Milind Date Transcript: Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman
Milind Date:
So the guru will teach the student whatever he requires the most. The guru will understand the journey of the student, which direction this student can go, which direction he will progress better.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman. In this week's episode, I'm delighted to feature the master bansuri player, Milind Date, who joined me from his home in Pune, India, and played his flutes as well as shared his perspectives from his life in music.
As always, check the timestamps for both the music and the many topics we covered. Milind spoke to me about his studies with the legendary Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia of his fusion projects especially in South Korea. He had a great story about a memorable concert he played in Toronto, his extensive travels in India and internationally. He has a large and varied discography and has composed music for many films. Check out his link in the description.
So, hello, Milind. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Milind Date:
Hi, Leah, and thank you very much. Namaste, everybody. And thank you, Leah, for inviting me on your show. It's really, really a fantastic show. And yeah, I'm looking forward for it.
Leah Roseman:
So, some of my listeners may never have heard a bansuri flute. I thought it might be nice actually if you're willing to share some music, maybe one of the raags that you've written, you could improvise on one of those and speak to that.
Milind Date:
Yeah, sure. Okay. So what happens is because we don't have these keys to the flute, it is quite difficult to play chromatic scales, like... This speed is manageable, but it doesn't sound good. But if we are playing a raag, essentially, it is a scale, so we just are practiced and we can manage. Except this note, all holes I closed or opened were half. Somehow, in that context, it is manageable, but somehow, it is very difficult to, at least for me, to play chromatic progressions on a bansuri flute. But as I said, this slurs (music)... with ah, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, this very, very Indian style of singing, it's very easy. Well, very easy means you can play it. It's not so easy either, but you can manage it. There's nothing easy in certain way.
Leah Roseman:
So, I know that you've written quite a few of your own ragas.
Milind Date:
Okay.
Leah Roseman:
Could you improvise on one of them for us?
Milind Date:
Yeah, sure. This raag is called as Sunand Bhairav. It is one of those Bhairav melodies which are played in the morning and. (Music) .. This is Sunand Bhairav.
Leah Roseman:
Beautiful. So, when you went to study with your guru, Hariprasad Chaurasia, you were... oh, I'm just curious about the type of music you were listening to because shortly after you started playing, you also started doing fusion music, which you do to this day. So, were you listening to rock music and jazz and stuff as well as traditional music?
Milind Date:
Oh, yeah. I mean, see, I grew up with a lot of long-haired guitar players in my college. In India, college means after 10 years of education. Then the next two years, we call it junior college. And then next three or four years, we call it as college. I think, in America, it's called as high school. I'm not too sure. So, that time, we had lot of, well, not a lot of, quite a few guys who were playing rock, and they were into very, very classic rock. And I started liking it. That age is like that. The rock music is, it's music of freedom and rebellion. So, I started liking Deep Purple and Scorpions and all that kind of things.
But honestly, to be honest, I could never go ahead of GNR or Metallica. Guns N' Roses and Metallica, after that, I don't know. I have not enjoyed too much of rock music after that. I still find myself engrossed in Dire Straits and Deep Purple, and all, I mean, that very, very classic rock '70s, '80s era, that generally I prefer. So, what happened was I started playing with these guys in college. And then, naturally, we started playing some things together. And of course, these guys being Indian, they had heard lot of Indian music anyway. So, we found some common ground and started working on that. The interesting part was that even though we were playing cover songs more or less, I could not play the guitar solos beyond a point. So, I started improvising on those scales. And improvising is something in the basic nature of Indian classical student because 99% what we do on stage is improvise. Very few guys, there are several musicians who remembered everything and then they come on stage and perform exactly like that. But there are very few.
Even in that, there's a lot of scope for improvisation. The structure remains same, but the internal lines come out differently, every time, they'll come out differently. So, that entire improvisation thing happened, and well, that's how I got into the fusion or world music. So, it kind of grew, went parallel. One side, I was learning pure classical music. I was playing a lot of Hindi film songs and all that. I mean, I was accompanying some of the best singers, and on a college level, I was playing lot with... There used to be like, you know how college kids are, they have lots of time on their hand. They were never focused from... There are some children who are very focused, they will study eight hours a day and all that. I was never like that.
So, we had a lot of time on our hands. So, we would jam up. There would be long, long listening sessions. We would get together in some friend's place, and he would put on some music, and, "Hey, just play that and just play that. Hey, see, I heard this song new," and somebody would have got cassette, that was the era of cassettes, not even CDs were also not there. So, all these mixed tapes and bootlegs and all that kind of, somebody must have got some from somewhere, and we would listen to some Simon & Garfunkel, all that classic era right from Beatles, everything. It's lovely.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Yeah, we're around the same age. I grew up listening to some of that as well. But your guru, he actually played with George Harrison. He appears on a Beatles album.
Milind Date:
Yeah. I think, the White album, I think. I think it's on the White Album. That's what they composed in Rishikesh if I'm not wrong, I think so.
Leah Roseman:
Did he encourage you to play other styles of music or did he know about it when you were starting with him?
Milind Date:
He knew. He never really restricted me from playing anything. See, my guruji has also played in variety of genres, not just pure Indian classical music. He has played innumerable recordings, like thousand, tens of thousands of recordings for Bollywood. I mean, now we call it Bollywood, but that time, it was just film music. And he has worked with the best of the best. He has played a lot of concerts right from John McLaughlin to Jan Garbarek or Jethro Tull, Ian Anderson, and of course, The Beatles and George Harrison. So, he has that kind of exposure also. Being instrumentalist, we don't need the word, we are not restricted with the word. So, the moment you get into improvisation word, lot of things open up by the nature of it. I have played a lot with Korean musicians and Japanese musicians and all that. Hardly anybody could speak English. But musically, we were always happy because we could always find some common denominator, some common ground to walk on and then just play. So, I think, he never stopped me from doing practically any type of music.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I was curious about your collaborations with Korean musicians because you've toured there a lot. You've released lots of albums. So, how did that get started?
Milind Date:
Oh, that is very funny story. I mean, one day I got a call from a local singer. And she said that there is some troupe of Korean musicians coming to Pune, and they're interested in doing some fusion work here, recording some stuff. Would you be interested? There is not much money, but would you be interested? I said okay. Not much money is a kind of common story for all musicians in the world, I think. So, I said, yeah, okay, not a problem. I'll learn something. So, there were four or five Korean guys, musicians, and one guy who was a manager who could speak some English. I Milind, you Leah, that kind of English. So, rest of them, none of them could speak English. And then eventually, he invited me once. And I remember when he invited me for the first time, the day I landed, my flight was at some weird time. I had some weird lag over in Singapore. God knows why I went in that flight, but I had a stopover. For 80 hours direct flight, I had a 12 hours of break on Singapore Airlines. And of course, I couldn't sleep.
So, when I reached Korea, it was afternoon, already in afternoon. And then, he directly took me, my main program was, like one of the main programs, was the next day. So, directly took me to some cafe. There were some musicians playing blues, jazz blues, that kind of thing. And he directly put me on the stage, and, "Okay, play." And that was interesting. And those guys were also quite nice, actually. They were pretty good. I don't know who they were. They were Americans, that's for sure. They were not local Korean guys, but they were... One was playing bass, one was playing guitar and singing, one pianist and a drummer. So, they had that kind of parted. I just jumped on the stage and improvised whatever I could, I improvised. And this guy kind of loved it. So, immediately, he started calling everybody and his friends, and I had basically two concerts or three concerts lined up. So, in next 15 days, I must have played like 20 concerts. And since then, I went to Korea like 15 times, probably more, and it was fun.
Leah Roseman:
What do you like about visiting there in terms of the culture or the way things are done?
Milind Date:
I'll tell you what I don't like. I don't like the food because I'm a vegetarian, and it's very difficult.
Leah Roseman:
Right. Yeah.
Milind Date:
And because of language, nobody speaks English there. Now, it's better. But initially when I went, first time I went there was in 2002, so nobody really spoke English. It was very difficult to tell those people that, "Okay, no animal parts. No animal parts. No fish. No fish." But what I love about Korea, there are many, many things. One of the most important things, I think Korean people, audience as well as musicians, are looking forward for something different, something new. They're very much receptible to some new sound, new technique, new ideas, new line of thinking. Of course, I mean, you have to be within the framework somewhere, that binding framework has to be there. Otherwise, you are playing minor and they start playing major, just because it is different, it's not going to sound good.
So, they are very open. Also, there are certain, being Eastern, there are several common line of thinking, I would say, common lines of thinking that the Indian music also will think in this particular direction in general. The same thing is with Korean musicians. They will think in a similar direction. The fundamental of thinking is similar. That way, Western music and Indian music, especially the music I follow, Indian classical, I learned Indian classical music, the fundamentals are quite different, actually. What we play is more from the improvisation side. And if you actually think, notice that improvisation is a pretty much small part in the Western music world. Basically, some progressive rock or some rock guys and almost everybody in blues are the only people who are improvising. Pop, classical, reggae, maybe reggae guys will improvise a bit of solos and all that, but they're not much into improvisation. At least that's what I gather. Maybe I'm wrong, but-
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I mean there's different traditions in Europe that are very improvisatory.
Milind Date:
Oh, okay.
Leah Roseman:
And you forgot to mention jazz, of course.
Milind Date:
Of course, jazz is there.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Milind Date:
But in India, the entire world of Indian classical music is fundamentally improvised, like jazz. Basically, it's completely improvising. But beyond that, I think somehow I've managed to find lot of common ground to talk or talk in the sense talk with my flute, you can say, with Korean musicians. So, I enjoyed there. I mean, there are also a lot of musicians there who are ready to take chance, ready to take risk, being on the stage and just one or two rehearsals, we just find some kind of landing points, resting points, and then, "Okay, you play after that. I'll play after that." Those kind of things. And then, let's see what will happen on stage. That was the interesting part that they were more... There were a lot of musicians who were ready to take that risk of being on stage without much of preparation and just go by your sixth sense kind of thing. That was amazing. That was really amazing. That's still amazing, really.
Leah Roseman:
So, you've toured a lot, but when we had the pandemic shutdowns in 2021, you decided to go on a big solo trip just for fun.
Milind Date:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So, I know you have lots of beautiful photos and stories. People should read your blog, but could you share some of that experience with us?
Milind Date:
Oh yeah, sure. What happened, it's a very long story, so six months long story. But how it started was a very funny thing. Just behind my house, there was some construction going on. And once that entire pandemic first wave went out, they had stopped working in that pandemic. And once the restrictions were lifted off, they had almost finished that construction building. And they almost had made it ready, and pandemic started. So, after three, four months, again they started, but that was not much work left. And then, every day, trucks would come and pick up all the... whatever they have created, whatever unwanted construction part, they would dump in the truck and go away. And that was December of 2020. And I started coughing a lot. And no matter how many medicines I took, no matter what I did, all sorts of pathies, allopathy, homeopathy, ayurved, this and that, that cough was not stopping.
Suddenly, one guy told me you should keep the windows shut because there's a lot of very fine dust getting spread in the air because when they dump it in the truck, they're dumping it from the top, and it just falls down, and it just... all these finest part of dust and cement, they get spread, they get in the air, start floating in the air. And then, I realized it was a mechanical problem because I was breathing that entire fine dust every moment. And obviously, no matter... I mean, it's like a mechanical problem. No matter how many chemicals I took under the name of medicines, it was not going to help. So, I decided let me go to some seashore, which is not too far from here. Because seashore in India is very humid and very warm, basically. So, it's like taking steam every moment, cold steam because it's very humid.
So, I said, okay, and then I packed up my bag, and I took out my car and went to Goa. I started with the idea that I will go there for a weekend, come back once this coughing is gone, come back. The coughing went away within one day. By the time I reached go, it's like eight hours from here, I was okay. Then I had seen some pictures of a very lovely Lord Shiva statue just on the seashore, kind of a little uphill, and there is this big statue. And just in front of that, there is a very tall temple. So, that somewhere I saw it on the internet. And then I realized it's only four hours from where I was staying. So, I had my own car. So, I said, "Okay, let me just go and try over there and see and come back."
So, I liked the place. And then, somebody told me there is some nice place to watch nearby. And then I never came back to Goa. I just kept going ahead, ahead, ahead, and I came back to Pune after two months. I moved on all in the South India. When I came back, I came to Pune, my home, just picked up a bigger box, a bigger bag, and took some more clothes and all that and started traveling north and came back home after directly six months. So, it was fun. I mean, I had a really lovely experience. What happened was I was driving solo. So, initially, I booked some hotels and all that. Then I realized I don't even need to book a hotel. I just walk in, and that way, I'm getting the cheapest rates because I go to some hotel at 7:00 in the evening or 6:00 in the evening. "Do you have a room? And I just want to sleep and leave in the morning."
So, they know that how many rooms are free and how many guests they can... customers they can expect. So, I would get the cheapest rates also. So, it was fun. So, I went to first in January, 2021, I went to Goa. Then I went to Karnataka. Then I went to Tamil Nadu. Then I went to Pondicherry. Then came back. Then I went to Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab. Then I went to Himachal. Via Himachal, then I went to eventually Uttarakhand. Then I stayed for one month in Uttarakhand. I went up to Nepal border, all up in the mountains and all that. I love mountains. I'm a very, very mountain guy. I'm not much of a sea guy. I'm a very mountain guy. So, I was very happy. And then from there, I came to Himachal Pradesh. I stayed in Himachal for one month. Then I went to Kashmir. And via Kashmir, I went to Ladakh. In Ladakh, I again stayed for one month. And then one day, I got bored. So, okay, I said, "Let's go home." And I started driving, fifth day I was at home, like five-day drive anyway, so it was fine. I got a-
Milind Date:
So it was fine. I got a in contact with a lot of local musicians. I got to learn a lot of local folk music from them and I composed a lot of music sitting there. I practiced a lot. So it was fun. I just love it. I would love to do it again, but not this year, maybe next year.
Leah Roseman:
So you were able to do this because concerts were shut down at time?
Milind Date:
Absolutely. I still can do it. If I get a concert, I'll just park my car at the airport. I'll go out and come back and continue.
Leah Roseman:
Would you remember one of the folk tunes you learned on that trip that you could play for us?
Milind Date:
Yeah, course. So this is a folk tune from Uttarakhand region of India, which is a northern Himalayan state. Actually, I was kind of lucky. I was there in a place called a spangla. I was driving and suddenly I saw a group, a bunch of people all dressed up in their traditional outfits. So I think clearly that was a marriage party, whatever they were doing, either boys said or the girls said. So I caught them and I said like, "Can I take your pictures?" So they were more than happy. So I took some pictures and then eventually I attended that wedding also and that was fun. So this is one of those. Probably it's some marriage song or something. This is not the exact marriage song I'm going to play, but I would say that these are the impressions from what I heard in that. So it'll be very close to that, but not exact. (music)
Leah Roseman:
Hi, just a quick break from the episode. I'm an independent podcaster who does all the many jobs required to produce the series, and there are a lot of costs I bear as well. Please consider either buying me a virtual coffee as a tip or becoming a monthly supporter, starting at $3 Canadian, which is close to $2 US or two euros, and getting access to unique perks. The link is in the description. Now, back to the episode.
Milind Date:
Oh, thank you.
Leah Roseman:
So beautiful.
Milind Date:
Thank you. These folks are really lovely in India. So you can always think of India as a little smaller Europe. Europe has completely different cultures, like Spanish culture is completely different than German or French. I mean, they're like different cultures, different languages. Similarly, in India also there are completely different cultures in south and north and eastern, central. Almost all regions, the big parts of the country, they have their own traditional folk music that can be drastically different from each other. So this particular part is pahari or folk mountain. Pahar means mountain. So pahari is something from pahar. So pahari can be dressed, pahari can be a person or pahari can be a language, pahari can be a food. Whatever happens in mountains, from the mountains. This is music is pahari. But in this trip I learned that the pahari's tune, melody in India, is very, very popular especially in south Maharashtra very popular.
Guruji has played it in probably almost in every concert, he must've ended by a pahari. Because at the end of the concert he would ask, "Look people, okay, what should I play now?" Pahari. Because he was known for that. But in this trip, because I stayed there for a month and I interacted with a lot of local people, I learned that the pahari also is different. Like Mathura kind of pahari is quite different than imagine pahari, which is very, very different than Kashmir pahari and than Pakistan area, that Pahari is again, little different. So that was actually a good education for me and I got it kind of firsthand from the creators.
Leah Roseman:
Do you have one main flute you play, but other flutes you have as well?
Milind Date:
My practice and my pure classical is necessarily, on the flute, is in the key of E. When I say flute, which in the key of anything, that means the top three holes close. Whatever that note will be produced, that is the key of the flute according to. So this is F, this one is the smaller one. So this is G and this is even the smaller one. That is when I close these three holes, the note sound, that sound is D. So for my classical, I have a E flute, concert flute, and I have a several, like 5, 6, 7 different flutes; and all other flutes are there. I mean I have the harmonica, the mouth harmon, we have a entire set: one flute matching with every key on the piano. Two octaves, otherwise, the flute, it'll be too big or too small to play. Too big I can't even spread my fingers. So the biggest flute I have is A, it's pretty big. And the smallest I have is I think E. It's like this one, 18 inches or something.
So because, as I said, one of the reasons why we also need that is there are no keys to the flute. So if the song in F and if I had to play it on a flute of E, it is going to be a nightmare opening all the half notes. So I might have just put the flute E flute away. Okay, you take a rest, I'll get F flute and start playing. That was good. In all reality, I mean, if you're playing, throw some songs and although it is, say for example, the song is an F minor, then I'm not going to take F flute. I'll take some other flute; or say for example it is in E minor, I'm not going to pick up E flute. I'll probably take a G flute or a D flute. Half notes become full, open holes. So I mean it's as (music). All open holes I guess. So. Sounds only better.
Leah Roseman:
If we could go back to traditional Hindustani music, you're the first Hindustan musician-
Milind Date:
Oh really?
Leah Roseman:
... I've had on the series. There will be more, but I did interview a carnatic violinist who lives near Toronto. So there was a split right in Indian classical music, maybe from carnatic, the Hindustani became different maybe in 1200 or something? And it is aligned with Arabic Persian music principles, right? The way they think of the scales-
Milind Date:
I'm not too sure about that. Undoubtedly the Hindustani that is North Indian music is more influenced with the scales coming from the outside of Indian subcontinent, maybe from Persia or somewhere else. But the fundamental difference is not that. The fundamental difference in carnatic music, in southern music and North Indian music is in thinking. And of course there is a style. So the carnatical chime...
Whereas in the northern, there will be more scale. More longer, more scale-y notes. Carnatic music... That kind style is way much more prevalent in South India than the North Indian. North Indian side is much more deeper, much more slower, at least initially. Of course we also play very fast music. It's not that we don't play fast, but, how should I tell you? In Indian we say [foreign language ].
Some guys, even in North India for example, some gharanas they will say very heavy, powerful type of voice. Not like that, but at least very heavy, powerful voice they have. Some gharanas, they'll have more lighter type, more ornaments and all that. So that way, the styling of north and south is very, very different. Very, very different. Now South Indian still is much, much, much more rhythm oriented, mathematics oriented, calculation oriented than the north. That's clear.
Leah Roseman:
So each gharana, like a school, is the style that the guru passes down?
Milind Date:
Correct.
Leah Roseman:
And the way traditional music is studied is so different than what we're used to in the west; your guru is much more than a teacher. So could you speak to the experience when you first went to study with Hariprasad Chaurasia?
Milind Date:
Okay. It's of course a day I'll never forget in my life. In Indian classical music, like many other traditional art forms, like yogasana, yoga or asana or spirituality or medicine, Indian medicine like Ayurveda: all these systems, which have evolved over the period of 1000 years, 2000 years, I don't know how many, but quite a long time of period, they all have their own gharanas. See, in terms of music, there is one teacher and he has, say for example, three or four phenomenal, the best of his students, who themselves are to becoming very good performer or artists themselves. But what happens is, either deliberately or just by the virtue of the fact that every person is different, somebody will like red color, somebody will like green color and so on.
So one of the students starts thinking that probably he's better in doing that. So he gives more focus on the mathematics or the rhythm part of it. One guy says that I like the very deep and meditative nature of the music and he will focus onto it. The third guy will say both are good, so I'll play some balanced music. Initially I'll play some very deep, very soft and then I'll get into the rhythmic aspect of it. And the fourth person, he is good in all, but he would say that this is too serious for me. I want to make it slightly easy to digest. So the one guru has produced three students of four students which are thinking differently, and that is encouraged. The reason is that otherwise you'll become a xerox copy of your guru. And there are examples. There are examples in India that, oh, this guy plays exactly like his guru. And if he continues, then he is actually kind of frowned upon that only plays like his guru, then why not, we will just listen to his guru, why should we go to listening to him?
So everybody at certain point is kind of forced to decide what direction he is getting into, and that's how the gharanas are born. Now, if somebody, like all these three students become very, very successful, very, very creative and really great. But one is liking rhythm section, more rhythmic aspect of presentation; one is focusing more on the deep nature. So the same will have completely two different presentation views, and then eventually down the line in all probability, this guy will move to some different town. This guy will move to different town and their style of performance will be known as the gharana from that town because most of the gharanas in India are named after the towns. So that's what happens.
When I started learning with Guruji, I had already studied for one and a half years with my first guru Pandit Ajit Soman here in Pune, and he was also an incredible teacher. So within one and a half years he kind of prepared me so well that when I went to Ruji, I was not immediately asked to leave "Hey what's this nonsense, since you're doing, please go away". And that didn't happen. So, somehow accepted me and his way of teaching was he would sit and we would follow him. He was not too much vocal about explaining things, so a lot of things were left to us to find out. So if we had a question, we were probably encouraged to find out on our own first. And in case if we still can't find, then ask some senior student of his. That is, I just have two senior students here speaking [foreign language).
We studied together a lot and still we can't find them in our school. But because that was the era before internet, so answers were not very easy to find. So I had to find ways to get the right answer. So in that process I also learned to understand how to eliminate a lot of answers, which may sound correct, but not a hundred percent correct one. That process was very interesting. So that's why I was kind of encouraged, I would say, or I was taught to think and decipher between things which are kind of open to interpretation. Because unlike western classical music, here, there is nothing written. Hariprasadji has not even given me one syllable like star or ri or whatever written in the book of day, there was nothing. Never. Whenever I teach my students, I don't teach anything, I don't give them anything in writing; I discourage them from writing. Technically, if I'm teaching something, then I might say, "Okay, just record this just for one week. You just practice and just forget it because you'll get it."
Leah Roseman:
Yes, Milind, I was just curious what questions you were asking when you said you'd have questions and you'd go to his other students. I was just curious what sort of things.
Milind Date:
A lot of times they were about rag. Tell me how this rag goes. That, I mean, I do even today, that I will ask Rupert, "Okay, how is this rag?" For example, rag beam and polaz. So it's, in reality, a mixture of rag beam and polaz, so how does that work? Or sometimes I heard some concerts somewhere and I didn't understand something. So then probably I would go to that artist and ask him that, "You did this kind of structure, I didn't understand this." So then he would explain me.
All this kind of thing or something high or something I saw some, then I, Guruji said. I saw that, it was very nice. Then he would either explain me or ask me, "Why do you want to do that?" His instrument is different in nature. Flute is different in nature. So basically I would say that my very fundamentals were getting cleared. You know what happens is, I don't know how it is about Western classical. It must be like there. It's a human nature, I think, that once you start learning something and you reach up to a point where you can actually play quite good, you can easily replicate anything you are hearing; you hear any part of music and, at least like 80%, you can immediately replicate. You understand what that notes are and all that. Then there comes a time that there are different types of musics or different styles. That starts attracting you. Because at one point you probably think that, okay, I can pretty comfortably do whatever I want, but I cannot play that. Because you never studied that, you're not able to play something which-
Milind Date:
You're not going to able to play something which you've not studied. It's very difficult. Then that starts attracting you and you start going behind that. Then why it is not played in our style, there has to be some answer. These kind of things, "Okay, why don't we play this? Why don't we do this? I saw somebody doing this, but we never play that. Why is that?"
Somebody did something. Okay, but they did it like this. We do it differently. What is the reason behind that? Sometimes technical, sometimes musical, sometimes philosophical, those kind of questions. There are, basically four major movements in Indian classical music.
Again, there are two basic styles of Indian classical music. One is called as Dhrupad and one is called as Khayal. So, Dhrupad is the older one. It's 600, 700 years old, whereas Khayal is about 300 years old. Yeah, around, maybe four. I don't know. Maybe 1500, 1600, it started. Maybe four, five, 600 years. Dhrupad is much more, like 800, 900. I don't know. Pretty ancient.
What do we do is we start off with the Dhrupad style, which is the ancient, very slow, very deep, very meditative, and then eventually we mix up the styling from the Khayal style. I asked my Guruji once, because I saw one sitar player doing one particular patch in that second movement of the raag, which we call as jor.
Then I asked that, "He was playing in exactly four, four, four, four, four, four segments. We don't do that. Why is that?" There could be many answers, but one of the answers is, if you want to play the jor in a particular timeframe, then why not start the tabla? Just get a support from tabla for that particular thing.
It's a question of, difference of thinking. He thinks differently. We think differently. I think differently. He thinks ... Those kind of questions, I would ask my guruji. Couple of months ago, he had come to Pune and we were talking for almost three, three and a half hours. I was asking him ... Then as the discussion went ahead, different topics came up. It was nice. It was nice.
Leah Roseman:
I think it was 1989 when you started studying with him. Did you live in his house?
Milind Date:
No. No. No. I mean, yes and no, in the sense I didn't go and live in his house permanently, or for a longer duration. I stayed overnight at his place several times, but nowadays it's very difficult to actually go to a gurus place and live there, for practical reasons.
Now my guruji has his own academy, his own ashram, Gurukul, so he has five or six students staying there with him. He keeps the same student for three or four years, and then they go out and newer ones come. Yeah, I mean, I stayed with him, but not packed up my bag and shifted there. Not that way.
Leah Roseman:
No. Yeah, I was just curious because I knew, sometimes that was the case. With him, you weren't expected to help with the household. It was just learning, but sometimes there is that kind of relationship with some gurus?
Milind Date:
There is actually a very interesting story about that. Very first time I went there, I, of course started going from that day, and it was his birthday. It was July, 1999. It was a Sunday, and next ... I think it was a Sunday.
Next Sunday when I went, I reached early because I went from Pune, so I took the first train out and I reached there. Half an hour early, I reached his place. His wife asked me, "Will you drink tea?" I said, "Yeah, I will drink." I was in college that time. I was just in college.
I had also heard lot of stories that, once you're learning at a guru's place, you have to do a lot of chores, lot of work, right from getting water from the well, and all the ancient stories. Now that water comes from tap, but still lot of work, tasks, household tasks, you have to do, and help him in his day-to-day routine and all that.
I drank the tea, and got up and started towards the kitchen, which was ... Smaller kitchen was just nextdoor. Basically, I just wanted to wash and keep the saucer and cup inside. His wife was sitting. She asked me, "Where are you going?" I said that I'm going inside. "Why?" I was like, "I want to wash it."
So she called one of her servants and, "Okay, take the cup away," and that servant came and took the cup away. He asked me with a very stern face, "Why do you come here?" I was like ... I didn't understand. It was my second day at his place, and I just put my head down and I didn't speak word.
She again asked, "Why do you come here?" I said, "To learn flute." So he said, "Go there." She said, "Go there and practice. There are four servants in our house to do all these works. You're not coming here for that. You're coming here for learning. Go and practice."
She was very clear about this, that, "No, there are enough ... Old days are old days. Now it's just, the situations have changed." No, actually we helped, but not in the house chores and all that. He would give us some tasks here and there, once in a blue moon.
Leah Roseman:
You would work many, many hours at that time, practicing and learning?
Milind Date:
Work, in the sense?
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Milind Date:
Oh, yeah. I mean, maximum, I think I have played was about 20 hours in one day.
Leah Roseman:
How is that possible?
Milind Date:
You just pick up the flute and keep playing. Around somewhere between 19 to 20 hours, I played that day, because I couldn't play something and I was very irritated with the fact that I can't play that, so I got it because I played.
Once I got it, then other next six, eight hours was actual practicing, because you know how it is. You have one piece and you play it, and you can't play it, and suddenly you can play it, but that's not even the beginning. It's before the beginning. You have to play it 100 times, maybe then, maybe you play it without mistake.
That age is like that. What else I had to do in my life? Nothing. When you are, whatever, I mean, 18, 20, you have nothing else to do with your life.
Leah Roseman:
There's another great musician, who I know has been a mentor to you, the tabla player, Zakir Hussain.
Milind Date:
Well, I didn't play with him in his productions and all, but whenever he accompanied my guruji, I have played numerous times with my guruji and him, but I have never performed with him in his productions and his own setups, but he has been another guru to me. He has been a great mentor to me.
I have a fortune to, again, the same way, ask him lot of questions, different occasions. Then he would cross-question me, "Why are you ..." Once, I remember, very clearly I remember, he was performing with Shivkumar Sharma in one of the Purdue University's towns in, either Indiana or one of those places. I don't remember.
I had gone there and I told him that, "Zakir , these days I'm playing one piece in eight and a half beats or nine and a half beats, and 10 and a half beats." I generally discuss with my tabla player, who is playing. If he's okay with it, then I'll play it.
He asked me, "Why are you doing that?" I said, "Basically, you and guruji have done had so much in Indian classical music and on the flute especially that, there is nothing much left for us to do, something slightly different than ... Otherwise, I'll become a copycat of guruji."
Then he thought for a second and he said, "Yeah, sounds correct. Do it good. Do it well." I said, "Yeah, I'm trying." I mean, there's such kind of ... There are a lot of things which I got to learn from him, musical, non-musical, behavioral, all sorts of things.
I mean, that way I've been, actually quite fortunate. Because I am a student of Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, it was actually a kind of walk-in for me to many, many great masters, like Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, Pt. Jasraj [foreign language 00:58:19], or Ustad Sultan Khan [foreign language 00:58:19] or Zakir [foreign language 00:58:19]or Bheem Singh.
Many, many artists, I could go and ask questions, a lot of questions to lot of these masters in all sorts of ... Maybe I would hear one of his recordings and, "Can you tell me something more about this composition, this way, how you tackle it?" because the entire thing is, nothing is written, right? The tradition is very, very oral transfer of knowledge.
That was it. I was very lucky. I was really, really lucky. I could ask Hridaynath Mangeshkar , who's a big, very, very important composer in the songs, Marathi and Hindi songs, and he's the brother of these two genius, greatest singers, Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle.
I could ask Asha also. I could ... Usha . I could ask ... If something comes to me, "Okay, Asha you sang it that way. Why this? Why not this?" That kind of thing.
These kind of interactions clear the direction, because otherwise in Western classical, almost everything is written, so there is already a fundamental guideline. There's already a fundamental guideline that, if there are three Fs, so you have to play it loud, or if there is P, then you have to play it slightly soft. Already, some kind of guidelines are there. Lot of parts are open to interpretation by the conductor. In Indian classical music, everything is left to us.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Milind Date:
There are no guidelines. We create the guidelines. Today, I feel like this and I'm going to do this, play like this. The same raag, I can ... Any good musician for that matter can play in completely different way. One day it will sound very energetic, very upfront, very powerful. Another day, it will have much more subdued version of that same raag. It cannot be ... Then you can see it on ... You can check it on YouTube.
Same raag, you just search Ahir Bhairav and you'll find very fast compositions and very slow compositions for it, depending on the raag also, and depending on ... So, these things really work.
Leah Roseman:
You mentioned, with Zakir Hussain that, he taught you things, not just music, but also behavior. Were they things about respect or the tradition?
Milind Date:
No. Respect, of course ... Respect is one thing. Respect, you don't need to be taught. I mean, it is inbuilt. You just observe and you learn how to do that. Otherwise, you're a stupid person.
I think Zakir bhai is a very, very practical person. "Now, this is the problem. This is a situation that has arisen. How can I go ahead? How can I keep it aside and go ahead?" That kind of thing, I learned a lot from Zakir .
He is really a master of ... I'll tell you a very small incidence. In 1992, yeah, my guruji , Pt. Hariprasadji had organized a very big, all-night classical festival, and some of the biggest artists were performing there . Zakir bhai had come there, but he was not performing because he had a very midnight flight, or something was there, so he was not performing that year. Previous year, he had performed there.
Suddenly, in the month of December or January, it was in Bombay, open air, very big ground and thousands of people were there, and suddenly slight rain started, very untimely rain. Not very heavy showers, not like monsoon showers of Bombay.
Monsoon showers of Bombay are really, really crazily heavy. If you are outside, within three seconds you'll be completely drenched. In Pune, within, maybe three minutes, five minutes, also the rain will start very slowly, very small, tiny droplets. Then eventually it will become bigger.
In Bombay, it's not it. It just hits you. Really, the raindrop size is big, and it hits you, but that day it was a untimely rain. That was a, kind of subtle drizzle. People were kept sitting because it was not so heavy, but the sound engineers got alert. They immediately covered the sound mixer with some big plastic. They already had somewhere because they had an idea it could rain, so they were prepared. They covered the sound desk with a big piece of plastic.
Somebody climbed up on the ... There were huge speakers. They covered the speakers. Amplifiers, they covered and all that. We were just standing there, looking at what was happening. Suddenly I saw Zakir bhai walking in. He told the sound guys, "Okay, get a fan from somewhere and point it to the amplifier because they will create a lot of heat."
This is not a musician's job. This is beyond that. This is a technical ... These kind of things. The kind of, you think ahead, what is going to happen? Whereas, my guruji was busy, , if the rain is there, then what are we going to do with so many people and all that?"
Thankfully, the rain stopped in five minutes, and again ... I mean, the concert didn't even stop. It just carried on. It was just a tiny drizzle, but it happened in '92 and I still remember it after so many years that, even the sound technicians, they didn't realize that the amplifiers for the speakers will be generating a lot of heat, so you have to put some fans on that.
These kind of things, by observation, by talking now, and asking these kind of things, I got to learn from him, a lot. That's why I said he's very, very practical and very ... His analysis is very fast.
Leah Roseman:
So, you've written a lot of music for film?
Milind Date:
Yes, some. Not a lot, but some.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. That's part of what you've done. Do you record ... Are you writing any of it down or is it all, you're just playing or a using synthesizer?
Milind Date:
Initially, I would write down in notation, Indian notation. I have my own method of script, like staff notation is there, and our Sa Re Ga Ma is there. I have combined both to an extent that, I love the entire idea of ornamentation in the Western staff writing.
All sort of trills and ppp and fff, and this, and all that kind of thing, all these different ornamentations, they are already, clearly marked.
In Indian traditional methods, they are not there. It's just written the (singing). You know how there's crochets and quavers and all that, but we just ... What we do is we write (singing). We'll just write, we'll mark that bars. Bars, you know how it's exactly the staff thing that, whatever the bar is, it is divided equally in 4, 5, 3, 7, whatever that higher ... Whatever, not denominator, whatever is the number called. I don't know.
Instead of writing that signature, like 6/8, or 12/8, or 3/4 or whatever, we don't write it. We just write the name of the tal, because tal, that way is more important to us than, actually ... Then we will do this all the same way.
I have combined these two things. I used to do it initially, a lot, but nowadays because we have these recording systems and all that, I'll just play the piece, or play it on keyboard and put it in the ... I use Cubase, so I'll put it on Cubase. When I go to the studio, if there is a sitar player or something, I say, "Okay, this is the piece, and you have to play it."
More or less, I don't ... My writing abilities have, kind of disappeared now. I'll be able to read it, but I'm completely not in practice now. I studied staff notation for a while. There is a lovely book. I don't know, unfortunately the author of it. It's called as Rudiments of Music. It's a fantastic book for staff notation.
I studied from that, but that was 30 years ago, maybe 25 years ago. One day I realized that staff notation, you had to read it, you have to be in touch with it every day. Only then you can read it. It's like that, otherwise it's very difficult.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I mean, it's different parts of our brain. You were mentioning, the same as Western classical music, but of course it's different, like you said. When you're really good, you can play anything you hear. Well, those of us from my tradition, we can't generally do that. We're so wedded to the page. We're so used to being able to read everything.
It's not that we can't play something back that we've heard, but it's a lot harder because I just think our brain's developed differently. I really admire that you could hear a melody on your trip, this complicated melody, and remember it. It's amazing to hear.
Milind Date:
Kind of, as you said, playing as accurate you can play is going to be very difficult for us, because you are trained in playing 100% accurate, where we are not. We are more driven towards creative side of, "Okay, you create your ... Even my students, I, kind of push them to create own positions, create their own melodies and all that kind of thing, than to play 100% accurate.
Playing 100% accurate is needed for the sessions artists who are playing for films and all that kind of thing. Otherwise, it's not so much needed.
I mean, it's not that you can go off somewhere and play anything, but the level of accuracy or precision Western classical musicians have is the highest and the greatest in the world. There is no doubt about it. I mean, there is just no doubt about it.
I mean, I have some discussions. I said, "No sportsman is accurate. His level of accuracy is very, very below acceptance levels, whereas," I said, "Musicians are far, far superiorly accurate." For example, the greatest of the tennis players, like any of these, say Nadal, or Federer, or Djokovic, or Ivanišević was known for his aces. They cannot put all four aces. It's just not possible, whatever the reasons may be. There may be wind, or this, or that.
All the musicians who are practicing in Western classical music, all orchestras in all the towns are playing ... Whatever they're playing is 100% accurate, right? Then, probably the difference is the emotional value of some bigger orchestras, better orchestras will have better emotional value or whatever.
I mean, those parameters are ... Whatever they're playing is still correct. They are 100% accurate. There's no two way about it.
Leah Roseman:
So, you did a really big tour back in 2013, like seven months or something all around the world?
Milind Date:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that was fun. I was in Europe, I was in Canada, I was in America. I went to Korea, I went to Malaysia, Thailand and came back. Not too many countries, but just around the world.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Did you collaborate with local musicians-
Milind Date:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
... everywhere you went?
Milind Date:
Quite a lot. Quite a lot. Practically everywhere. Practically everywhere.
Because I didn't have my own team with me. So I would send some of my compositions, recordings to the local musicians and we would perform together. They would send some music to me. And just the head, I need to know what is it. Otherwise, sometimes it was completely spontaneous on the spot also. You just start, I'll join you. Then I would find which key he's playing and which changes. Okay. So then I would stick to one segment. Whatever is very difficult, I won't play. And just skip that part with something or just play very slow or something. So whatever. I mean, every music piece is different.
Leah Roseman:
You had mentioned to me at a certain point you lived in Canada for a little while. Was it in the Toronto area?
Milind Date:
Mississauga. My wife was working there and I visited her quite often when I was there at a stretch. And I played there a lot actually. Canada has some lovely musicians.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, there's quite a large Indian community there. I was curious, what were your impressions coming from India of that community?
Milind Date:
Well, Indian community, well, I played some with local, Western musicians also. I played in Markham Jazz Festival and at Beaches Jazz Festival just as a part of some band I played there. But in Indian society, I think Indian society in Canada, especially in Toronto, is really fantastic in terms of music. Otherwise, I mean, every society is there. There was a table up there called Pundit Mohan Singh. Very sadly, he died a few years ago. I think he had cancer and he got cured and he gave a big fight. But unfortunately he died. He was a great man and great musician, phenomenal couple up there. And he had a big large room and several tabla pairs would be there. And every Friday or Thursday, I think Friday evening, a lot of tabla students would come to his place from nearby some from little far away and not from the same gharana.
Somebody is learning with this guru, somebody is learning with that guru, somebody is learning something different, guru, and different mixed traditions there. And everybody would come together and practice for four hours, three hours, five hours, six hours. And they would start in the evening and go till late in the night. And I went there. I also played with these guys and eventually I played in his house and we became very good friends. I feel very sad that he is no more with us. He was a very strong supporter of Indian Classical, and he played tabla and some of his students are doing very well now.
So the Indian society, Indian community in Toronto is very strongly attached with music. There are lot of really good Indian musicians living in Toronto area, right? GTA or whatever, the Toronto area, we call it. Some very, very good... So performing in front of them was kind of challenging. And the audience also is really fantastic over there. The listeners, they understand the music and I tell you, Dis Monsi asked me that, "Will you play at my place?" I said, "Yeah, whenever you tell me." And he fixed one of my concert. It was a very, very fantastic, good tabla player.
He comes from Calcutta but he also lives in Toronto. I think he lives somewhere that was the east part of Toronto. I don't know. So I asked him, "How long should I play?" One hour, one and a half hours, two hours. So he said, "Whatever you'll play, we will listen, we have come here to listen to you." So I said, "Yeah, but some rough idea." He said, "No, Milind, you play. If you want to play 20 minutes and stop, you're okay with that. If you want to play till morning, yeah, still we just keep sitting." And literally I started playing at 9:30 or something and first break I took around midnight.
Then the entire audience was, I would say 50% audience was musicians, some was learning satire, some were learning tabla, some were learning Isaraj, all sorts of some singers and everybody had come there. Because Mori's home concerts were really, really a prestigious thing, I believe. 'Cause he was a musician. So he had invited a lot of musicians. And the first break I took around midnight and then I told him, "Mori, I'm very hungry. Give me something sweet to eat." So he being sadarji Sikh, his wife had made some very traditional Indian sweets. So I had that and then I thought that, okay, I'll play for another hour and stop.
And that time I started playing raag. It's a midnight rave and generally I am very good with time. Without looking at my watch, I can actually understand how much time I have played. So you just tell me, "Okay, play 45 minutes." I will stop anywhere between 44 minutes to 45 minutes. I'm that good. That was one day I lost the track of time and I thought that I'll play for about 20 to 25 minutes, maybe half an hour. And then I'll play a ...and end the concert, 'cause I had another concert next day also. It was a Saturday night.
I took the second break at 2:00 at night. Everybody was sitting, we were just playing. And then I said, "Oh, it is 2:00." Then I played for another one hour or something. And then I said, "Okay, now I have to stop." So all audience, not even one person left. Everybody was sitting there. That's amazing. I mean even in India it is not so easy to find that kind of audience. That was one concert I'll never forget.
Leah Roseman:
That's an amazing story, Milind. So when you play it's very meditative for you. So do you meditate aside from music or is it enough just to play the flute?
Milind Date:
I did that, but I'm not too successful in that. My meditation is my music. I think because one of the great spiritual masters also have noticed that. But I actually asked one very, very big, very deep spiritual master called Asaigaga. I try to meditate. It becomes little difficult for me. So he said, while doing that, "Don't worry, your music is your meditation." That's why I kind of took it at its fight and I focus on this. But yes, whatever I'm supposed to achieve with meditation, I think I achieve with my music, whatever the piece of mind, whatever. Being connected with Osho Rajnish for quite some time. But again, my focus is towards the music because he has taught some hundred and one types of different music meditations and all that. So trying to do all these hundred and one type of musicians, I prefer to pick up my flute and play that.
I mean, I'll tell you one thing that you must have heard this meditation, very popular meditation, the vipassana. So what you're supposed to do is focus on the breathing, the tip of her nose and try to forget, get rid of thoughts in your mind. And that's what we do in flute. When we are playing flute, we have to focus on the music so that we will know whether we are in tune or not. So that way, I think it's very close to meditation anyway.
Leah Roseman:
You mentioned Osho.
Milind Date:
Yeah, of course.
Leah Roseman:
There's still an Astron there in Pune. Did you meet him?
Milind Date:
Unfortunately, no. I went to Osho commune on Osho's birthday when my guru was playing there. But unfortunately it was his last birthday. So he was not very well physically. He died. One and a half months he died. So unfortunately, I never saw Osho, but since then I have been there. So it was like one of my guru took me to other spiritual guru. But I have played in Osho a lot.
Leah Roseman:
No, I was wondering, I'm going to be speaking very soon with an Australian musician and she was a follower of his and lived at the commune in the States. So yeah, when I spoke, she mentioned he really loved music and she mentioned your guru that he had come there to the States to play there. So there was that connection. So to end this conversation, I just wanted to ask you a little bit about your teaching and then I was hoping you could play one last piece of music for us. But in terms of your teaching, just the kind of things you find are most important to teach your students that work with you.
Milind Date:
So let me explain a bit about the education method in India. Traditional education method in India, which is still followed in the music for sure. And some other art forms like spirituality and all this meditation journey. It is called Guru shishya parampara. That means guru, shishya is the student, teacher, master and the student tradition. So in the European, or probably British, I'm not sure, I'm not a student of history anyway. But in the European method of teaching, standard teaching, which is followed in all schools in India or probably all over the world, that we gather all the kids of the same age put them in one class. All guys who are born in whatever, one year in 1917, they were in same class. Few months here and there. And then we teach them, all of them, whatever, 20, 30, 50 students, 10 whatever the number of students you have gathered, the same thing.
Irrespective of whether the child has that aptitude, whether the child has inclination to learn that, we don't care. We just teach him that. And their life goes on. It has created some very good results. This method, I mean all of us, all scientists have gone through the same channel of studying. So that has its own merits and its own advantages but also it has some disadvantages, I'm sure. What happens in guru shishya parampara, it is more one-to-one teaching. Sometime ago I give an example that three very good students of a teacher, one will find rhythm is more exciting. One will find the deep narrative side of the music exciting. Somebody will find balance things more exciting. He will say, "Okay, I want to walk on this way." So the guru will teach the student whatever he requires the most.
The guru will understand the journey of a student, which direction this student can go, which direction he will progress better. Whether he wants to do it or not is not the best in the question especially with the young kids, what they want to do, what they want keeps changing from six months, time to time. Somebody wants to become the railway engine driver. Six months down, he might want to become a tennis player. Another one year, that child might want to become an astronaut and you know how it is. So the guru will understand, probably, okay, he has better aptitude in this. This guy has better aptitude, better inclination towards this. So I'll tell you, if it's my students, I have several students, I don't have my academy because I don't have that kind of time. Because according to me, if I say yes to any student, it is a long-term responsibility for me.
So I don't have. Right now, I think I have only five students or six students, and I generally take some basic level of students. I mean, I don't take so basic that he doesn't know how to hold flite and all that. And I just actually did a video course for a website called As livedemy.com L-I-V-E D-E-M-Y. It's like Udemy, but only for Indian music, Indian Bollywood and classical. So I just shot and recorded two courses of very basic flute, like how to fold the flute, how to blow the flute, what is flute and all that kind of things. That should get up uploaded sometime this month. So I take little advanced students, not very basic, intermediate student I would say. And there also, I know whatever the five, six students are there. So I have one since last year, 2022, I started a group practice session every Sunday morning.
But till then I would invite everybody, individual. Maximum number of students I would have at one time was two. But that also was very rare. So now whoever students are studying with me, I know their weaknesses. I know their strengths, I know their inclination, and I also know the kind of support they're getting from their parents or they're not getting any supports. Are they on their own or the next couple of guys are very, very well-supported with their families. The families are very much interested that they are playing flute and all that. Couple of students are on their own. They're slightly older, maybe like 20 or something, 22 or something. So they are on their own. So they pursue music on their own. I mean I didn't have too much. There's no support from my parents and family anyway. My family all comes from business life.
So they were not interested. So that way I teach them. But the thing is that I don't take 40 students, hundred students. That kind of thing. I don't think I ever had 40 students in my entire life, but my couple of students, like three students of mine have their own classes. They have their own academies. So if it's some very basic student come, I send to one of those.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Well would you be willing to play a little bit more music before the end?
Milind Date:
Oh yeah, sure. What should I play? I'll play some classical, (music)Thank you. Thank you very much.
Leah Roseman:
Wow. Thank you so much, Milind. I really love your playing and I've been enjoying your album, so of course your website will be linked in the description so people can...
Milind Date:
That was nice talking to you. Nice talking to a musician.
Leah Roseman:
Well, thanks for being part of this.
Milind Date:
Yeah, thank you.
Leah Roseman:
I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Thanks for following the series on your favorite podcast player and sharing your favorite episodes with your friends, all of which help find new listeners. I have lots more episodes coming in this season 3, with a fascinating diversity of musicians and their stories and music. Have a great week.
