It’s true what they say: The best things in life often come unexpectedly. One day at the beginning of fall quarter last year, recent graduate Monica Sheftel was practicing in the gamelan room of the music building with a group that performs music from Ghana when she met an Indian man named Abhiman Kaushal.
Kaushal, a master player of the tabla, a two-drummed percussion instrument from North Indian classical music, invited Sheftel to join one of his tabla classes. It was a chance meeting that turned into perhaps one of Sheftel’s most valued experiences at UCLA.
“I decided to go out and give it a shot, and it changed my life basically,” she said. “Some of it is beyond words. It’s a real spiritual experience. It has a meditative quality about it. It’s very independent, but at the same time, you’re very connected to the people you’re playing with.”
Although Sheftel was a women’s studies student at UCLA, one of her favorite classroom experiences was going to tabla class each week and studying under Kaushal, who has dedicated his life to the instrument and has recorded for and performed with famed sitarist Ravi Shankar. A highlight of her day was often her routine of entering the dimly lit gamelan room where she would take her shoes off, pick up a tabla set, sit down on a rug, and practice or write down the compositions Kaushal would verbally recite, as well as listen to her teacher recount tales associated with the tabla.
Classes such as this, the Music of India class, in the ethnomusicology department provide non-music students like Sheftel, who played percussion in high school, with a musical outlet.
Third-year biochemistry student Eric Taur said the Music of China ensemble class, in which he played the dizi, or Chinese flute, during the spring and winter quarters this past school year, was a welcome step away from his rigorous academic studies and volunteering.
“It helps you lead a balanced life in college,” he said.
There are 12 world music ensembles at UCLA, ranging from Bali to Balkan and Afro-Cuban to Mexico, most of them taught by master musicians from each country and all of them open to any UCLA student until classes are filled.
Most students in these classes in fact do not have prior experience with the music they are studying and start together at beginning level. Furthermore, Kaushal is not alone when he estimates that 50 to 60 percent of his students at UCLA are non-music students.
Instructors of these world music classes understand that the time students can devote to musical studies is limited, so they don’t require endless hours of class or practice. Kaushal’s classes meet once a week for an hour and he asks beginning students to practice outside of class three times a week in half-hour sessions. On the other hand, the Music of Brazil ensemble, which incorporates samba, bossa nova, hip-hop beats and Puerto Rican influences into its repertoire, requires more in-class practice. They meet once a week for three hours; however, instructor Beto Gonzalez does not require students to practice outside of class.
World music ensemble instructors also accommodate to the various skill levels of students. Gonzalez makes an effort each year to bridge the difference between those whom he calls his veteran students because they come back after a year, and his beginning students. He knows from experience it is best to split the two groups in the fall quarter so that the veteran students don’t lose interest from material that is too easy and the beginning students don’t become discouraged by pieces that are too challenging for them. It is only when winter quarter rolls around that he finally brings the two groups together.
And Kaushal, Sheftel said, is continually looking for ways to improve his students’ musical abilities and compliment them on their advances.
“He’s very good at gauging where you’re at and how much to give you and not to overload you,” Sheftel said. “He really caters to the individual and where they’re at and encourages their development.”
Grades for these two-unit classes are determined mostly by attendance and participation rather than musical abilities. The instructors of the world music ensembles welcome beginning students. Kaushal said each year there never fails to be several newcomers who completely blow him away.
“It’s such a delight to see,” Kaushal said. “They have never before touched the tabla in their life and some of them come just out of curiosity. The moment the first couple of classes happen, and I keep watching their fingers, the way they play, sometimes it seems to me that they were born to play tabla. The hands are so well fit on the tabla, and their reception of the sounds, and the body language that comes with playing the tabla. For the person who teaches, it is the most gratifying to see that a student – even if they come fresh – is so receptive. They’re meant to be tabla players.”