Interview: Pete Yelding
Cellist, sitar player & scholar of Hindustani music shares insights into his practice, research and inspirations ahead of Bristol gig on Sun 8 Jan 2023
I first met Pete Yelding a few years ago at WOMAD festival. He was performing after me in the Coyote Moon tent, and I sat on the floor during his set absolutely mesmerised by his interpretations of Hindustani Raga to the cello. Between each carefully selected piece, he engaged the audience in an unflinching discussion of Indian modal scales, postcolonial power dynamics and his own heritage as the grandchild of travelling Showpeople. It was impressive, not least because he offered by far the most detailed and direct analysis of ‘world music’ forms learned (or adopted) by white musicians that I heard anywhere onsite during that whole weekend.
Since that summer, he’s moved to Bristol and begun a PhD at Bath Spa University, studying the musical lineage of the Lucknow Shahjahanpur Gharana, and continues to travel annually to India to study with his teacher. Ahead of his upcoming Bristol performance, I was curious to hear about how he was drawn to dedicate his playing and research to these forms, as well the deep historical resonance of the traditions, and to find out more about the impact of this learning on his musicianship.
How did your exploration of Hindustani music begin?
I’d grown up around musicians from all over the world and so when I got to music college at 18 I was expecting to be in this super international, vibrant, creative atmosphere. Quite quickly I realised it wasn’t going to be that. The outlook of everything happening there was really steeped in this Eurocentric musical imagination that was suffocating. Then I got the chance to study a 6-week course in Hindustani music on sitar and that was it - hooked for life! An art form where the main focus is improvised melodic development? Count me in! And since then Raga based music has been the bedrock of all the music I do.
Which musicians have inspired you to pursue this path?
Being introduced to the sitar recordings of Nikhil Banerjee was an early inspiration to pursue this path. His playing was so sweet and lyrical. Another key musician for the early days was a close friend of mine, tabla player and drummer Jesse Barrett, the drummer in Jazz trio Mammal Hands. We met in 2008 when I was just at the beginning of my journey into Hindustani music. He was a fair bit further along in his tabla study with his teacher. Seeing how committed he was gave me an idea as to the amount of work needed to do this music justice as an outsider. Getting to know him was what made me decide that I would practice and study for 10 years before going to India to meet an Ustad (master teacher).
Who is your teacher, and how has that relationship impacted your playing?
My teacher is a master of the sarod, Ustad Irfan Muhammad Khan. He has totally changed the way I play - he has such a deep knowledge of the art form, that even the smallest suggestion somehow feels like a revelation. He comes from a hereditary musical lineage called the Lucknow Shahjahanpur Gharana. His ancestors were Afghan rabab players who settled in Lucknow and Shahjahanpur in the 18th century. When his great great grandfather Niamatullah Khan joined the court of the last Nawab (royal ruler) of Lucknow, he wanted to make the rabab sound more like the other instruments played in the court so he stripped the frets off the rabab, attached a metal plate and change the strings to steel, inventing the first sarod. My teacher’s family have nurtured a unique way of playing Hindustani music that retains a lot of the stylistic elements of the music played in the 19th century Mughal courts. Sadly, my teacher is now the last surviving exponent of this musical lineage and so it is up to his students to sustain this particular way of playing into the future.
When you return to India next month, what's your focus going to be?
There is a small number of his students around the world who study with him online throughout the year and travel to Kolkata, where he lives, from winter to early spring for intense tuition. When I go this year I will be doing just that - I get up, eat breakfast, practice for an hour or two, have the first class, then practice more, then lunch, then practice more, then lesson two, then practice, then dinner, then sleep. Six days a week for a month. These past few years with Ustadji (what I call him, it’s a respectful way of saying “teacher”) have felt in many ways more intense but also more nourishing than conservatoire training. The way of learning is completely different.
Can you summarise your PhD research in a few sentences?
When I got home from my first trip to study with Ustadji in 2020, made possible by an Arts Council DYCP grant, I knew there was potential for a funded PhD around archiving his vast amount of musical knowledge before it’s too late. I was awarded a South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership stipend to look at this idea of the body as a musical archive - so that means looking at how musicians hold musical knowledge in the body. As well, to examine what is revealed about the Lucknow Shahjahanpur Gharana style of playing when it is translated between the sitar and the cello that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent if it was played just on sitar. That means I have a few years of being able to just focus on this way of playing on my two instruments, which in the aftermath of the effects of the pandemic on the music industry, is a blessing.
What are you currently listening to?
I listen to a lot of the old vintage recordings of the early 20th Century musicians like the beautiful thumri singer Ustad Abdul Karim Khan and Ustad Nissar Hussain Khan. I also listen lots to my teacher’s ancestors and teachers such as Ustad Ilyas Khan and Ustad Umar Khan. Then there’s the Rajasthani folk music played by Langa and Manganiyar musicians that I adore and Qawwali. More broadly, having grown up around a lot of world class West African musicians, I listen to a lot of West African artists - Boubacar Traoré, Oumou Sangaré, Mansour Seck, Baaba Maal, Super Onze, Afel Boucum. Another style I listen a lot to is a kind of contemporary Romani music called Tallava.
Instagram: @peteyelding
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Pete will perform live in Bristol on Sunday 8 January at The Orchard Coffee & Co in St. George, with accompaniment from tabla master Hanif Khan and support from local folk songwriter Claire Vine. Tickets & info are available from Headfirst.