Indian drums to be demonstrated

There are 64 different types of drums from India, and Ragi Rao of Kennewick can play about a dozen of them.

The India-born man will give a performance and talk about a selection of those drums starting at 6:30 p.m. April 16 at the Hindu Society of Eastern Washington Community Center, 2100 Bombing Range Road, in West Richland.

"I'll be playing eight types of drums: the tabla, dholak, dholki, khola, ghatam, khanjara, moorsing and dol," he said.

Admission is $10 at the door.

"There are three kinds of percussion demonstrations: verbal percussion explaining the theory; instrumental percussion, playing each drum for a few minutes; vocal percussion, using my own creation of breath control with lips, tongue, teeth and mouth, which imitates the sound of rhythm faster than any rap," he explained.

Rao, who has lived in the Tri-Cities for more than 30 years, says most of the percussion instruments that come from India are made from jack fruit tree wood as well as goat leather.

He's been playing his various collection of drums from decades and was inspired to learn to play percussion instruments by the late Jon B. Higgins, a professor of music at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

"He visited India about 50 years ago on a Fulbright scholarship to learn Indian music," Rao said. "He learned the language, then the music and he specialized in rhythm, which is highly complicated, and to some extent I will try to prove how complicated."

The performance will be the first time Rao has played his drums for the public in the Tri-Cities.

*Dori O'Neal: 582-1514; doneal@tricityherald.com

This story was originally published April 15, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Indian drums to be demonstrated ."