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June 5. ISKCON 50 \u2013 S.Prabhupada Daily Meditations. June 5. ISKCON 50 – S.Prabhupada Daily Meditations.
\nSatsvarupa dasa Goswami: Irreplaceable Swami.
\nEvery night we were listening to that bongo drum, Swamiji\u2019s fingers on that drum. I remember one guy who came, that rascal named Eliot, who I knew before I started coming to the storefront. He said, \u201cThe Swami gets some good licks in; I want to hear him play.\u201d They came to hear Swamiji just as they went to the park to hear the bongo drummers there. I used to apologize to them, \u201cThe Swami is a very proficient mrdanga player. You can\u2019t judge him by what he\u2019s doing now. He\u2019s doing the best he can with this little drum. He doesn\u2019t normally play a one-headed bongo, but we don\u2019t have any of the drums that he plays in India.\u201d
\n\u201cAll right, granted, but let\u2019s hear what he can do with this one drum.\u201d
\nSo you can hear him. His fingers walk on the drum. People speak of Olantunji and his talking drums. Prabhupada\u2019s drum talks from his walking fingers (tick-tick-tick, tick-tick-tick, one two, one two three four, one two.) It\u2019s a simple thing he\u2019s got going with his fingers on the drum, accentuating his walking beat, along with his own singing and the karatalas and tambour. It seemed that sometimes he played it strictly, like a metronome\u2019s measured beats. But sometimes it was uneven, more human-like, hitting his fingers in rougher beats. None of it was very fast. He played that drum to accompany his own singing. I thought, \u201cGee, he\u2019s over seventy years old and thumping on that drum to his own singing.\u201d Yes, you could come to the storefront just to hear him play the drum. Of course, he had a lot more to give than that \u2013 Lord Caitanya\u2019s philosophy, Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna, the Hare Krishna mantra.
\nThe drum is for kirtana. You chant over the drum, but still you can be fascinated by hearing Prabhupada\u2019s very simple fingers walking on the head of that brownish and already worn bongo head. There will never be anything like it, even now that we have many accomplished mrdanga players in ISKCON. Nobody plays a bongo drum like Prabhupada did \u2013 simulating a mrdanga and yet not simulating a mrdanga. Just playing on that little drum.
\nAnd his voice. It was not velvety smooth like cream, but a little rough, some grating there. Not unpleasant, but like a man at the end of the day with a stubble of beard, or the way a leader of men is sometimes a little rough in his speech. It is an appealing roughness that comes from working and from singing, not a pampered, delicate thing. An old man\u2019s singing. And not a \u201cman\u201d \u2013 but an aged, pure devotee. His singing has its own appeal. It goes along with the drum, the uneven finger beat, and the rough voice. We were attracted by these things, almost hypnotized by each thing he did.
\nTo read the entire article click here: http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=20490&page=9<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![](\"http:\/\/68.media.tumblr.com\/c7a35478074b1ee9d3791082a2cafbed\/tumblr_o8a6n7sN0p1sbj0vuo1_500.jpg\")
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\nSatsvarupa dasa Goswami: Irreplaceable Swami.
\nEvery night we were listening to that bongo drum, Swamiji’s fingers on that drum. I remember one guy who came, that rascal named Eliot, who I knew before I started coming to the storefront. He said, “The Swami gets some good licks in; I want to hear him play.” They came to hear Swamiji just as they went to the park to hear the bongo drummers there. I used to apologize to them, “The Swami is a very proficient mrdanga player. You can’t judge him by what he’s doing now. He’s doing the best he can with this little drum. He doesn’t normally play a one-headed bongo, but we don’t have any of the drums that he plays in India.”
\n“All right, granted, but let’s hear what he can do with this one drum.”
\nSo you can hear him. His fingers walk on the drum. People speak of Olantunji and his talking drums. Prabhupada’s drum talks from his walking fingers (tick-tick-tick, tick-tick-tick, one two, one two three four, one two.) It’s a simple thing he’s got going with his fingers on the drum, accentuating his walking beat, along with his own singing and the karatalas and tambour. It seemed that sometimes he played it strictly, like a metronome’s measured beats. But sometimes it was uneven, more human-like, hitting his fingers in rougher beats. None of it was very fast. He played that drum to accompany his own singing. I thought, “Gee, he’s over seventy years old and thumping on that drum to his own singing.” Yes, you could come to the storefront just to hear him play the drum. Of course, he had a lot more to give than that – Lord Caitanya’s philosophy, Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna, the Hare Krishna mantra.
\nThe drum is for kirtana. You chant over the drum, but still you can be fascinated by hearing Prabhupada’s very simple fingers walking on the head of that brownish and already worn bongo head. There will never be anything like it, even now that we have many accomplished mrdanga players in ISKCON. Nobody plays a bongo drum like Prabhupada did – simulating a mrdanga and yet not simulating a mrdanga. Just playing on that little drum.
\nAnd his voice. It was not velvety smooth like cream, but a little rough, some grating there. Not unpleasant, but like a man at the end of the day with a stubble of beard, or the way a leader of men is sometimes a little rough in his speech. It is an appealing roughness that comes from working and from singing, not a pampered, delicate thing. An old man’s singing. And not a “man” – but an aged, pure devotee. His singing has its own appeal. It goes along with the drum, the uneven finger beat, and the rough voice. We were attracted by these things, almost hypnotized by each thing he did.
\nTo read the entire article click here: http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=20490&page=9<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recent-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28256"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39098,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28256\/revisions\/39098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}