I started learning music first from Pandit Bhavani Shankar, a
Pakhavaj maestro. Later, I learnt Tabla from him. I was very
fascinated with multi percussions. He is the one who sent me to
Ustad Taufiq Qureshi. It has been twelve years since O started
learning from him and the learning is still ongoing.
When I started playing with my father, I used to play in
Orchestra, Dandiya and so on. It started from Rs.300 per show
and the duration of the shows were six to seven hours. I used
to play small percussions. I had done a lot of Navrathri shows.
I got to explore a lot of genres through this from Bhajans to
Bollywood.
My vision of looking at rhythms changed after I met Taufiq
bhai. He has an expanded vision of rhythms. He says there
is rhythm in everything. I am blessed to be his student. His
guidance, techniques have helped me out a lot and still does.
Elaborate on the techniques you learnt from your teacher Ustad Taufiq
Qureshi
His teaching process is such that it is very practical. In studio,
I do lots of sessions and work in Bollywood. His techniques
are very unusual. Say if he is given a song to be arranged, he
wouldn’t follow a particular way of using percussions. If he
feels a steel dabba can be used for eight bars, he would still use
it. He always says not to keep your parts ready but the whole
song should be in your head.
His techniques have helped in both studio and live shows.
Taufiq bhai has taught us to always look at the other
instrumentalist’s hands to see what they are doing.
In conversation with Percussionist
& Rhythm Arranger
Dipesh
Varma
Talk about your music journey and biggest learnings in your career
When the journey started at the age of 13, when I was in school.
My father is a singer. Since childhood I was attracted towards
rhythms. I went to my father and told him I wanted to make
a career out of this. He just told me I can perform with him
during shows but asked me not to look for recommendations
from him. He advised me to walk on my own path.
34
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
Could you talk about your process of Rhythm Arrangement?
Rhythm arranger is someone who designs the rhythm
part of the song. This person has to look after what kind of
percussions should be used in the song, frequencies to be
covered. The song is given to the rhythm arranger. Sometimes
there is a rough loop going on under the song for a reference
or other times there is a structure ready. For instance, the
composer would say he wants a break after the second verse
of the song. Sometimes, there is nothing but the voice and
melodic instruments. The rhythm arrange decides how many
percussions are required. I did the song for Pritam from
Bajrangi Baijan, the song Selfie Le Le. We had about twenty
Dhol tasha playing, and above that I layered percussions.
Sometimes only one person is needed and in such cases. I
myself go and play for percussions part like in the song Aayat
from the movie Bajirao Mastani. It depends on the vision of
the composer and the kind of rhythms he is looking at. The
job of the rhythm arranger is to make it bigger with his ideas.
Few years ago, everything was done through programming.
But now, I’m thankful to composers to have brought the live
instruments back to the scene. These composers believe in the
sound and texture.
Tell us about your upcoming projects
I recently released a track for Ganpati and it was my first as
a composer. I had recreated the Ganesh aarti especially for
Lalbaug Cha Raja and Times Music.
I also recently did a track called Chumma Kizhi from the movie
Darbar for music director Anirudh avichander.
I’m coming up with few songs for Bollywood for the composers
Vishal & Shekhar, Amaal Malik, Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy and
Pritam.
I am also coming up with my own single which is entirely based
on Rhythms.