Music born in Hindu temples and nourished in the 16th century courts of Moslem
royalty came to a more modest venue Tuesday, a classroom in Bowling Green State
University’s Olscamp Hall.
Pandit Hom Nath Upadhyaya, a master of the tabla, an Indian tuned drum, and Paul
Livingstone, a sitar player who has studied with Ravi Shankar, are in Bowling
Green to teach and perform this week.
Tuesday they were guest lecturers and performers in two Music of World Cultures
classes. Thursday at 8 p.m. they will perform a concert of classical ragas and
the Indian rhythms in the Arts Village in Kreischer Quad. Joining them will be
Mamta Upadhyaya, Upadhyaya’s daughter, who will perform traditional Nepalese
dances. The three will also perform a concert Friday at 8 p.m. at the Robinwood
Concert House, 2564 Robinwood Ave., Toledo, with a suggested donation of $10.

During the classes, Upadhyaya and Livingstone gave a brief overview of the music,
offering long musical examples.
Livingstone told the students to ditch any expectations they have of other music when
listening to northern Indian classical music.
"Just listen with an open heart and mind to the music … this music will carry
you away to a place of peace and beauty."
The music is meant to evoke feelings, and the ragas, the basic musical structures,
are often tied to times of the day.
Each piece is based around a basic scale, he explained, but it is more complex.
"Each raga has a science to it, a phraseology, a collection of phrases that
contribute to the sound," Livingstone said.
This "science" is paired with the "more subjective side" that
brings out the "soul of the artist," Livingstone said.
Indian music transpires in two dimensions – the long, intricate melodies, improvised
within the structures of the raga, and the pulsating and complex rhythms of the
tabla.
Upadhyaya explained that the tabla more than just establishing the beat plays
melodies based on the syllables sung by vocalists.
The tabla and sitar together with a drone – provided by a computer app on Tuesday –
forms the basis of the performances that can last two hours, yet are
"always following the strict structures of the raga," Livingstone
said.
Those performances spin out with serpentine lines, accented by keening bent tones
answered by the steady shower of patterns from the tabla.
At 68 Upadhyaya has become a teacher himself. He now teaches at the University of
California at Santa Barbara. One of his students Rob Wallace, now on the music
faculty at BGSU, is hosting the duo.
Upadhyaya did not come from a family of musicians, as is traditional. Growing up in
Kathmandu, Nepal, he started very young beating out rhythms on the bottom of
cooking pots. His rhythms were so good, that older boys who liked to sing would
have him accompany him. It wasn’t until he was 9 when his family traveled to
Benares, India, on a pilgrimage that he started to study.
His passion for music blossomed there. The holy Hindu city, he said, was full of
music, and he found many people to share it with.
He eventually moved back to Kathmandu where he studied with a venerable
percussionist. He began touring with musicians. From 1972 to 1977 he lived in
Bombay and worked with a 90-member orchestra directed RD Burman recording the
soundtracks to Bollywood movies.
He returned to teach in Nepal, but eventually he was in such demand as a touring
musician, he devoted himself to playing until 1998 when he took the job in
California.
Livingstone, 41, discovered Indian music through the Beatles when he was 12 years
old. He described himself as "a crazy Beatles fan who loved the later
psychedelic music."
One track in particular "Within You Without You" with its intricate sitar
soundscape entranced him. "That was the first transcendent moment of my
life," he said. "This is the instrument I want to play. …. That
moment gave me the trajectory of my life."
His parents also had a Ravi Shankar record in their collection that he listened to.

Livingstone already was playing some guitar, an instrument he still performs on, but
at 15 he traveled to India where he began studying sitar.
Asked by a student how they learned their instruments, but musicians said they were
continuing to study.
"If you stop learning, you might as well die," said Livingstone. "Do
something you can learn for the your whole life."