Off to India

I haven't had much to blog about recently - after my trip to Perth over Christmas my main activity in January has been giving twice-weekly lessons to my kids tabla students.

Today I'm flying off to India (via Singapore and Dubai). I arrive in Delhi on Monday and catch a train to Varanasi, arriving there Tuesday. Saturday Jan 31 is Saraswati Puja and there will be a concert in my guru-ji's house.

I'll be in India til March 22 and arrive back in Brisbane on March 24.

20 Ways to Help Tibet2Timbuk2 Achieve World Domination

So, now that Tibet2Timbuk2's new CD "Music is Life" is now on iTunes etc, as well as having pages all around the web including Facebook and Myspace, I thought I'd put out a request to all our friends to help us get our name out to the world.

Here are 20 easy ways to help Tibet2Timbuk2 get our name out there:

ONLINE STORES:

1. Buy a track or the album from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic or Napster.
2. Write a nice review at iTunes, Amazon or eMusic.
   
3. Give the album 5 stars at eMusic
   
4. "Tell a friend" about us at iTunes, eMusic or the EthnoSuperLounge Store.
5. Share a track or the album at Napster.

FACEBOOK:
There are loads of helpful things to do at our Facebook band page:

6. Become a fan
7. Add to your page's favourites
   
8. Share the page with your friends
   
9. Click on "iLike this Artist" (and add iLike to your profile if you don't have it already)
10. Scroll down to the My Band application, and
    
    • Become a Fan via My Band
    • Play some songs to boost our playcount
      
    • Share songs with your friends
      
11. Write on our Wall or Discussion Board, post photos, videos and notes if you can
    

OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES:
Here's a list of social networking sites we've got pages on. Please be friends with us! At the time of writing, I've done a bit on ReverbNation and iLike (which are related to Facebook apps) and MySpace, and almost nothing on the others, but I hope to get to them all eventually...

12. Myspace - Add to friends, Add a song to your playlist
    
13. ReverbNation - Become a fan, Join the street team, Share songs with friends
14. iLike - Click "iLike this band", Play some songs, Click "iLike this song", Add to friends
15. Bebo
16. purevolume
17. Virb

SPREAD THE WORD:

18. Put links to tibet2timbuk2.com all around the place - on your website, in your email sig, on social networking sites and forums
19. Add our ReverbNation widget to your Myspace, LiveJournal, anywhere you like - easiest found at tibet2timbuk2.com on the right hand side - click on "SHARE"
20. Write a nice message at our website's Guest Book

Comments and suggestions most welcome!!! :-)

Tibet2Timbuk2's “Music is Life” now on iTunes etc

Tibet2Timbuk2’s “Music is Life” CD and individual tracks are now available on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic and Napster. However, please note that if you buy from the EthnoSuperLounge Shop, more of your hard-earned cash goes to support the artists and the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala.

Prices at the EthnoSuperLounge store are currently introductory specials - expect them to go up to match iTunes in the next few weeks.

Some sitar concerts I've seen recently

In the last couple of months I've attended the concerts of a couple of visiting sitar artists. In November American tabla player Ty Burhoe brought sitar player Shubhendra Rao, a student of Pt. Ravi Shankar. Ty, a student of the great tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, tours Australia at least once a year - we had a great sarod-bansuri-double tabla concert last year.

Nov 25: Ty Burhoe and Shubendra Rao

Over Christmas I visited my family in Perth and was lucky enough to attend the concert of sitar player Baluji Shrivastav at multicultural arts centre Kulcha in Fremantle. Baluji is a blind sitar player based in UK. He was accompanied by Fremantle-based tabla player Vick Ramakrishnan, who I met at Woodford last year. The first part of the concert consisted of short fusion pieces with Perth hornblower Marc Cain and Baluji's wife Linda Shanovitch singing. I would have loved to practise with Baluji while in Perth but unfortunately I'd sprained my wrist (doing yoga on soft sand - take care people!).

19 Dec Kulcha (Fremantle, WA): Baluji Shrivastav

Perth-based tabla player Vick Ramachandran accompanying Baluji Shrivastav

Shrabani Choudhury's sitar student concert

On Nov 22 I participated in the sitar recital of Brisbane sitar player Shrabani Choudhury's students. The students all tried hard and did well considering it was the first time to play with tabla for many of them. Shrabani as usual played very sweetly.