Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

This fight is for everything.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

No one could have predicted…

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You are here: Home / Artists In Our Midst / Warren Senders – Music and Conscience

Warren Senders – Music and Conscience

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If you would like your talent featured in Authors in Our Midst or Artists in Our Midst, just send me an email message and we’ll make it happen.  Don’t be shy!  I have no more Artists or Authors posts in the queue, so please get in touch if you would like to be featured.

Let’s give a warm welcome to Warren Senders!

Hi, Jackals! I don’t comment here often, but I read and enjoy everything. Thank you to WaterGirl for allowing me to participate in Artists In Our Midst. ~Warren

♪

Allow me to start things off with a song. This is a folk melody from Dongri-speaking areas of Northwestern Pakistan, performed in May 2023.

♪

I’m Warren Senders, I live in Medford, Massachusetts, with my wife and daughter, and almost all of my sixty-five years on Earth have been spent in the world of music. While I’ve studied and written and performed in a lot of genres, what recognition I’ve accrued has largely come from my decades of immersion in an idiom that is probably unfamiliar to many of you. It certainly caused a lot of baffled head-scratching in my family, back in the late 1970s when I first encountered What I Wanted To Do When I Grew Up.

Specifically, I wanted to sing the elaborate Indian classical song style called “khyal” (or “khayal“) — the vocal version of what musicians like Ravi Shankar were doing on sitar. I first heard the music of khyal singers when I was 18, and the shock of recognition was immediate and profound. Remember meeting someone and knowing in that instant that they’d be your friend for life? It was like that. I immediately began seeking every possible source of information about ragas and talas, the organically complex melodic and rhythmic frameworks of Hindustani musical tradition.

♪

This elaborately ornamented song in the raga Tilak Kamod expresses a set of complementary feelings: spiritual and romantic devotion, overlaid and interwoven. The vocal filigree “floats” over the syncopated tabla rhythms.

♪

This was before the Internet was a thing (side note: my father worked at Bolt, Beranek & Newman while they were developing ARPANET, and he was an early user, connecting his home office to headquarters via modem; my first exposure to the Internet was thus in 1968), and I had to do a lot of hunting to find teachers and resources.

Thanks to the small but extraordinarily dedicated community of Indian classical tape-traders (a subculture that makes Grateful Dead completists seem like well-meaning dabblers — I mean, there were Indian maharajahs in the 1930s who bought record lathes to document private concerts in their palaces, and those recordings are still extant today!) I was able to learn about the music’s intricate rules, structure, and history.

I found my first teacher in 1977, and studied with Kalpana Mazumder for the next eight years, gradually working out the kinks in my voice and ear (all the while gigging as a jazz bassist and composer and building skills as a concert producer). In 1985 I was awarded a fellowship from the Council For International Exchange of Scholars to study khyal singing in the Indian city of Pune, with one of the form’s most famous artists, Bhimsen Joshi, who was then 63.

That didn’t work out so well, as he was a performer of genius, not a teacher, and emphatically not someone who could diagnose the musical problems of someone from an entirely different culture. I was hearing a ton of amazing music (the scene at the time was astonishingly rich; concerts routinely went on for three or four hours, and there were four or five events a week) but not learning much.

You know the saying, “when the student is ready, the teacher appears“? That’s what happened to me. After ten months of deep discouragement and frustration, I met Pandit S.G. Devasthali in 1986 and began my deep study of khyal with him. Lessons — in the old traditional style of oral transmission — lasted about four hours. Every day, no weekends, no vacations. This went on for years, interrupted by my returns to the USA. Here’s a video from 1991 which gives an idea of what the lessons were like.

♪

My teacher is instructing me with sargam, the Indian version of Do-Re-Mi syllables. These are used to “explain”melodies in a learning setting, but are also included in many performances, where they lend a scat-syllable feeling of rhythmic impetus to the music. The back-and-forth process is typical of Hindustani oral-tradition pedagogy.

♪

I made my professional debut as a khyaliya (the correct term for one who sings khyal) in New Delhi in 1990, and I’ve continued to perform and teach since then. COVID brought my teaching entirely online and curtailed my concertizing; a few years before that I decided to avoid air travel for climate reasons, so my gigging is now concentrated in New England.

I make my living as a teacher, both at New England Conservatory of Music and through my private vocal studio. (If you want to learn how to sing, I can help.)

My most recent concert was at the University of Southern Maine, in May 2023. (The complete concert can be heard here).

♪

This performance, from the USM concert, shows two songs in the seasonal raga Hindol, which uses primarily four pitches (C,E,F#, & A, with an occasional B). The emphasis is on rhythmic play; the vibe is celebratory. The lyrics of the first piece describe Krishna enjoying Hori, the spring festival; the second song describes a beautiful woman in elaborate finery, hurrying to meet her lover.

♪

Here are some commonly-asked questions about khyal songs.

Q: What’s that constant sound, and why is it there?

A: That’s an instrument called a tamboura, heard both in its original form as a stringed instrument, and in its modern-day avatar as a digital app. The constant drone provides both musicians and listeners with a fixed orientation point, allowing for precise tuning and a sense of continuity as the performance unfolds.

Q: Are you singing words?

A: Some of the time. The songs themselves have lyrics in Braj, an archaic dialect of Hindi. The texts themselves may address philosophical or religious topics, but most of the time reference archetypal romantic scenarios in a mythic pastoral setting. Improvisations may use words from the text, neutral syllables like “la” or “na”, solfège syllables (the Indian equivalents of “do, re, mi”), or open vowel sounds with no semantic content.

Q: What are the drums doing?

A: The tabla drums are responsible for outlining continually-repeating cyclic rhythms. There are many different rhythmic cycles in Hindustani repertoire, and they are performed at widely ranging speeds, from glacially slow to breakneck fast. Each cycle has its own characteristic drum strokes and potential variations. The different bass and treble sounds help me stay oriented in time, so I know where to end an improvisation or start a new refrain.

Q: What is the harmonium doing?

A: This small keyboard instrument — introduced centuries ago by European missionaries and subsequently adapted to the requirements of Indian music — duplicates the singer’s melodic lines, following, embellishing, and shadowing. Singing with a good harmonium player is like having a conversation with a thoughtful and supportive friend.

♪

I’ve never stopped doing other kinds of music. I recorded two CDs of “Indo-Jazz” in Pune under the name Antigravity, with a group of wonderful players that includes my wife Vijaya Sundaram on guitar. Here is my piece, “This Melody No Verb,” a nod to Douglas Hofstadter.

For about twenty years I composed for the Boston-based Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra, writing pieces that integrated my Indian experience with my jazz leanings. Here’s a piece called “It’s Taken Me My Whole Life…” from a 2014 concert.

♪

In a much smaller setting, here’s a performance from 2017 of me singing Malvina Reynolds‘ beautiful “From Way Up Here,” with a string trio.

♪

The global perspective of Malvina’s song leads naturally to my work as an environmental activist. I’ve been part of New England climate change activism since 2009 or so, through directing a 10-year series of benefit concerts (“”Playing For The Planet: World Music Against Climate Change“), writing thousands of LTEs (one a day, every day for four years), and being arrested for civil disobedience several times.

♪

…the judge gave each of the 13 two minutes to explain why they had tried to stop the gas pipeline through Boston.

“I study and teach music that goes back hundreds of years,” Warren Senders said, recapping his testimony outside the courthouse. “When I teach a song that’s 400 years old, it’s with the understanding that 400 years from now someone will be singing that same song. I’m in the middle of a chain of transmission. That distribution of human wisdom across centuries that is one of the great creations of our civilization—a method for people to talk with and communicate with their ancestors and their descendents. And that’s put at risk by climate change.” Link.

♪

For the past eight years I’ve maintained a daily vigil every weekday morning at a heavily-trafficked intersection near my home in Medford, Massachusetts. If you drive through Roosevelt Circle between 7:30 and 8:30 AM: yes, I’m that guy. If you want to join us, let me know and I’ll bring a sign for you.

Photo credit: John Gallagher

♪

You can follow me on FaceBook, Instagram, YouTube, and Mastodon. My website is www.warrensenders.com .

♪

Q: How can I get the most out of this music?

A: Appreciating Hindustani song begins with its gestural content — hearing the melodies as shapes in space, as curves, swoops, dives, and swings. There is a detailed theoretical structure, but no technical terms or categories are needed to experience the music’s beauty.

There are two fundamental principles at work in Hindustani music which are rarely if ever elucidated — because they’re taken so completely for granted.

Because it’s the 21st century and we do everything with acronyms, I offer you two abbreviations.

R.T.T.F — Return To The Familiar

Hindustani performers always build their improvisations in a particular way, presenting something new and then circling back to repeat something familiar. The alternation of new and familiar material helps to “bind” the whole performance together.

The most obvious place for a Return To The Familiar is at the end of an improvisation, where the singer re-connects with the song’s opening line, which forms a kind of “hook,” easily memorable, rhythmically distinct, catchy. The word for this phrase is “mukhda” (literally, the “face” of the song).

When you’re listening, try and hear the mukhda return at the end of each excursion into the melodic unknown, anchoring the new material by linking it to the old. This is an excellent game and requires no technical analysis beyond, “Hey, there it is again!”

E.D.I.O.T. — Event Density Increases Over Time

This principle governs the flow of activity in every performance of Hindustani music, vocal or instrumental.

“Event density” means, basically, “how much activity is happening at any given time.” A crowded intersection in the middle of rush hour has a very high Event Density; a desolate crossroads far from town at 3 AM has a low one. A musical “event” is something that strikes the ear as interesting, unusual, remarkable, singular. If very little is happening, a single tone is an important event; if there’s a lot going on, it’s just one among many.

Hindustani performances move along a path of increasing event density. It’s very common for khyals to be presented in “suites”: a slow song in a particular raga (melodic framework) followed by one or two faster items in the same raga. Each song is treated in accordance with the E.D.I.O.T. principle: simple variations first, complex variations later, culminating in a finale where the music is practically exploding with new ideas and virtuosity.

♪

It’s customary to end Hindustani performances with a rendition of a song or instrumental composition in the raga Bhairavi. (For music-theory nerds, it’s a chromatically-inflected Phrygian mode). This song, in the romantic thumri style, describes the haunting sound of Krishna’s flute echoing across the river Jamuna.

♪

Thank you for letting me share what I do and who I am!

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  3. 3.

    pacem appellant

    Listening now. I’m already reminded of Krishna Das, but obviously I don’t want to reduce khyal to just one archtype. It’s lovely, even to my weakly tuned ears. Thanks!

  6. 6.

    Warren Senders

    @pacem appellant: Krishna Das sings the style called “bhajan” (from a verb meaning “to pray”).  The overall aesthetic values are the same, but the two genres have different functions — the relationship between khyal and bhajan is perhaps analogous to that between jazz and gospel: one is music for music’s sake, the other is music considered as a form or aspect of worship.

  7. 7.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Warren Senders: Was it you that commented on my blog about Bhimsen Joshi years ago? I have grown to like and appreciate Hindustani classical music as I have gotten older. My own tastes lean towards semiclassical music so I am far fonder of natya sangeet (classical music based musicals) and abhangas (devotional hymns composed by various saints of the bhakti movement in Maharashtra) where there are words that I can latch on to.

    Do you speak any Indian languages if you don’t mind my asking?

    And I will give your music a listen when I am done with my weekly chores. Thanks for sharing.

  10. 10.

    Warren Senders

    @schrodingers_cat: ​

    That would have been me! I spent a lot of time in Bhimsenji’s orbit for a while in the 1980s, but it got to be too much. I speak Hindi badly.

    Khyal is definitely an acquired taste (although for me, acquiring it took only a few seconds), and I’ve gotten used to the head-scratching and puzzlement from, say, the people I went to high school with.

  13. 13.

    Warren Senders

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Being in Pune it was impossible to avoid natyageets and abhangs even if I’d wanted to.  Bhimsenji’s guru was well known for his renditions of natyageets, hence the monicker “Sawai Gandharva” (a celestial musician…with a little extra!).

  17. 17.

    Another Scott

    Fascinating topic, and it’s always great to see someone who finds their life’s mission very early and is able to follow it all their life. It’s a very rare gift.

    Thanks for sharing, and for your advocacy!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  19. 19.

    Warren Senders

    @Another Scott: ​
    “But yield who will to their separation / my object in living is to unite /
    my avocation and my vocation / as my two eyes make one in sight.

    Only when love and need are one / and the work is play, for mortal stakes /
    is the deed ever truly done / for Heaven, and the future’s, sakes.”

    — Frost, “Two Tramps In Mud Time” —

  20. 20.

    C Stars

    I don’t really have any questions but have been listening since WG posted and it has been a wonderful soundtrack to my afternoon. Thank you for sharing.

  21. 21.

    Aimai

    @Warren Senders: hi WARREN ! Just logging on to wave from Cambridge. My daughter danced and taught with the Triveni classical Indian dance school in Brookline so I am very familiar with these musical/philosophical/dance issues but without understanding the deep complexity. I loved this blog post! Thank you so much for sharing your passion with us.

  22. 22.

    AM in NC

    So so cool. Thank you for teaching me about this music and for sharing your performances with us!

    Thank you also for your climate activism.

    This has made me happy today!

  24. 24.

    H.E.Wolf

    @schrodingers_cat: ​
     I was born in MA; left at age 8 when my dad’s company transferred him (and us); and later spent 7 years there as a young adult.

    Haven’t been traveling during the pandemic, but I hope to visit MA again, one of these years!

  26. 26.

    Joy in FL

    Thank you for such a full and interesting post. I have no question, just wanted to say thank you.

  27. 27.

    prostratedragon

    Fascinating stories. I must come back and listen to the music. Thaks for laying out the framework of your substantial study so clearly.  And, however the case went, I’m sure your statement opened some eyes in the court.

  29. 29.

    Warren Senders

    @prostratedragon: ​
     

    That particular case was concluded in 2018; our case was downgraded to a civil infraction and then dismissed. The presiding judge allowed us to use a “necessity defense,” which marked the first time such a defense had been successfully used in a climate case. Unfortunately as it’d been turned into a civil infraction (like a parking ticket) we didn’t get a usable precedent from her ruling.

    I was arrested in early 2023 for NVCD in Gov. Healy’s office (trying to get her to honor her campaign promise of moving away from fossil fuels) and did my requisite hours of community service. That’s probably what I’ll get when my September NVCD arrest comes up on the docket, in a couple of weeks.

  30. 30.

    eclare

    @H.E.Wolf:

    This comment for me too! With this topic, I don’t come close to knowing what I don’t know.  Thank you, Warren, for sharing your knowledge and also for your environmental activism.  It’s all connected.

  32. 32.

    C Stars

    @schrodingers_cat: This is off topic but I watched the videos you posted a day or two ago about resistance movement in India. There was a rather large and well-organized rally for Khalistan today near my home, which seems to be another facet of the resistance (and of course I heard about what happened to the Sikh organizer in Canada a few months ago). Perhaps it is just being so close, but it feels as though the various opposition movements against Modi are really ramping up.

  33. 33.

    Warren Senders

    @C Stars: ​
     

    My wife and I have been terribly upset and disappointed by Modi’s popularity. It is very distressing to see so many people yearning for a StrongMan….even many whom we know and used to respect.

  34. 34.

    Warren Senders

    @Kristine: ​
    As you can probably imagine, I’ve had a lot of practice explaining this music to people who don’t know anything about it. (Incidentally, a few months ago I finished creating & developing an online course in Hindustani music appreciation for the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. It should be released sometime in the next few months.)

  36. 36.

    Warren Senders

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     

    Nusrat was a great performer of the Sufi style of devotional singing called quawwali. The comment I made earlier about the style called bhajan also applies here: quawwali and khyal express the same aesthetic values but with different musical/social goals. If you enjoy NFAK’s singing let me recommend the Sabri Brothers, and Abida Parveen.

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    How wonderful!  I just enjoyed watching and listening to your videos.  I’m so sorry I missed you when you performed at USM.

  41. 41.

    Currants

    @H.E.Wolf: seconded. And fascinating on SO MANY levels!
    Thank you—I could put most of this on in my house and wander through the day humming along, though I know none of the music. Whew. ❤️

  48. 48.

    BigJimSlade

    @Warren – Thanks for this excellent introduction to the music! It reminds me of a master class I saw at the NEC back in the 90s with Hariprasad Chaurasia. Sometime back then I also got to hear Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra at Jordan Hall. Both experiences were fantastic :-)

    For the Bartok, while the whole performance was great, the big final orchestral hit that ends the piece, I swear I could practically see the sound in the air for a second or two, and then glitter away. It was quite an enthralling moment.  (no chemical enhancements were involved, lol)

  49. 49.

    ema

    Thank you for the post. I checked out your YouTube channel and I have a few suggestions, if you’re interested. (WaterGirl has may email.)

  50. 50.

    Aimai

    @Warren Senders: Yes! Neena Auntie is my daughter’s teacher. A marvelous woman! My daughter started dancing there at 12, had her aurangetram at 16 or 17 I think, and has taught for Neena ever since.

  51. 51.

    Trivia Man

    Thank you, ive long been curious to hear an explanation of the nuts and bolts that go into this music.
    My mind always expects to hear “When I’m 64” as the raga fades out.

  52. 52.

    Aris Merquoni

    Warren, thank you again for your post, this is a terrific introduction and the comments are giving me more excellent jumping off points. My own brushes with Indian classical music and dance came from the other side of the country; some of my high school classmates were very involved in dance in the San Jose/Oakland/SF area (South and East bay primarily) in the late 90s/early 00s. My own dance obligations meant I didn’t learn that much but I did get to see a few of their videos. I am thankful that you’ve given me some more tools to learn more!

    My only contribution is that this post reminded me of a youtuber that got highlighted in Adam Neely’s video about the history of white supremacy in western classical music; he talked about how he learned a lot about Indian music from the youtuber Anuja K. I thought the clips he showed of her were quite good but I haven’t gone back to look at her channel yet, and this post might give me a nudge to do so. Thanks again!

  56. 56.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Warren Senders: What made you decide to learn Hindustani classical music. Its a huge committment and the guru-shishya parampara is culturally divergent from the American ethos of individuality

    ETA: The only classical musicians I have heard in person were Shiv Kumar Sharma and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan., this was when I lived outside of DC.

  58. 58.

    weasel

    Wow, truly amazing stuff! Thanks so much for sharing. I will be returning to these songs many times

  59. 59.

    bluefoot

    This is very cool. Thanks for sharing!  I’m in MA and would definitely come out to hear you play & sing.  I am partial to quawwalis myself, and old school Sikh ragas….got that from my dad. I don’t know a lot about them formally, just know what I like. :)

  63. 63.

    steve g

    Thank you, very interesting stuff. I also want to add that I was pleasantly surprised to find that you are quite a good singer, which I honestly wasn’t expecting. Very pleasing to listen to.

  64. 64.

    mvr

    @Warren Senders:

    So I’m thinking to myself, this name is very familiar. And as it turns out I think I met you back in high school in the Unitarian youth group LRY, probably at some conference. We’re the same age and I grew up in Rockford Illinois but went to conferences at various places around the country in my misspent youth.

  65. 65.

    Benno

    This was fun, Warren. Thank you. We met years ago when I was a student at Hampshire College studying with David Reck and Andy Jaffe. If it was possible to wear out the grooves on a CD, I did on Antigravity.

  66. 66.

    Warren Senders

    @mvr: Oh my god.LRY, yes.  The only youth group to make it to Nixon’s enemies list. I’m not a “joiner” by nature but LRY was something else entirely. We must have met then.Can you tell me your name?​​

  68. 68.

    mvr

    @Warren Senders: Yeah sure. Mark van Roojen.

    I started using my initials on blog posts back when using the same monicker across blogposts was a way of keeping one’s identity across different platforms in the early aughts, including in settings where people actually could use them to figure out who I was.  The point wasn’t to hide my identity but to sort of keep a single persona on blogs.

    I went to national conferences near Kalamazoo and Olympia as well as to some regional conferences during the period from 1975 to 1976.  And kept up a good number of friendships beyond that. Perhaps I met you at one of those?

  70. 70.

    Warren Senders

    @mvr: ​
     

    I wasn’t part of the conference scene on the West coast, but your name is also familiar to me. Were you at the 1975 ConCon in Michigan?

    I have a lot of friends who moved from the East coast to Evergreen. You and I undoubtedly have many people in common.

  71. 71.

    Warren Senders

    @Benno: ​
     

    I remember hearing Balochi music when Ted Levin brought the Balochi Ensemble to the US. What amazing music. Please find me once you’re back; I’d love to learn more about what you’re doing.

  72. 72.

    mvr

    @Warren Senders: Yes, I was in Michigan for that in 1975.  I was also at some East Coast events that weren’t just LRY in that they involved adults as well, such as GA in Boston a couple of years later.

    Probably do have some friends in common.  I’m actually going on a short trip to Memphis with one of my friends from back in the day later this week.

  73. 73.

    Anyway

    Enjoyed the music and interesting explication of Hindustani musical tradition.  You’ve had a rich and fascinating career – thanks for sharing highlights with us. Where does ghazal fit in the ecosystem? I’m a fan of quawwali  – it’s more accessible, perhaps. I’m also impressed by the commitment to give up flying – walking the walk, indeed.

  76. 76.

    Pavlovs Man

    Thanks to Warren Senders. Great piece, and nice intro. I grew up listening to some of this, as my mom was a fan of Bhimsenji (lived down the street when she was growing up), among others. Wasn’t much of a fan myself when young.

    @Anyway:

    Ghazals’ origins lie in Arabic poetry dating back 1300-1400 years, and spread to South Asia because of Sufi traditions. They’re popular in other parts of the Muslim world, including Turkey. They are couplets that are sung. They center around love, both romantic and spiritual.

    Qawwali is also Sufi devotional music, but originated in South Asia. Lots of choral repetitions, and necessarily contain texts of the Prophet’s sayings. All the love they talk about refers to spiritual love, and the wine they talk about is the intoxication caused by love of the Divine. This wine is what great Persian poets like Hafiz and Attar wrote about. (If you haven’t read Conference of The Birds by Attar – make sure you get the translation by Dick Davies – read it, and be prepared to be have your socks blown off,)

    Too, folks might be interesting in the other form of Indian classical music – Carnatic. Unimaginably different.

    I’m originally from India, was first exposed to jazz in grad school, and grew to love it. And then I heard Carnatic music, and I was blown away. VERY different from Hindustani…

    If you’ve heard music from Shakti, their music is heavily influenced by Carnatic and Hindustani music. Shakar and Vikku were Carnatic trained.

     

    .

  77. 77.

    mvr

    @Warren Senders: I was thinking it might be another internet group w LRY connections.  As it turns out I am now (for 2 years +) trying to stay off Facebook because I was finding it made me unhappy.  But I did get a nudge to OK your friend request and did that.
    It also does seem we were both at Kalamazoo in 1975.

    Anyway, good making your reacquaintance!

Comments are closed.