Tarun Nayar

Tarun Nayar - Tabla

Three years ago, when DJs Nils von Hahn, Tarun Nayar, Lady Ra, and Adrian Blackhurst decided to create a worldbeat fusion collective, they needed the right moniker one that would encapsulate their outlook and stick in the public mind.
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"We wanted to show that, at a time when there's such emphasis on building borders [up], music and dance could knock those borders down and bring people together," recalls von Hahn, interviewed with Nayar at a house just off Commercial Drive."We had excellent luck right from the start.I feel we were at the front edge of a wave hitting Vancouver and the world the coincidence of a growing interest in blending music and cultures, and a period when there's so much fear around concerning other cultures."

The name also associated the collective with the medical relief agency Médecins Sans Frontières (aka Doctors Without Borders)."We felt that in that case it was only fair to donate a percentage of what we make to MSF as our charitable choice," Nayar says."They were very cool and easy to work with."

The members of the collective were determined to find an effective and exciting way of combining electronica and beats with roots-music styles and traditions especially those of Asia, Africa, and Arabia.The result is an often-exotic fusion as likely to resonate with Vancouver Folk Festival types as it is with anyone who ever spent time in the chill-out room at Sonar.

"One thing that drives me and BWB­ and pretty much everything I try to do is to present material that people probably don't hear in their regular lives in a format they can relate to and understand," says Nayar, a tabla drummer since boyhood."In the right context, and given the right vibe, it's like opening up a whole world."

When BWB performs, usually once a month in Vancouver, it's much more than a couple of DJs spinning records.There's usually live musicians often Nayar accompanying the recorded music, and close attention is paid to the ambiance.

"We present a multimedia experience, usually with screens and interactive live [video] feed, almost playing off rave culture," Nayar says.
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Then Nayar and von Hahn will take turns spinning records for an array of contemporary and Indian kathak dancers assisted by live dhol drummers.

Three years ago, when DJs Nils von Hahn, Tarun Nayar, Lady Ra, and Adrian Blackhurst decided to create a worldbeat fusion collective, they needed the right moniker one that would encapsulate their outlook and stick in the public mind.

Tarun Nayar of Beats Without Borders occasionally sends me announcements of upcoming events and concerts.Last night he and the group Delhi 2 Dublin performed at the CBC studios.

- Tarun Nayar and Beats Without Borders

Tucakov studied physics and computers at UBC, while Tarun Nayar, Tambura Rasa's drummer, graduated with a degree in oceanography.
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Tucakov met Nayar at a veggie lunch; the two began playing together, inviting other musicians to join them for jam sessions.
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The group expanded as Tucakov and Nayar met and included other musicians from the Vancouver music scene.
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Tarun Nayar has played the tablas, or Indian traditional drums, since the age of seven, when his father gave him a choice between the tablas and the piano—he chose the piano, only to change his mind later on.The tablas date back 3000 years in India in the form of two small drums attached end-to-end, played from both sides.Nayar is classically trained in Indian music—being half Indian, his music is a touchstone of his personal sense of heritage.

Nayar's interest in mixed music began at the age of 17 when he heard music that combined the influences of classical Indian music and electronica.The music had come out of the UK, where the younger generation of England's large Indian population had appropriated traditional sounds to modern DJ beats."About ten years ago they started putting together these crazy combinations of electronic music with Indian classical music," he tells me, "that scene's really evolved now."Nayar now runs a DJ collective called Beats Without Borders that blends electronic music with Indian classical and performs in Vancouver clubs.

"I heard that music for the first time when I was 17 and all of a sudden I was, like, ,this is what I like, I like this,'" he says enthusiastically.In Tambura Rasa, crossing cultures is accomplished in the tangible, but intangible, medium of music."I think because I'm a mix, I've been mixing stuff up for my whole life.Because I'm half white, half Indian, I've been in these two different cultures, so other cultures I don't think there's much of a barrier."

Beyond its personal significance, Nayar takes a larger message from the open cultural dialogue provided by groups like Tambura Rasa.
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On the floor nearby, Nayar begins tapping quietly on his tablas.
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"Tarun will be on the tablas and do some progression and a lot of people are not accustomed to it ... and they start picking it up.

Tucakov studied physics and computers at UBC, while Tarun Nayar, Tambura Rasa's drummer, graduated with a degree in oceanography.
...
Tucakov met Nayar at a veggie lunch; the two began playing together, inviting other musicians to join them for jam sessions.
...
The group expanded as Tucakov and Nayar met and included other musicians from the Vancouver music scene.
...
Tarun Nayar has played the tablas, or Indian traditional drums, since the age of seven, when his father gave him a choice between the tablas and the piano-he chose the piano, only to change his mind later on.The tablas date back 3000 years in India in the form of two small drums attached end-to-end, played from both sides.Nayar is classically trained in Indian music-being half Indian, his music is a touchstone of his personal sense of heritage.

Nayar's interest in mixed music began at the age of 17 when he heard music that combined the influences of classical Indian music and electronica.The music had come out of the UK, where the younger generation of England's large Indian population had appropriated traditional sounds to modern DJ beats."About ten years ago they started putting together these crazy combinations of electronic music with Indian classical music," he tells me, "that scene's really evolved now."Nayar now runs a DJ collective called Beats Without Borders that blends electronic music with Indian classical and performs in Vancouver clubs.

"I heard that music for the first time when I was 17 and all of a sudden I was, like, 'this is what I like, I like this,'" he says enthusiastically.In Tambura Rasa, crossing cultures is accomplished in the tangible, but intangible, medium of music."I think because I'm a mix, I've been mixing stuff up for my whole life.Because I'm half white, half Indian, I've been in these two different cultures, so other cultures I don't think there's much of a barrier."

Beyond its personal significance, Nayar takes a larger message from the open cultural dialogue provided by groups like Tambura Rasa.
...
On the floor nearby, Nayar begins tapping quietly on his tablas.
...
"Tarun will be on the tablas and do some progression and a lot of people are not accustomed to it ... and they start picking it up.

Entering the club at 11 pm, I could see that a sizable crowd was alreading gathering in the front/World Breaks room where Beats Without Borders DJs Lady Ra and Tarun were getting ready to spin their tagteam set.
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After, Tarun Nayar took over the dj booth and wowed the crowd with live tablatronica, taking the crowd deeper into a night of amazing world music and electronica fusion.I have had the pleasure in the past of enjoying both acoustic, tablatronic, and dj sets from this extremely multitalented Vancouver, BC-based artist and musician who frequently sojourns in India to further hone in his musical skills.I asked him when we can look forward to new original tablatronic music from him and he said to expect them sometime by the end of the year.
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At 3 am (time sure does pass when ur having this much fun! :D), it was back to the World Breaks room for an encore set by the Beats Without Borders djs Tarun and Lady Ra.
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Tarun went up first this time, opening with some uptempo tunes, including the Kaya Project remix of Irina Mikhailova's Salaam, before bringing the tempo down a notch by transitioning into reggae tracks.
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Arriving at 11:00 pm, the dancefloor was already packed and DJ Nils was finishing his set to make way for a live tabla performance by Tarun Nayar who had just returned from India after participating in the Nad Project www.taruntablas.com/nadproject/ A quick glance thru revealed a sizable crowd--a chill group of folks that was quite eclectic and diverse, mirroring the socio-cultural makeup of Vancouver.

We experienced firsthand how Beats Without Borders is a unique world music club experience, combining djs, live musicians, and art, when the crowd in front of the stage suddenly sat down on the floor to take in Tarun's superior tabla skills combined with an impromptu lecture on the basic beats of the instrument.He was then joined by a dancer on stage, a flutist, and electronic beats from the decks rounded up his live tabla session before launching into a dj set and opening with the Freeform Five remix of Nitin Sawhney's Homelands, followed by Noche En Vela, Sawhney's collaboration with Ojos De Brujo from the hot new Philtre album.It was a brief, half-hour excursion into the Asian Underground that Tarun took us, which ended with the Mausam track, also from Sawhney's Philtre album.