The Karnatic connection

>> Ganesh Anandan points his fingers at the future

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Printed text cannot do justice to an interview with local percussionist/composer/instrument-builder Ganesh Anandan. How can one transpose the explanatory sounds he makes to print, the "toompa-toompa-toobada-toomp" of the Irish bodhran, the "dwoooooo" of a timpani glissando, the "dak-dak, datta-da-dak-dak" of Karnatic rhythm, the "da-ki-cha-doong" of the Italian tambourine or the harmonic "piiiing!" of his own self-made wooden triangles?

Words cannot capture the delicate aural inflections, but that's what his work is about. Based in the musical traditions of his native Bangalore (where frame drums, not tablas, keep the beat), Anadan compounds intricate rhythmic patterns with the sharp-focus tonal aspects of the physical instruments themselves.

"Once you've got these techniques," he says, "like the South-Indian Karnatic technique I've got, or the Persian snapping and all that, they're applied to physical materials as surfaces. You've got all these possibilities--finger-tapping, rubbing with skin or nails, from the softest textures to a very loud sound. Imagine the microscopic sounds that can happen. The palette is getting wider and wider.

"It forces the musician to go in and find those sounds--each surface, a piece of wood or a water glass, has a sound-soul." He punctuates with a "ting" on his drinking glass.

In '99, Anandan's FingerWorks trio released a self-titled CD, an invigorating effort that was thoroughly organic and acoustic: "a body of work for the tambourine family, and essentially just that. This new project continues from that--the trio's still there. It's sort of influenced by both funk and Karnatic music. It's relatively easy to reconcile the two, in the sense that improvisation is part of both."

The hybridization is running wild now, with Anandan prepping to call solos, jazz-funk style, and transposing the percussive vocal patterns of the Karnatic style to saxophone, the instrument which most closely approximates the human voice. Moments of this weekend's show will clearly recall the FingerWorks CD, while others will expand to factor in stand-up and electric bass, horns, trad Western drum kit and electric guitar (care of Anandan's frequent collaborator Rainer Wiens). Throwing some pesto in the masala is Italian tambourinist Carlo Rizzo, importing Tuscan and Sicilian elements.

"It's going to be a variety show, I guess," laughs Anandan. "Solos, duos, trios, quintets and septets. We're working right now on finding transitions between the tunes, so it's not too choppy."

As excited as he is about this Indo-funk jam, Anandan's already peering past it into the future. Just as he talks about the accelerated (con)fusion of East and West going down back home in Bangalore, he talks about building his ideas out further--new instruments, theatre-score projects, further recordings, even paradoxical ventures into the digital world.

"I'm considering electronic triggers, but I'd like to make the samples of the sounds myself rather than use the bank the machine provides. You know, the whole worldbeat thing, now, it's fascinating and scary. With just one machine, you can go through the whole range. It's just that, for me, I need to feel the surface that I'm playing on. If I can maintain my technique, and have this variety of my own samples, it would be ideal."

At Théâtre La Chapelle on Friday- Saturday, April 6-7, 8pm, $15