Ajrara gharana (tabla)

The Ajrara (also Ajrada) gharana is an offshoot of the Delhi tradition, named for the village of Ajrara near Meerut in western Uttar Pradesh. It kept the Delhi finger technique as its base but extended it, and is recognised above all for its triplet-based phrasing and its unusually developed bayan work.

The school was founded in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century by the brothers Miru Khan and Kallu Khan, students of Sitab Khan of the Delhi gharana — Sitab Khan being himself in the line of a son of Sidhar Khan Dhadi. Though from Uttar Pradesh, they settled at Ajrara, and the village gave the tradition its name.

Its best-known twentieth-century figure was Habibuddin Khan, followed by his son and student Manju Khan; Shamsuddin Khan and the scholar-performer Sudhir Kumar Saxena are also counted among its notable players. Akram Khan carries the line today. Wikipedia's article on the gharana is flagged by its own editors as thinly sourced, so the later succession lists in circulation should be treated with care; the founding account above is corroborated by independent writing on the tabla gharanas.

Ajrara uses more intricate bol patterns than Delhi does, because it brings the third finger into play alongside the first two. Phrases such as dhina gina, ghe ghe tit kit, dha ge na, gheginak, dhadagena, nadagena and tadagena recur, and are chosen for their resonance; pakhawaj-derived bols are rare.

Its most distinctive habit is rhythmic: compositions are typically cast in tishra jati, in groupings of three and six, against the fours of the Delhi repertoire, and the emphasis falls on ad and barabar laya. Players of this school also worked extensively on the bayan and on the balance between the two drums, developing the gliding pitch-bend known as ghissa (a meend, or slide, from one syllable to the next), produced by pressing the drumhead with the heel of the hand — the left drum is not shifted, but its face is touched with the thumb. Ajrara qayadas frequently carry an extra third line where a Delhi qayada would have four. Beyond peshkar and qayada, the school also cultivates gat and gat-toda.