Hello
This is my first message on this board although i have been reading through older posts with great interest. Thank you everyone for keeping with the spirit of the tabla and not flaming like i see on other tabla forums - very uplifting and refreshing.
I used to learn the tabla from a local teacher but unfortunately had a bad experience with his mixed teaching/payment scheme but i will not dwell on this further other than say it upset me a great deal and subdued my passion for the tabla for some time.
I now have the opportunity to learn locally from 2 teachers: Sanju Sahai (private lessons) or Rajkumar Sharma (open lessons at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan). Apart from seeing Sanju Sahai play with U. Amjad Ali Khan last weekend (his performance was excellent),i know nothing about these two players.
Do any of you kind people have any information or advice from which tabla player i should learn from? i.e. which gharanas they teach and from whom i would get most 'value for money' (i realise this is dependant on practice!)
Thank you for your time.
All comments will be appreciated.
Kind Regards
Pete
I haven't heard much about Rajkumar Mishra, but I've heard Sanju Sahai's accompaniment with rajan sajan mishra. Private lessons are awesome compared to learning at some institution, in my opinion. Give it a shot. I'm not in the position to judge which is a better performer/teacher, but the fact that you can get private lessons is a pretty solid reason to go with Sanjuji.
You should stick with sanju sahai. just because of two reasons, one is that you will learn the true benares gharana style because Sanju Sahai is a direct-blood descendent of the benares gharana, also because you eill get private lessons, which makes a huge difference in the long run.
