The concept of an Irish percussionist travelling to India to make a documentary film on Indian percussion is unique sufficient. Add the truth that he chooses to make it concerning the kanjira — the much less glamorous percussive sibling of mridangam or ghatam in Carnatic music- and your curiosity is piqued excessive sufficient to converse with him. For the needs of this story this can be a long-winded method to introduce Ruairi Glasheen: a percussionist, musician, filmmaker and trainer, but it surely’s additionally correct. The Cork, Eire-born Glasheen travelled to south India in 2018 and 2019 to shoot the documentary, Hidden Drums of India. Filmed in Bengaluru and Chennai, the three-part movie centres on the kanjira and options wellknown Carnatic percussionists Anoor R Ananthakrishna Sharma and Ghatam Giridhar Udupa together with outstanding kanjira players Lata Ramachar, Sunaad Anoor, Shree Sundarkumar and Harihara Sharma. What’s noteworthy is Hidden Drums of India is a sequel to Glasheen’s extra well-liked documentary, Hidden Drums of Iran, the place he featured tonbak gamers of the nation.
“It’s not simply the rhythms that encourage me, however the story behind these age previous traditions, and the musicians who’re drumming new life into them,” causes Glasheen on why he chooses to make movies on unusual drums just like the tonbak or kanjira. Excerpts from an electronic mail interview:
After Iran, what caught your consideration about Indian classical percussion to need to make a documentary about it?
India is likely one of the best locations on earth to be as a percussionist! I can’t consider one other nation that compares to India’s many wealthy drumming and percussive traditions. Even past the Classical traditions of Hindustani and Carnatic music, there are such a lot of fabulous drums in India to uncover and discover. After Iran, it was clear to me that the following movie could be in India, as there are such a lot of phenomenal devices and inspirational gamers I need to study from.
Kanjira shouldn’t be the first percussion instrument in Carnatic music. Why did you select to give attention to it?
The kanjira is completely fascinating to me. In the suitable set of palms this tiny instrument can take advantage of unimaginable vary of sounds! Sunaad Anoor who options within the collection instructed me that it may be like a monster, which I completely agree with! I liked that comparability, this tiny drum making the spectacular sound!
You function a gifted set of Carnatic percussionists within the movie. How did you determine on the gamers? Additionally, how scripted had been the scenes?
It was my privilege to get to work with so many unimaginable gamers while we had been filming in India. I reached out to quite a lot of gamers who impressed me within the months earlier than the journey to see if they might be inquisitive about being concerned. From there the ensemble of gamers who function within the collection emerged.
It was as much as me to try to match into everybody’s schedule! The scenes are completely unscripted, which is the one manner I may ever think about working as a documentary filmmaker. My imaginative and prescient is to try to present essentially the most correct depiction of occasions as they occurred in actual time with none agenda or bias which hopefully comes throughout to the viewer as they journey by the three episodes.
As a bodhran participant, do you end up robotically drawn to non-mainstream drums just like the tonbak and the kanjira? As a musician, what have you ever taken away out of your interactions with percussionists in each international locations?
Haha! I like the query. Bodhrán has been with me from the age of 4 and is a large a part of my life. I reside and breath for this custom, and I feel it’s precisely what attracts me to different percussionists enjoying drums like kanjira and tonbak. These devices are a part of us, our tradition, our identification, and except we as gamers stand up and shout about them, sadly they’ll disappear. I’ve no worry for bodhrán, kanjira or tonbak — as you’ve seen in my movies, we’re all fired up and able to deliver these devices to new audiences and preserve the fireplace burning for generations to come back.
Each your documentaries can be found for viewing in your YouTube channel however have you ever screened them at festivals? What ambitions do you might have for them?
Hidden Drummers of Iran premiered on the finish of 2019 on the San Francisco Persian Movie Pageant and Soundtrack Cologne and was chosen for quite a lot of different festivals. The story of our movie received picked up by the BBC, CNN and quite a lot of different information retailers, so constructing on that, I made a decision to launch independently on YouTube. Although it takes some time to construct an viewers there I like how accessible the movies are to anybody on the planet who needs to look at them. I’m a musician at coronary heart and it’s all about making these significant connections with the viewers.
“It’s not simply the rhythms that encourage me, however the story behind these age previous traditions, and the musicians who’re drumming new life into them,” causes Glasheen on why he chooses to make movies on unusual drums just like the tonbak or kanjira. Excerpts from an electronic mail interview:
After Iran, what caught your consideration about Indian classical percussion to need to make a documentary about it?
India is likely one of the best locations on earth to be as a percussionist! I can’t consider one other nation that compares to India’s many wealthy drumming and percussive traditions. Even past the Classical traditions of Hindustani and Carnatic music, there are such a lot of fabulous drums in India to uncover and discover. After Iran, it was clear to me that the following movie could be in India, as there are such a lot of phenomenal devices and inspirational gamers I need to study from.
Kanjira shouldn’t be the first percussion instrument in Carnatic music. Why did you select to give attention to it?
The kanjira is completely fascinating to me. In the suitable set of palms this tiny instrument can take advantage of unimaginable vary of sounds! Sunaad Anoor who options within the collection instructed me that it may be like a monster, which I completely agree with! I liked that comparability, this tiny drum making the spectacular sound!
You function a gifted set of Carnatic percussionists within the movie. How did you determine on the gamers? Additionally, how scripted had been the scenes?
It was my privilege to get to work with so many unimaginable gamers while we had been filming in India. I reached out to quite a lot of gamers who impressed me within the months earlier than the journey to see if they might be inquisitive about being concerned. From there the ensemble of gamers who function within the collection emerged.
It was as much as me to try to match into everybody’s schedule! The scenes are completely unscripted, which is the one manner I may ever think about working as a documentary filmmaker. My imaginative and prescient is to try to present essentially the most correct depiction of occasions as they occurred in actual time with none agenda or bias which hopefully comes throughout to the viewer as they journey by the three episodes.
As a bodhran participant, do you end up robotically drawn to non-mainstream drums just like the tonbak and the kanjira? As a musician, what have you ever taken away out of your interactions with percussionists in each international locations?
Haha! I like the query. Bodhrán has been with me from the age of 4 and is a large a part of my life. I reside and breath for this custom, and I feel it’s precisely what attracts me to different percussionists enjoying drums like kanjira and tonbak. These devices are a part of us, our tradition, our identification, and except we as gamers stand up and shout about them, sadly they’ll disappear. I’ve no worry for bodhrán, kanjira or tonbak — as you’ve seen in my movies, we’re all fired up and able to deliver these devices to new audiences and preserve the fireplace burning for generations to come back.
Each your documentaries can be found for viewing in your YouTube channel however have you ever screened them at festivals? What ambitions do you might have for them?
Hidden Drummers of Iran premiered on the finish of 2019 on the San Francisco Persian Movie Pageant and Soundtrack Cologne and was chosen for quite a lot of different festivals. The story of our movie received picked up by the BBC, CNN and quite a lot of different information retailers, so constructing on that, I made a decision to launch independently on YouTube. Although it takes some time to construct an viewers there I like how accessible the movies are to anybody on the planet who needs to look at them. I’m a musician at coronary heart and it’s all about making these significant connections with the viewers.
