Debashish Bhattacharya Downloads

Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya has been described by Guitar Player magazine as one of the world’s most amazing guitarists. While he is a remarkable guitarist, Debashish prefers to focus on the tradition he perpetuates rather the instrument he performs it on. ‘I am simply an exponent of Indian roots music, raga. If there is any beauty in the music I play, all credit must go to the...
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Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya has been described by Guitar Player magazine as one of the world’s most amazing guitarists. While he is a remarkable guitarist, Debashish prefers to focus on the tradition he perpetuates rather the instrument he performs it on. ‘I am simply an exponent of Indian roots music, raga. If there is any beauty in the music I play, all credit must go to the creators of this tradition,’ he says. ‘I also feel that my music is the expression of the unconditional love given to me by my parents and all the past generations before them.’

Debashish was born on 12 January 1963, in Kolkata, India (better known in the West as Calcutta). He grew up in a musical family grounded in Gwalior, a classical vocal style that emphasizes tremolo, modulations and other ornaments within the context of raga. ‘Instrumental and vocal arts are closely related in Indian music,’ he says. ‘Since ancient times, instrumental training has begun with singing, and most instrumentalists are also vocalists.’ Debashish’s mother, Manjushree, sang every day. ‘She sang from her soul, offering her singing to the Gods and Goddesses,’ Debashish says. ‘My father, Sunil Kumar Bhattacharya, was also a devotional singer. My parents brought tears of pure love to their listeners.’ In this nurturing environment, Debashish learned to sing before he could talk.

At the age of 3, he discovered a Hawaiian lap steel guitar lying around the house and immediately gravitated towards it. The Hawaiian music legend Tau Moe had introduced Hawaiian steel guitar to Calcutta in 1929, sparking a vogue for the instrument that lasted through the 1940s. ‘My father received one from a friend as repayment for a small debt,’ says Debashish. ‘No one had paid it much attention, but for me it was love at first touch.’ Debashish could barely put his hands on the strings, and the slide-bar was too big for his tiny fingers. ‘I used to hold it like a spoon,’ he says, with a laugh. ‘My mother showed me the notes. She taught me the national anthem and other well-known songs.’

At age 4, Debashish gave his first major concert on All India Radio. Like his younger siblings, Sutapa and Subhasis, Debashish began his music studies at home under a strict regimen of practice and instruction. ‘There was practice all over the house, all the time,’ Subhasis recalls. ‘In every corner, even on the kitchen floor, and you know that an Indian kitchen is a very active place!’ ‘We got basic training by singing,’ says Debashish. ‘We did rhythm patterns, chanting syllables like “sa”, “re”, “ga” or plain “aa”. Then we sang with hand-claps and worked through different beat cycles in different scales. In each scale there are hundreds of compositions, but we learned around twenty and improvised on the basic movements.’

Growing up in a singing family, Debashish quickly saw the suitability of the steel guitar for raga. ‘With a sliding bar, you can imitate all the sounds of a voice,’ he says. ‘Instead of bending strings up or down, you can slide. For me, it is an easier and much more natural way to play.’ At age 6, Debashish was sent to learn Western guitar with Rajat Kaku (Rajat Nandy). He also began visiting a relative, Haru Kaku (Haradhan Roy Chowdhury), who played sitar and esraj, a rare bowed instrument that is fretted like a sarangi. Pandit Gokul Nag began teaching him sitar. He also learned more about the singing styles of Patiala schooling from Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty.

In 1984, Debashish’s father arranged for him to meet Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, the founder of Indian raga slide guitar. ‘I left my family for ten years to study with him in Ahmedabad, Gujrat,’ says Debashish. ‘Our relationship was guru and disciple. It was very rigorous training; every day at least twelve hours of education and practice.’ Since the 1950s, innovators like Brij.B. Kabra have added design features to the slide guitar to make it more suitable for playing Indian music. Debashish was also experimenting in his twenties. ‘I wanted a better tone, more sparkle,’ he says. ‘I wanted the instrument to be Indian, like veena and sitar, but still be a guitar.’ Debashish was the first person to put resonating strings on a slide guitar in 1979, and the first to put chickaree (drone) strings on the front.

He also developed an innovative three-finger picking technique, which gives him lightning speed and creates hypnotic patterns. In 1984, Debashish became the first slide guitarist to receive the President of India Award. This boosted his professional status, but, like most young people, Debashish felt in conflict about his direction. ‘At 21, I was hungry to experience every new taste,’ he says. ‘Yet I had a deep love for raga. As I explored the music deeper, it came to me slowly, in my subconscious, that my purpose in life would be to serve as a bridge between raga’s past and future.’

At age 40, Debashish was made a Pandit (master), which expanded his international career. He started to record and tour widely, often with his brother Subhasis on tablas and his sister Sutapa on vocals, and in 2003 they established Bhattacharya’s International School of Universal Music in Kolkata. In the Bhattacharya family, respect for tradition is coupled with interest in other cultures. The Bhattacharyas speak reverently of Ray Charles as well as Ali Akbar Khan, and they are at home in many musical contexts. However, their foundation remains Indian traditional music. Tours of transcendent live concerts and bestselling albums have established Debashish as one of his generation’s leading ambassadors of raga. ‘I don’t call my music classical,’ Debashish says. ‘I don’t believe in Classicism or Romanticism in any art.

There was a time when raga was a private affair; only the rich had access. Now there are no more Maharajas or kings and queens. This is the Internet age. Music reaches everyone and I want everyone to experience raga. I also want to experience them!’ Debashish has continued his innovations in the field of music, designing nineteen slide guitars so far. In 2002, he played his three favourite designs for his father. ‘He told me they sound like three generations of instruments,’ Debashish says. ‘He said they sound like they are from ancient times and yet they seem like they belong in the future. It was then I realized they represented my highest aspirations. This was the birth of the Trinity of Guitars.’ The Trinity Of Guitars The Trinity is a powerful symbol across the world. In Indian cosmology Tri Netra is Sanskrit for ‘three eyes’. It is associated with the motherly beauty of the goddess Durga, the cosmic strength of Lord Shiva, and the pure love of a child for its parents. The three eyes also represent past, present and future. The first guitar of the Trinity is Chaturangui. Chatur means ‘four’, and ang means ‘attribute’. The Chaturangui is a twenty-two-string guitar with four additional tones. Its twelve sympathetic strings are tuned to the scale of the raga, and produce shimmering overtones of the notes played on the melody strings. ‘Chaturangui sings with the power of a Western slide guitar,’ Debashish says. ‘At the same time it incorporates the timbres of violin, sitar, sarod and veena.’ The second guitar is the fourteen-string Gandharvi. Its name derives from Gandharva loka, the celestial realm of music. ‘When you pluck the Ghandarvi it sounds like a veena, but when you slide it sounds like a sarangi,’ Debashish says. ‘It also has the Middle Eastern sound of Saz, Western twelve-string guitar and Spanish Flamenco guitar.’ Created in 2000, the tiny Anandi is a slide ukulele. Its hollow neck creates a surprisingly direct, clear tone. Anandi means ‘joy’. ‘Even before it is played, little Anandi puts a smile on peoples’ faces,’ says Debashish.


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