Customer Reviews

Learning Tabla with Alla Rakha (Book and Videotape ed.: NTSC American video standard)

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I just bought this book and Video tape - and I must say that it is not fair that the publisher has not made some efforts to edit this book properly - for $50 I feel like cheated. Alla Rakha is master of Tabla - but his publisher is very dubious - and Video tape in this time of digital audio/video is dubious too. Very bad quality of the book and video material - Ithink that the publisher should and must pay in better way his gratitude to the great tabla player and Guruji Alla Rakha.

I was really excited to get this video and waited awhile for it to be available for purchase. Unfortunately, the quality is very low. Firstly, the book is very poorly printed. Most of the images and illustrations in the book so fuzzy that you can barely make out what it's trying to convey. The video, which is what I was most excited about, is horrible quality. It looks like they took a YouTube video and put it on a VHS. Really poor video quality and the audio is just as bad. Even though there are close mics shown, the audio sounds very echoey; like they had the mics up in the rafters. Worse still, the audio isn't completely in sync with the video! For a video that's trying to convey percussion technique, this is ridiculous.
Don't waste your money.

Nothing negative to say about the content of this learning tool...it was recorded before the advent of digital media. It's wonderful to have a recording of Ustadji teaching step by step. However, it does not do justice to the great Ustad Alla Rakha to have this product not updated so that the media is converted to VCD and the book reproduced with some quality. My copy of the book arrived stamped improperly so that pages were falling out. I asked for and got a replacement but that one was also defective. It's not worth holding onto in this condition. They both went back for a refund.

I recently purchased Abbaji's (Alla Rakha Khan Sahib) book and accompanying video tape. I have been playing tabla for 2 decades now and had the privilege during my college years of attending two summer sessions with Ustad Zakir Hussain, who is Ustad Alla Rakha's son.

My primary reason for purchasing the book and tape was to see if it would be appropriate as teaching materials. I now teach tabla to beginner and intermediate students. I found the book to have a lot of information and material that examined the theory behind tabla compositions and phrases (bols). However, I am not going to use it as a teaching tool for young kids.

I will however recommend this book and videotape to those that are starting off and want to have a sense of what the basic strokes and patterns are on this incredible drum. The videotape is quite good. The quality is fair, in that it is not a professional recording. However there is a lot of footage of Ustad Alla Rakha.

In my opinion, the two scenarios where this book and videotape will benefit you the most are:
- If you are an adult learning tabla with a teacher. This book will complement what you are learning and will give you theory and background in the Punjab style.
- If you do not have access to any teachers for face to face lessons, are a drummer, have some percussion background, and want to attempt playing tabla.

Best of luck and keep playing!

Branavan