Sukanta Ghoshal-A Chromatic Journey

We would like to express our deepest thanks to Mr Sukanta Ghoshal for his love and affection towards our team members Vijay Konda, Ramana and Rameshwaram Bhardwaj during their recent visit to Howrah. We take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about Mr Sukanta Ghoshal and his Chromatic Journey.

Sukanta Ghoshal’s musical career is a story of an enduring love towards the chromatic harmonica. Born in Shibpur, Howrah in 1970, Ghoshal was brought up in a rich musical environment. His dad being a disciple in tabla of the great Pt. Jnan Prakash Ghosh – informal musical sessions at home were common. What’s more - his aunt used to be a professor at the Rabindra Bharati University, and an aura of Rabindra Sangeet was surrounding him. These combined musical factors thus had a profound effect on Ghoshal from his childhood days as he developed a strong liking for music.

While in college, Ghoshal was inspired by a senior and took to the chromatic harmonica when he was a first year undergraduate student. He started out as a self-taught guy on a ‘Tower’ and even did a couple of shows that way! But soon he decided to learn the instrument formally, and started doing so from Premangshu Chatterjee, back in 1991.

As recollects Ghoshal, the first 6-7 months went on smoothly, and he never failed to live up to his home assignments. Harmonica by then must have captured Ghoshal’s mind completely! “It was for the first time in the song ‘Pathe Ebaar Naamo Saathi’ – that I stumbled upon some difficult note progressions.” – admits Ghoshal, smilingly!

The learning went on fine and Ghoshal got himself his first ‘Hohner Super Chromonica’ in 1992. In 1994 came an important juncture when he became a disciple of the great Milon Gupta! Unfortunately, Milon Gupta died in February 95 – Ghoshal continued learning though from his daughter Mummun Gupta. By this time, he had become quite adept at reading music on the go.

In 1995, he started learning harmonica from the great Parimal Dasgupta, considered a legendary musician, composer and arranger in the Calcutta music circuit. Dasgupta being a learned man and a scholar of music in his own right, Ghoshal started learning the technicalities and nuances of music from him and began to acquire maturity in terms of technique and theory. It was Dasgupta who also taught Ghoshal concepts of harmony and double stops in the 3^rd and the 6^th!

1995 proved to be a turning point in Ghoshal’s harmonica career in more respects! It was this year that he surpassed 65 competitors to snatch the winner’s trophy in both ‘Light Indian’ and ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ categories – in a competition organized by the IHA (Indian Harmonica Association) in memory of the Late Milon Gupta. What’s more – he was also selected as a grade artiste at the All India Radio! And Ghoshal did not have to look back ever since.

A regular performer with the AIR, Ghoshal does public shows selectively. Speaking of his memorable moments as a performer, Ghoshal fondly remembers a show in 2006 at the CCFC grounds in Kolkata where he played an unbelievable 25 songs at a stretch in a show spanning over 2 hours!

Ghoshal’s art reflects his sheer control over the technical aspects of playing a chromatic. His playing is also characterized by his mastery over speed; executing difficult and fast note progressions on a chromatic harmonica in a crisp manner that only a few can pull of! Ghoshal is also very particular about the small vocal inflections and nuances and is always on the lookout for that elusive ‘feel’ while he is at a song!

As a musician, Ghoshal has always been inspired greatly by the compositions of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and Salil Chowdhury – and of course by the playing of the greats such as Larry Adler and Milon Gupta. “I have listened to ‘Salil Chowdhry Hits’ by Milon Gupta more than 200 times!” – chuckles Ghoshal.

Since 2000, he is also engaged in inspiring others to pick up harmonica - as a faculty at Banichakra, Kolkata – nurturing fresh minds to take the art forward!

Write up by Mr Arindam Sen, Kolkata

HaLoH meeting with Debashis Dutta

After a vacation at Mysore, on way back to Hyderabad, our member Ramana halted at Bengaluru for a few hours. He met Mr Debashis Dutta, a popular harmonica player of India at his residence. No wonder, without harmonica session, any harmonica enthusiast's vacation is incomplete. Though it was a working day, Mr Debhasis deferred his official meeting and spent about 3 hours with Ramana on discussing and enjoying harmonica session.

Mr Debashis Dutta, an Aerospace and Materials engineer by profession, is 55 years old. He is based at Bangalore where he had lived and worked for the last 30 years. He did his B.Tech in Metallurgical Engineering from BHU-IT and then followed it up with an M.Tech degree each in Aerospace Engg (IIT-Madras) and Materials Engg (IISc Bangalore). He currently works in a senior engineering position for a US based aerospace MNC in Bangalore. He is a member of harmonica Club of Bangalore.

He is a self-trained mouthorgan player. He got introduced to this instrument when he was about 14/15 years old in high school by his maternal cousin Mr. Satinath Mukherjee who was an accomplished harmonica and piano professional and a contemporary of the great Milon Gupta. His cousin gifted an old Hohner mouth organ to him which he still possesses. What interests him about the instrument is that it is quite versatile, user friendly, a constant companion for every season and every place and produces music that pleases his ears along with everyone else’s ears. Moreover, anyone with an ear for music can learn the instrument on his/her own and give performances.

This is what Mr Debashis Dutta says about his harmonica playing style and preferences: “My playing style is basically single note playing but I do resort to Octave playing depending on the requirement of the song. For that matter I also resort to tongue slapping once in a while depending on whether that style would best suit the particular line of the song in a given situation. I try to get into the emotion or "feel" of the song rather than concentrating too much on accuracy of individual notes, lyrics or grammar. This approach according to me brings out the best from a harmonica or any wind instrument. I prefer playing Indian music, i.e., old meldious Hindi or Bengali songs with beautiful tunes composed by legends like Salil Chowdhury, Pancham Da, SD, Naushad, Madan Mohan etc. I prefer to play Chromatic harmonica of Suzuki and Hohner brands.”

Embedded below is a rendition by Mr Debashis Dutta.

Ajay Vijh and his positive 'VIBRATIONS'

Our harmonica lover of this week is Mr. Ajay Vijh, a regular visitor and follower of this blog. Many harmonica lovers must have listened to his yr 2008 musical album titled 'VIBRATIONS' in which he has played some popular bollywood numbers on the harmonica. He is a civil engineer by profession employed with Northern Coalfields Ltd. at a small town called Singrauli which is situated in the border of UP and MP.

Making of a harmonica lover:

It all started around 30 years ago when Ajay Vijh studying in 8th standard attended a football tournament closing ceremony in his colony and saw a gentleman playing the harmonica during that programme. He liked the sweet sound of harmonica. He was so impressed with the sound that he borrowed a double sided Hero harmonica from one of his friends and tried producing some music on it. He played that harmonica for around 2 years and later stopped because his father had got transferred to another place. Later, he came across one of his friends during his Engineering course who had a Hero single sided tremolo harmonica. He borrowed the harmonica from that friend and started playing it again. Finally, after getting a job, he purchased a Hohner Super Chromonica 270.

Harmonica collection:

After getting placed in a job, Mr Ajay Vijh added many more harmonicas to his collection which includes Hohner 270 in the keys of C, G, D, A, E & B, LARRY ADLER 16, CX-12, and some Hohner diatonic harmonicas. Though he has only Hohner harmonicas, he wishes to have the harmonicas of other make too. Though he feels that the sound of Larry Adler is quite good, he prefers Hohner 270 because its slide can be reversed. He also has a Yamaha keyboard which he plays sometimes.

Favourite harmonica players:

Ajay ji’s ideal harmonica player is Late Milon Gupta. As a student, he used to save some pocket money to buy LPs and cassettes of Milon da and listen to his harmonica renditions. Amongst the current harmonicists, he likes the playing styles of Shri Anupam Pal, Shri Ashok Bhandari also popularly referred to as Big (B)handari, Shri Saikat Mukherji, Dr. Pankaj Bose, Shri Arijit Mukherji, Shri Swarup Mitra etc. He likes the way great music director Late Shri R.D. Burman utilized this little instrument in his music. As of today, he has personally met only one harmonica lover of the above-Shri Anupam Paul face to face. "It was an enriching experience to meet Shri Anupam Pal during my Kolkata visit recently", says Ajay Vijh.

Prefered style:

Ajay ji plays Indian melodies and prefers single note playing on his chromatic harmonica. Off late, he has been practicing tongue slapping too. Nevertheless, he feels that tongue slapping does not sound good if done for the complete song. It should be preferred only at some particular intervals in a song. Sometimes, he also reverses his slide of Hohner 270 to play in C#. He feels that some songs sound beautiful if played in C# especially when one presses the button to get a semitone lower note instead of a semitone high note as in the case of a 'C' harmonica. He advises new harmonica players to first listen to a song for at least 40 to 50 times and hum the tune till it becomes quite familiar before trying to play it on the harmonica. Secondly, he advises to stick to one song and play it completely before attempting another number.

Spreading the love for music:

Ajay ji and some talented music artists started "Orchestra Swar Sangeet" which was re-christened as "Symphony Orchestra" at Singrauli. They perform in and around Singrauli area. Ajay ji also does a bit of anchoring along with harmonica playing. He has also encouraged his 11 yr old son to play the harmonica. One can see his son playing the numbers like 'Pal pal' and 'Jai Ho' on his you tube channel- 'ajayvijh'.

Embedded below is a video made on the popular hindi melody 'Piya tose naina laage re' which was played by Mr Ajay Vijh in his album 'Vibrations'. Hope this piece of music brings positive vibrations within you :)

Harmonica Our Passion!

Harmonica lover of the week: Ravibabu

Ravibabu, a harmonica lover of Hyderabad, is ex-servicemen in Indian Army and is currently working in a multinational telecom company. He is our harmonica lover of this week.

First Love for Harmonica:

When Ravibabu was studying in 9th Std at Gorakhpur (UP), his school-mate (a Nepali) used to play the harmonica. At that time he was attracted to the harmonica because of its sound and tiny size. He became desperate to feel the harmonica but it was'nt available anywhere in the surroundings. His brother used to own a guitar. He gave the guitar to that school-mate and borrowed his harmonica. That was his first experience with this instrument. Within a very short period, he picked up few numbers like "Kanchi re kanchi" and "Hai apna dil to awara".

Experience at HaLoH:

After he joined Indian army as a wireless operator, harmonica gradually disappeared from his life for about two decades. One fine day, he happened to know about HaLoH and joined our group. Now, he is a full fledged harmonica player. He has a huge list of songs which he enjoys playing on his collection of harmonicas which includes Suzuki SCX56,Suzuki SCX48 in A,G,Hohner Super hromonica in D,F,Super Chromonica Deluxe,Hohner CX-12 in C,Swan 10 holes chromatic,Suzuki pure harp diatonic, Suzuki pro-v diatonic,Hohner puck and a silver song diatonic in G. He always expresses his thanks to HaLoH members, especially Vinayak and Ramana who inspired him to use chromatics and octave playing on harmonica. He feels HaLoH has motivated him to play a wide range of songs on harmonica and is a proud Harmonica Lover of Hyderabad. HaLoH wishes Mr Ravibabu all the best in all his future endeavours in his career and passion.

Please watch Ravibabu's video. He's playing "Lakhon hain nigahon mein"

HaLoH pays tribute to the Indian harmonica legend (Late) Shri Milon Gupta

Harmonica Lovers of Hyderabad paid tribute to the Indian harmonica legend (Late) Shri Milon Gupta who breathed his last on Feb 18th in the year 1995. It was a small gathering at Rajkumar Gavvala’s residence. Milon da is the man who popularized harmonica with his melodies and taught harmonica to many harmonica lovers including Shri Vinayak B. HaLoH members M/s Vinayak, A. Rajkumar, Kailashnath, Ashwin, Mahendra Gala, Ramana attended the meeting. Shri A. Rajkumar introduced another harmonica lover to HaLoH who is Shri Shyamala Rao, Branch manager for a Govt. General Insurance company at Hyderabad. He shared his love and passion for harmonica with all of us. One of the greatest harmonica players of this country Mr Swarup Mitra called HaLoH team at the same time to pay his tribute to the harmonica legend Shri Milon Gupta whom he calls as “the Bhagwan of harmonica”. He played the tune “Aaj koi na apna” over phone. Another Milon Da’s fan from Kolkata Mr Shubmay Das Gupta sent a message to HaLoH team “I still remember that fateful evening. I was at Rabindra Sadan at that time, a stone’s throw away from Milon Da’s residence, when he passed away. I took my last class from him only on the evening before and was unaware that he was no more. Hence, could not pay my last respects." Smt. Sujata Dutta, daughter of Milon da expressed her feelings regarding the tribute paid to her late father by harmonica lovers to Shri Vinayak. Mr

Ajay Vijh(MP), Mr Ashok Kulkarni (Maharashtra), Mr Debasis Dutta (Banglore) also expressed their respects for the legend.

Let us pray for the departed soul of the gentleman musician MILON GUPTA on his 16^th death anniversary.

Rendezvous with Milon da’s associate- Shri Karun Chakraborty

Our team member Ramana along with harmonica lover Rameshwaram Bharadwaj visited Chandan Nagar, Kolkata to meet Milon da’s close associate and one of the greatest harmonica players of India. Karun Chakraborty, a resident of Chandan Nagar (West Bengal), a painter by profession, has been following his hobby of playing the harmonica for more than 50 years now. He is a member of SPAH(Society for Preservation and Advancement of Harmonica), headquartered in Michigan (USA) and was invited to perform everyday in the week long 37^th Annual convention held in Romulus, Michigan in August 2000. The renowned harmonicist of Kolkata , Late Milon Gupta was his teacher and guide.In Milon da’s absence,He used to train his(Milon Da’s) students.

Mr Chakraborty was awarded the Gold Medal in the West Bengal Youth Festival in 1965 and has been performing at many venues in India as well as overseas all through. In the US, he has performed at University of Utah, Salt Lake City in 1997 for the "Fifty years of Indian Independence Celebrations", at Hartford, Connecticut and at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut in 1988. In the same year, he was invited to become an honorary member of the Golden Age Harmonicats of Chicopee, Massachusetts which had been founded by the late Sam Sheppard, and played at several functions all over the New England area as part of the group. He is equally skilled in playing Indian tunes as well as Western tunes. Very painful to share with you- now he is visually handicapped due to macular degeneration since his early 30s. However, this hasn't discouraged him to play the harmonica which he feels is his life.
Mr Karun’s better half- Smt Dipali Chakraborty, HOD Dept of English,Shillong College(Retired), also a music lover always accompanies Mr Karun Chakraborty at all the events. She has special interest in Rabindra Sangeet and has translated around 50 songs to English and those were published in Kolkata local magazine- "KRISTI".

The couple extended a warm welcome to our team members and this meeting was one of their most memorable meetings.

We do hope you'll enjoy watching these videos

Thank you.

Meeting with celebrated Indian harmonicat- Dr Pankaj Bose

During their recent trip to Kolkata- Ramana,Vijay Konda and Rameshwaram met with the Indian harmonicat Dr Pankaj Bose at his residence. Dr Pankaj Bose is an educationist attached with University of Calcutta. He is famous for his inimitable style of playing. Over 400 tunes like modern Bengali, Hindi film songs, Rabindra sangeet, Kirtan, Raga based semi classical songs have been released by UD-Series & Raga Music. In 2001, Bangla Chalachitra Prachar Sansad ornamented him by giving “Uttam KumarAward”. He was the Vice President of Indian Harmonica Association. Manna De (The famous Indian singer) became charmed and sent him the certificate by his own handwriting. He used to take part in AIR, DDK-Kolkata & other private channels at a regular interval. Ankur Bose, son of Dr. Bose, an IT engineer as well as a shining keyboard player, has already created venture jointly with his father.

We hope you'll enjoy watching these videos

Harmonica lover Chandrashekhar Khare visited HaLoH

Few days ago, another harmonica lover from Banglore Mr Chandrashekhar Khare visited HaLoH. The atmosphere was really graced with his presence. We enjoyed listening to the renditions by Mr Khare on his Hohner Super 64X. HaLoH members present there had played harmonica one by one.

Banglore based Mr Chandrashekhar Khare an electronics engineer by qualification is working in IT industry for the past 17 years and a core member of Bangalore Harmonica Club.

Mr Khare picked up harmonica at the age of 10, he was introduced to this instrument by some of his kid friends who bought it as a toy. But he took it more seriously and started playing songs. That is when his father bought him a Hero make harmonica. Since last 24 years Mr Khare continues to play Hohner make chromatic harmonicas.

Given below are his views and feelings about harmonica.

“This instrument is portable, sounds beautiful, and has a wonderful range in terms of the kinds of music you can play. Above all, it gives you a chance to be a solo player and allows you to come out of the shadows of the vocalist. A harmonica player will generally not be seen accompanying. Even so, then his music will stand out during performance, Till date, I have learned on my own without any formal training. My ears have been my gurus. I keep taking tips from fellow players on improving the techniques. Now with internet and youtube around, learning has become easier. In India, many players of the past generation are stuck with Bollywood and just one style of playing. They have lot of notions regarding what can not be done with Harmonica. As a result, they tend to plant these beliefs in the mind of youngsters. This approach needs to be rooted out if anything good was to happen on the harmonica scene in India. We should let the oxygen of fresh ideas flow and see the instrument evolve. The youngsters have the talent and capacity to work miracles. So help them unleash their potential”

--- Chandrashekhar Khare,Banglore.

HaLoH looks forward to meet more harmonica lovers from BHC in the days to come.

HarmonicaIndia group strives to popularise the humble harmonica-Darshan Manakkal.

As far back as 1956, when bluesmen like Sonny Boy Williamson 2 and Howlin’ Wolf were introducing American audiences to the harmonica, Badruddin Kazi, otherwise known as Johnny Walker, was seen playing it in “Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan”, in the movieCID. Two decades later, Dharmendra pursed his lips around one while perilously perched on Amitabh Bachchan’s shoulders in “Yeh Dosti” in Sholay. The musician playing the harmonica in both films was Milon Gupta, a self-trained artist from Kolkata, who in turn taught and inspired an entire generation of Indian harmonica players, including RD Burman. Milonda (as he is fondly referred to by his many students) is credited with adapting the Western instrument to play Indian melodies. However, after Gupta’s death in 1995, the instrument lost favour with Bollywood composers and slipped into obscurity. Harmonica players from around the country are hoping to change that. They recently formed an online group called HarmonicaIndia to restore respect to the instrument and to remove its “picnic toy” tag. HarmonicaIndia, which now has 444 members, was formed in 2006 by the Bangalore-based purveyor of musical instruments, Abe Thomas. Thomas admitted that his motivations spring in part from his business interests – he represents the Suzuki Musical Corporation in India, which manufactures harmonicas. “It’s called market development!” he said. “We must first teach a person to drive before selling him a car. Once you get the harmonica bug, it’s very hard to shake it off.” The group, which started off as a marketing exercise for Thomas, has now grown to an exhaustive online pool of resources, where members come to discuss techniques (vibrato, head shaking, bending, tongue blocking, vamping, chording and so on), types of harmonicas (chromatic, diatonic, tremolo and the like), tablature for popular songs, and to comment on harmonica recordings by other members. Debashis Dutta, a Bangalore-based aerospace and materials engineer and a self-taught harmonica player, said he has benefited enormously from the interactions on the group. “I learnt a lot about music theory, harmonica types, playing styles, and how to play songs of different scales on a single harmonica of a particular key,” said Dutta, who was gifted his first harmonica, a Hohner, by his cousin when he was 14 years old. “From the comments by group members on my own performances, I have learnt and improved my own playing.” One person who has managed to do this without the website is Vishwananth Shirali, a 71-year-old who taught himself the harmonica. Shirali uses the internet to look for instrumental versions of popular Hindi film songs. He plays his Hohner by ear along with the music, the reed instrument standing in for the vocal parts of songs like “Raat Ke Humsafar” from An Evening In Paris. “It was very popular when I was in college, especially during The Beatles craze,” said Shirali. He moved on to playing the synthesiser and forgot about the harmonica until 2005, when saxophonist and RD Burman’s assistant Manohari Singh came to his show. “I happened to be playing the harmonica,” said Shirali. “Mr Manohari enjoyed it so much he invited me to accompany his saxophone at an RD Burman tribute where I shared the stage with musicians from Burman’s orchestra.” That performance led to more, including an OP Nayyar tribute organised by Pune’s Harmonica Club in 2009. Last year, Shirali’s harmonica was part of a song sung by Shreya Ghoshal and Kunal Ganjawala for the Kannada film Jothegara. Notwithstanding bit parts in films, the harmonica is still in danger of disappearing altogether, said Sudheendra Muralidhara, a software entrepreneur from Bangalore. He lauds the launch of HarmonicaIndia but is a little disappointed with the quality of discussions in the online forum. Unwarranted criticisms frequently mar proceedings. “I’d love to see a more open-minded learning attitude,” conceded Thomas. He is also hoping that an offline initiative he proposed, to get 60 harmonica players from around India to play the national anthem together, will take off. With inputs by Aditya Kundalkar Visit www.harmonicaindia.com for more information and to become a member.

Source : Time Out Mumbai

Megha chhaye adhee raat-Avinesh Singh

Hussain Sagar to Hoogly-Harmonica Lovers' trip to Kolkata

This December, harmonica lovers Ramana, Vijay Konda and Rameshwaram (from M.P.) visited Kolkata to meet other harmonica lovers for discussing harmonica. This trip which lasted for 4 days was a memorable experience for them. They met lots of great harmonica players and had interesting harmonica sessions.

The people whom they met were Messrs Bhaskar Chowdhury,Karun Chakaraborty,Premangshu Chatterjee,Sugato Chatterjee,Swarup Mitra,Sukanto Ghoshal,Shubmay Das Gupta,Dr Pankaj Bose,Anupam Pal,Dr Prashant Kumar Bhandopadyay,Dr Debasis Mukherjee and Mr Sumanta Basu.

Shortly, you'll find some articles on these harmonica lovers in this blog. The followers of this blog may have an opportunity to see rare photographs of some great harmonica players including harmonica legend Shri Milon Gupta in due course.

Harmonica lovers' sunday meeting on 26th Dec' 2010

This week, two harmonica lovers from different states visited HaLoH meeting at Indira Park.

Raman Khandelwal from Jaipur (Rajasthan), and Sanath Kumar from Chennai attended the meeting yesterday.

Raman Khandelwal is a virtual member of HaLoH and is one of the publishers of this blog. This was his first meeting at Indira Park. He was very enthusiastic to meet all the HaLoH members. His prime wish was to play the harmonica under the "Bodhi" tree in (as we popularly call it) in the presence of other harmonica lovers.

After watching some harmonica related videos of Kolkata harmonica artistes at on laptop, all the players played their favorite numbers one-by-one. This was followed by herbal tea and sweets before calling it a day.

Harmonica Lover of the week- Sanat Kumar

I am a Structural Engineer. I had done my Bachelors in Civil Engg. from College of Engineering, Kakinada & M. Tech (Structural Engg.) from I.I.T Kharagpur. I am presently working with an MNC in Chennai. My interest in instrumental music was generated from the intermittent melodious instrumental tunes which used to be played during Binaca Geet Mala and other radio programmes of yesteryears. I came across a Hero diatonic instrument quite accidentally on a pavement in the then Bombay during my college industrial tour. At first, I did a fewexperiments with the little instrument by myself and did succeed in being able to play a few easy tunes although not so accurately. One fine day, while I was studying in my hostel room in I.I.T Kharagpur, I heard the tune "Jaago Mohan Pyaare Jago....." being played brilliantly by somebody in the other wing. I just couldn't believe that this song could be played on the Mouth Organ so well. I at once tried my best to play this on my diatonic Hero instrument but soon discovered that it was beyond me. At that time, I knew nothing about the Chromatic or any other types of mouth organ. After this, I gradually got busy with my job and hardly found time for this hobby. It was only about eight years ago when I travelled to Germany that I bought a Hohner Mouth Organ and my interest began to revive. Four years back, I bought a Chrometta 14 Hohner. I recently bought Suzuki SCX-64 & Hohner Puck. I am ignorant of music theory and cannot read any notes. I play only by the ear. My first interaction with other Harmonica playes, like in the case of most others, happened through the net from Youtube postings. This is how I first came across HaLoH which was luckily being formed almost at the same time as my rising interest in the little instrument. My first visit to HaLoH happened when I visited Hyderabad during 2008. I was very thrilled to meet so many like minded Harmonica enthusiasts at one location for the first time in my life. I wished to visit more often but due to very busy work schedule, my second visit had to wait till DEC 2010. I thank all the members of HaLoH for sharing some very memorable time with me. I wish all the members a great time ahead and A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Please do convey my regards to all the members of HaLoH.

Thanks & Regards,

Sanath Kumar,

Chennai

Megha chaye aadhi raat-Ashok Bhandari

Saying Hello! to HaLoH

It was a great excitement to me when i planned a trip to meet Harmonica Lover of Hyderabad Ramana after visiting Keyur bhai in Ahmedabad last month.When my train reached Hyderabad, it was 12:30 midnight. Ramana was there to receive me. It was the most touchy moment i felt ever. There were endless talks about harmonica till 6 am. I learned his practice methodology on harmonica. He is one of the most talented players. On sunday 24th Oct, I went to meet HaLoH members at Indira park. There, I meet Shri Vinayakji who was a student of Great Milon da. He gave me some great tips under "Bodhi" tree. I met several magnificent players like Mr.Rajkumar, Mr.Vijay Konda, Mr. Avinesh Singh, Kailashnath ji,,Mahendra Gala ji, Soni sahab and each of them has his own style of playing harmonica. I thank Ramana and all HaLoH members to make my trip memorable with love and great learning experience.

Please watch this video which showcases my meeting with HaLoH team and my harmonica rendition in the background.

Thank you

Rameshwaram Bhardwaj,

Katni,MP

Zindagi kaisi hai paheli-Ramana

22nd Nov'10-Celebrating Milon da's 80th birth anniversary

Last night Harmonica Lovers of Hyderabad Shri Vinayak B., G.Rajkumar and I celebrated 77th birth anniversary of Milon da at my home. We had a great time from 9 pm till midnight. Milon da is the man who popularized harmonica with his melodies and taught harmonica to many harmonica lovers including Shri Vinayak B.

Harmonica just doesn't sound sweet but gives sweet bond of friendship.

Excitement had been building up every moment since KK(Kromatic Khandelwal) informed me that the train he had taken from Jaipur to Mumbai would stop at Ahmedabad. He was a bit hesitant to inform me about his journey as he was not sure if the train would reach Ahmedabad in time and he didn't wish to disturb me in late hours.

Harmonica is the reason we became friends. I remember, he was first to call me after the unhappy strategic incidents. For me KK is knowledgeable, warm and very friendly topped with maturity. It's hard to resist not to be his friend. Today I feel as if we were together in school. After Ramana and Rameshwarm Bhardwaj, time had come to see Raman Khandelwal. I almost ran through stairs as I heard the announcement of Raman's train arrival. He was there standing near the door of his coach and jumped as he saw me. We hugged and talked a lot over and above harmonica. I took some photos with him for my memory. Of course, KK has promised me to come along with his family but this was our first meet and hence carries lot of values to both of us. Harmonica just doesn't sound sweet but gives sweet bond of friendship.

Love,

Keyur,Ahmedabad.

Arijit Mukherji plays Harmonica with Usha Uthup on Thats what friends are for..

O hansini meri hansini-Ramana

Arabian Belly Dance Misirlou Indian Version on Harmonica by - Avinesh Singh

Harmonica our passion!

Shri Inderjit Singh Soni, Visits harmonica lovers meeting regularly to improve his harmonica playing skills and also encourages others to play the harmonica.We are uploading his video clipping this week.

Another day with Shri V.S. Shirali

Today, I want to share with you- my experience of a date with fabulous harmonica player Shri VS Shirali on my recent visit to Mumbai with few photos and videos I captured for the benefit of the harmonica lovers and visitors of this blog.

Needless to say, I'm a big fan of Shri Shirali and he treats me like his son. He is a very nice person with abundant knowledge of music. Apart from harmonica, he is a great keyboard and Guitar player. I adopted lot of things from him during our 8 non stop hours of discussion about music and harmonica. He says "In our generation we had the priority to be a musician first and a technician next... but these days the current generation people want to be a technician rather than being a musician. It is not a good sign".
He took me to his mentor- legendary sax player of India Late Shri Manohari Singh’s home where I conveyed my condolence to his family members as he passed away recently

I do hope you'll enjoy watching these videos. You can read more about Mr Shirali at the link given below.

http://harmonicahyderabad.blogspot.com/2010/07/vsshirali-fabulous-harmonica-player.html

A visit to Shirdi- Meeting with harmonica lover Shri Kiran Parikh

From Mumbai, I visited Shirdi for Baba’s darshan and I came in contact with Shri Kiran Parikh, a businessman from Kopargaon 10 km from Shirdi. The moment I contacted him from Shirdi, he welcomed me to his residence inspite of his busy schedule and played a good host.
Shri Kiran Parikh, a brilliant harmonica player has been playing harmonica for over 30 years. He began playing the Chinese make 'Hero' instrument. He is a great fan of Shri Bhanu Gupta, who was an assistant to legendary composer R D Burman. He also went to Mumbai to meet harmonica maestro Firoze Damri and learnt some techniques of harmonica from him. He has a good collection of various kinds of harmonicas. He also has some customized harmonicas suitable for playing some Indian ragas. I'm very fortunate to see some of the rare harmonicas in his collection. We had a great musical session for about 90 minutes in his music room which is fully equiped with Karaoke CDs. Though he plays all kinds of effects like tongue slap, Octave etc he loves to play clean single notes on a Hohner 270 harmonica. He prefers to play semi classical and rare old Hindi melodies. He says he is now going to perform about 200 stage harmonica shows in and around Maharashtra state. Even after leaving his place, he called me to know about my welfare I am very happy to meet this harmonica lover and love to meet him again at the earliest. He has also promised to visit Hyderabad to share his passion with all the Harmonica Lovers of Hyderabad.