namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

Global 24 hr Kirtan during Kartik

In Brisbane - Saturday November 8th, 9am - Sunday November 8th, 9am @ the ISKCON Brisbane temple, 95 Bank Rd, Graceville.

In mrdanga playing power is good, endurance is great, but precision is king.

If you have power and endurance people will notice you. If you have precision you can become invisible - the kirtan will rock so hard that people will forget you're there.

And that's the goal.

How to play darbuka in kirtan from Sitapati das on Vimeo.

By popular demand, a video demonstrating darbuka beats to accompany the Bengali mrdanga beats used in ISKCON kirtans.

Watch Video

Bhaja hure mana in English.

It's starting to come together for Janmastami, where we will be playing.

I will work on my singing over this next week. I don't have a lot of natural talent so I have to work hard to get my voice to hit the notes. A week of practice will make it a lot better.

[Watch Video]

OK, so for the time being I'm calling my band "The Sitapati Project". After all, it's all about me,right? ;-)

Check it out on Reverb Nation or Facebook.

For anyone that hasn't already I highly recomend you can download the entire audio of Bada Hari Prabhu's kirtan here.

In case you couldn't tell from the videos, from all the reports I got the festival was amazing, the best festival of the year, etc etc.

Stay tuned for more nectar, hopefully we'll soon get the audio and video from Niranjana Swami, Radhanath Swami, and Sivarama Swami's kirtans

The sankirtan juggernaut rolls on with part duex of our Bhaktivinode Monthly Sankirtan Festival, tonight we will be performing nagar sankirtan in downtown Palo Alto.

Last night I invited one student from Stanford to come to our "protest" tomorrow evening.

I just found these cool videos of Bablu singing traditional gaudiya vaishnava bhajans and demonstrating the mrdanga beats. For the uninitiated he is the most prominent representative of the Mrdanga sampradaya started by Narottama Das Thakur. Most people in Iskcon who know how to play tradition gaudiya vaisnava mrdanga learned from him or from someone who learned from him. For many years he taught gurukulis in Mayapura, he currently lives and teaches in Vrindavan

I've been doing some investigation into drums and drumming lately.

Param Satya plays the tabla. I've been playing mrdanga for a few years now, and recently I've taken up doumbek (aka darbuka, tarambuka, egyptian tabla and more), and djembe.

Prahlad plays mrdanga, doumbek, and djembe.

We have a kirtan retreat coming up with drumming workshops and a drumming circle, so all these drums will come in handy. There are a few more at Atma as well.

The Hang Drum [wikipedia article], a melodic percussion instrument developed in Switzerland in 2000. Reminiscent of a steel drum. Check out the videos below that demonstrate its potential.

The wikipedia article above has links to two articles by the inventors, describing the physics of the drum.

Carmella Baynie doing kirtan at Atma Yoga, Brisbane, Australia.

Carmella Baynie @ Atma Yoga April 2008 from vraja dhama das on Vimeo.

Sacred Chant Volume One, our 2006 album, continues to move on Jamendo, where it is available as a free download.

A recent reviewer wrote:

[movie inside]

This

plus this

equals...

Carmella is in Brisbane to do a concert and workshop. Last night she came to Atma to do kirtan.

We started out with some breathing and warming up exercises. The very first time I turned up to a kirtan there were two people - me and the Swami (Chandrasekhara Swami). I thought I was going to slip in the back and spectate. Instead it was the two of us sitting face to face on the floor and he tells me: "Ok, now we're going to sing."

Those of you who know me know that now I have no problem singing in public, but back then the only time I would sing was in the shower. Certainly not in public! So it was a little challenging...

This is a very nice way to gradually introduce people to using their voice, so that they can unleash it in praise of the Supreme Lord.

A sifu master once said: "If you want to master something do it ten thousand times".

Of course, beyond the conception of mastery is the realization that we are subordinate to our environment and exist in order to serve.

However, the principle is valuable. I express it like this: "The difference between an experienced drummer and an inexperienced drummer is ten thousand strokes."

The other day I taught the basic strokes on the mrdanga to a student. Then I told her: "Now you know what I know. The only difference between us is ten thousand strokes."

A video podcast lesson on playing daadra taal beats on mrdanga, as per a request on an earlier lesson posted to YouTube.com.

Here are the mantras:

Daadra taal cartal beat:
dheiya da da dheiya

Mrdanga beats:

Dhei da dhei ta kheta kheta
Thei ta thei ta kheta kheta

Remo manufacture a number of different models of djembes, designed in conjunction with percussionists such as Paulo Mattioli. This is a review of the key-tuned djembe.

This drum is made of fiberglass, and is surprisingly manufactured in the good ole US of A.

Prem Yogi recently acquired a new Balarama mrdanga. He rang Krishna.com and asked them if they had anything lying around that they could supply him with, in order to avoid the standard 5-6 month waiting period for Ratna to make one up. Fortuitously they had a slightly used full-sized blue Balaram mrdanga that they sent over within a week. Tenacity pays off.

Prem Yogi with his new mrdanga

It was Prem's 25th birthday this week, and I wanted to get him something so I bought him a case for the mrdanga.

A mrdanga must always be transported and stored in a case. The mrdanga is understood as both Lord Balaram (Sankarshan) and Krishna's flute.

Raivata writes me:

Hmm I reckon you are right and copying a good synthetic design like that. It's a simple and proven design.

On the ahimsa note I reckon it's ok to use animal skin when it comes from pests like goats or possums (pests in NZ anyway). Allowing them to live is simply causing violence to the other life forms they harm. Perhaps you could train up some of the local boys as Kshatriyas and send them out there to bring home a few skins. Good for the environment, good for the sankirtana yajna and a practical step for introducing varnashram.

Both use mylar heads, and the bodies are constructed of aluminium. Weight is good. Sound is good.

The Egyptian design is something that could work for a mrdanga. It would remove the perishable rubber component from the current Balarama design.

Here are some of the best websites to help you learn to play mrdanga:

• KK Songs Khol Lessons - as well as fundamentals this site will teach you the double time beat and the dadra taal "breakdown" beat, as well as a lot of good background information.
• Learning Mrdanga - the basics of transcendental drumming - Jagannatha Mishra prabhu and his son Arjuna teach you to play the standard ISKCON kirtan mid-range and fast swing beats.
• Chant and Be Happy.com - the grand daddy of online mrdanga lessons. This site will teach you to play the "Prabhupada beat".

Enjoy!

Here's the end of evening kirtan for Krishnafest on Saturday night. [Movie inside!]

Bhakticandrika recorded it with Vrajadhama's HD video camera with a wide angle lens and Rhode shotgun mic. The result is extremely highly detailed footage, even compressed and streamed by youtube.

Vrajadhama in form on the mrdanga in a kirtan at Atma one evening. [Movie inside]

This was on vina.cc in 2006. Does anyone know how true it is? If it is true, and it could well be, it's a powerful argument for mrdangas made with modern materials and technologies.

by Mahendra das
Dear Devotees, I am from India and have an export business where I ship out handicrafts, garments and all material related to devotional purposes to several temples. Also, I supply mrdangas to temples situated in the west.