Mridanga Lessons Part 3
Welcome to Part 3 of the Mridanga Lessons. By this stage, I expect that you have reached a degree of competency with all the materials in Parts 1 and 2. This lesson will introduce two more playing mantras which will complete the set of essential basic mantras by which you can play in any kirtan. If you simply want to be able to play any kirtan competently, these three parts are all you require. Here are the mantras:
Playing Mantras:
1. Dashpere: tak ke na ko dhin na di ni di ni di ni da te te te te ta
2. Rela: di di dhin na di ti na ti ti na ti ti
The first mantra of this part is call Dashpere. It is a mantra of 16 beats, with a sequence of bols played at different times. In order to get a handle on such beats, we need to break them down into parts and learn each part separately. Then we can put it all together.
Here is the explanation video:
And here is the accompanying kirtan showing how to play the mantra:
Here is the split screen video of Dashpere:
Now we move on to a very important mantra for kirtan. It is used for ‘two-beat’ kirtan where the kartels play essentially a 1-2 1-2 1-2 and rather than standard 4/4 musical time, the kirtan is in 3/4 musical time (1-2-3,1-2-3,1-2-3…) There are actually several rela mantra, this is lopha rela.
And now a kirtan that shows how to play the mantra:
Here is the split-screen video, first in guru form:
And now in laghu form:
Here are some kirtans using these mantras:
And audio of the Gaura Arati and Saraswati Arati kirtan:
A video of kirtan with rela mantra:
And also an audio with rela mantra:
Ei Baro Koruna Koro