noncommittal about my singing but said “ Senders tuned his tanpura superbly!”
What was the audience response?
The audience was mostly receptive Indians who came for various reasons presumably many of them came to see because it was novel, or due to friendship with Sharon. It was a very positive experience and it cemented in me the idea that this was something that I could do and I haven’t looked back since then. I make my living as a teacher and performer of Hindustani classical music. 75 percent of my students are Indian born high tech professionals and computer programmers.
You have a very unique style of teaching. Can you talk about that?
I have studied teaching and know many different ways of teaching students and diagnosing their problems. Because my parents were both psychologists and were very interested in the learning process and understanding new things my father being an expert on the psychology of error, which studies how people make mistake, what kinds of mistakes they make , I use a great deal of that kind of thinking in my teaching. I am constantly working with my students to develop diagnostic capacity for their own errors. What was the mistake I made and why did it happen there and how can I eliminate the mistake” the fact is you never eliminate all mistakes but if you have to, replace old ones with new ones.
Thanks to Devashtali ji I am not afraid of making mistakes so that makes me a more effective teacher. Some times learning must be done with the mind, at times with the voice and at times with the body. So if there is particular rhythmic phrase that demands an emphasis the students should be able to clap their hands at that point, and if they have a lapse I may make them walk a line with me one step per note and when we reach that point of emphasis to jump instead of taking that step. I am willing to try anything to build on the lessons I have learnt.
What is it that attracts non-Indians to Indian classical art forms?
To begin with it may be a mistake to assume there is a huge demographic population, say compared to who is buying Britney Spears cds, but then there is Madonna who wants to sing in Sanskrit on her record. So then World music becomes the flavor of the month. But on the other hand if you have something that has genuine merit and genuine resonance and speaks directly to aspects of the human condition, its natural for all human beings to be attracted to it. Beauty does not need much explanation. And so when we hear this music that has something beautiful and significant to offer and the more distinct the culture is from ours, even though it may difficult to understand it its totalityt we can still appreciate parts of it.
Most Purists frown upon fusion music. While on one hand you sing and teach Hindustani classical music on the other hand you dabble in fusion music through your band Anti-gravity. Is there a conflict there?
If tradition ceases to innovate it’s no longer alive. A true definition of tradition is parameters where innovation is allowed. In khayal I seek to innovate within tradition. I am also a practicing artist in cross-cultural music and of course I have a musical group Anti-gravity that does fusion. There are things that you need to say that you cannot say in a traditional language. Take “Midnight’s Children”, by Salman Rushdie. He could not have written that book unless Bombay Hindi existed . The entire nature of imagery in that book is interwoven from one language to another. So there are things you need to say where you need a new language. In that sense most fusion music works.
When you look back what is it that you feel proud of having achieved?
Over the arc of my immersion in Indian music and Indian culture I feel pleased that I have been able to develop what my colleagues in India recognize as an original vocal style that meets the criteria of original vocal styles in khayal tradition, and that finally the critical notices in the Indian press are now focused on my music rather than the color of my skin. And I think also that I m proud that I can be a representative in some ways of the musical imagination of my teacher and that I could collaborate with some one who I really regard as a very great and significant musical mind. I feel very proud that he felt it was worth his time to teach me and I am proud to be in this tradition. The great cellist Rostropovich said there are no generals in music. We are all just foot soldiers. I didn’t have any ambitions to be a great musician. I went into the music because it was beautiful and I am proud that I have been able to live without compromising my sense of what is beautiful and that I’ m able to make a living and make a life singing with people and sharing the joy that my teacher embodied teaching me and that people leave my studios happier than they were when they came in. I feel very honored that the tradition has accepted me. Getting it right is still a challenge. Isaac Newton said I do not know what I may seem to the world but as to myself I seem like a boy playing on the seashore diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell while all around vast oceans of truth lay undiscovered around me. That’s how I look at music, and I have enjoyed this journey and continue to discover the smoother pebbles, a prettier shell and am joyous. In the end we should all die happy.
(For more information on warren senders and his music write to warren@warrensenders.com)