Learning The Language Of Rhythm (with Alex Ostapenko)

Christopher: Takadimi Takita Takita Da! Have you ever heard a musician chanting something like that and wondered what they were up to?

Or maybe you’ve seen people do this incredibly fast and intricate body percussion where they whip up a whole rhythmic orchestra with just their body parts.

If the answer to either of those is yes, you are gonna love today’s interview.

So konnakol, the rhythmic language from Indian music traditions, and body percussion are two really fascinating topics, which for a long time we didn’t do anything about at Musical U. But they were always in the back of my mind among this list of topics that I knew we wanted to get someone to come in and talk about.

And particularly with rhythm and spoken rhythm, one of the biggest leaps forward in our rhythm training at Musical U was when we adopted the Kodály rhythm syllables, where you have like ta and ti-ti and tika-tika as a spoken way to express rhythmic patterns. Konnakol is a completely different language for rhythm. It works in a slightly different way, and all of the words are different and it stems, like I said, from the Indian music tradition.

So I knew there must be something interesting and different about it, and I was curious to know more for myself and also to bring that expertise in for our members.

And then on the body percussion side, you may know we love encouraging our members at Musical U to sing. And you might have seen our recent episodes with Dave Smith, the drummer, who has this particular rhythm dance approach, which has proven a really great way to help our members really connect with the beat and get a physical, body based sense of rhythm, and particularly the pulse.

But what about taking it to that next level, the kind of body percussion that lets you express all different rhythmic patterns and kind of voice different parts of the rhythm in different ways with different motions?

Alex Ostapenko is particularly awesome because he actually combines deep expertise in both and shows you how to combine the two and use the two and the strengths of each.

And so when we came across his YouTube channel a while back, we knew we wanted to bring this guy in to share his wisdom with our members.

He’s also really distinctive because he brings a lot of fun to it, as you’ll see. He really has a joyful, playful attitude to it all, which is super key for learning.

So Alex, like I said, has an amazing YouTube channel as well as a couple of dedicated courses on these topics, and so I would highly encourage you to go check those out if you enjoy hearing from him today. And tomorrow I’ll be sharing a clip from his Musical U masterclass.

I’ll have a link to those in the show notes. So for today, I want to share the mini-interview we did before his masterclass, where you’ll hear about his take on musicality, his own kind of rhythmic awakening, and how he came to draw these things together, and how both konnakol and body percussion can be a valuable addition to any musician’s toolkit.

A quick note about the video quality. Unfortunately, we had an issue saving the video on this session, so we didn’t have the highest quality video feed. I apologise for that, but it doesn’t detract from the content at all.

And while I mention that also to say the body percussion is really worth seeing. So if you’re a podcast listener, this is one you might want to come check out on our YouTube channel. If you just search YouTube for Musical U, you’ll find us. And particularly tomorrow’s clip, actually, where he’s demonstrating some of the stuff you want to do while speaking konnakol, well worth watching the video version.

Without further ado, enjoy this mini-interview with Alex Ostapenko!

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Christopher: Today I’m joined by Alex Ostapenko of The Languages Of Rhythm. Alex is a top expert in the world of Konnakol and body percussion, and combining the two.

And we’re fortunate to have him with us at Musical U as our guest coach, Guest Expert this month.

He’s been in working one-to-one with our Next Level members this week, and today he’ll be presenting a special masterclass for all our members. Alex, welcome to the show!

Alex: Hello, hello.

Christopher: I’d love to start with my favorite question to ask musicians and music educators, which is: what does musicality mean to you?

Alex: Wow, what a question. Musicality.

Well, musicality means a good sense of good connection with yourself, with the space around, with other musicians. That’s the first thing.

Then, like a poetry. Musicality is kind of a poetry. So you are not shouting all the time. You know, you can sometimes play even less. Sometimes in the very precise moment, the moment which is perfect, you do all the best, but then you go out, you give other musicians to play, you fit into the music.

So it’s not like you’re solo. It’s just perfect connection with all aspects of music that you make this music more beautiful with your activities, you know?

Christopher: Oh, I love that! That’s a very rhythmic perspective, to be thinking about that dance, that conversation and that interaction with the other musicians, that’s beautiful.

Alex: I’m a rhythmic person, you know, that’s my path in this life.

Christopher: So tell us a little bit about where you’ve come from as a musician. What’s your background?

Alex: So, you know, I was not musician from the childhood.

I came to music quite late, I was 23 or 24 years old. I was a software engineer making some computer applications and all this.

And at some moment, I just heard this Arabic drum, which is called darbuka, somewhere in the music. And it was like my body started to dance like, whoa, what is this? And I was not able to do anything, so I started to search what is it? What is their book? Where I can learn?

And luckily, at that moment, I went to Egypt for the first time, and I saw this drum and this music were, like, everywhere. So I found some teachers.

At that moment, I lived in Moscow, so I found a teacher. I found, like, all the crazy people who also were studying. And that’s how I started.

Then at some moment, I started to explore different instruments, like cajon frame drums. At some moment, I went to Peru. I got this beautiful flute with me.

So I started to play flute little bit now here. Ah. Then I went to Brazil at that moment I already saw that there is such art which is called body percussion, where you don’t need drums, you don’t need anything.

You just play music with your body. And wow, it’s so cool. So that’s a thing.

And also I went to India in 2010. And a little bit before that I saw from my teacher of darbuka, who was turkish guy. I felt that he’s inspired by India so much.

So he was playing something that is very similar to what indian musicians do. So I thought, okay, probably I have to go to India. That’s how I met my first konnakol teacher.

And also I started like to dig for all the YouTube channels, what I can do to learn it. And I was like meeting musicians and I told them, okay, you play tabla. I don’t need tabla, I need konnakol.

Or okay, you play this kanjira, for example, I don’t want to learn kanjira. I want to learn this spoken language of kanjira. Like, please, please show me what you can.

That’s how I was learning these things. And, you know, I’m a very creative person myself, so I like to combine, integrate different ideas. That’s how I came that, okay, konnakol is a perfect language to explain the material.

Body percussion is also a very, like, obvious language. So why don’t we combine them together? And I did it first in. In a festival which is called Body Rhythm festival in Hamburg.

So it was there, and also I did it in Brazil as well.

So it’s like I had a lot of ideas how to combine them. And people liked it a lot because it’s like you can go from different directions with your voice, with your body and wow, it’s very good!

Christopher: Terrific, wonderful. And in the masterclass, shortly, you’ll be leading our members through some of these ideas and exercises and getting them started with konnakol and body percussion. For those watching or listening here, can you give them a little taste of each of those two so that they understand what is it we’re talking about and why might it be useful to musicians?

Alex: Okay, so body percussion, let’s start with this one quickly. So here is my drum. This is body percussion.

And I can add konnakol – no, I will show konnakol separately.

So with konnakol, we count some, it’s called tala. We do this constant figure in our hands and we place something on top. Something like that.

Christopher: Perfect, thank you.

Alex: For example, just another quick thing.

If you want to learn a 7/8 beat. For example, as a musician, you don’t know what to do.

But with konnakol, you just know two words. One is takadimi, which is four syllables. Second is takita, which is three syllables.

And you go everywhere you go, to the bank, to your, I don’t know, to the shop. And you say “takadimi-takita, takadimi-takita” and after a while, you already think in 7/8.

And you get used to it super quickly. And you don’t need to play it, so you don’t bother other people around you. You just say it, and that’s it.

So that’s just a little quick application of konnakol.

Christopher: Perfect. Thanks so much for sharing that!

And I’m sure everyone who’s just experienced that can appreciate the power this has for you as a musician. I mean, yes, it’s a cool thing in itself. Body percussion or konnakol.

But you can imagine how this enriches your creativity and your expressiveness and your ability to instinctively understand what’s going on in music?

Fantastic. I would love to go into more detail, but we’ve got people queuing up ready for the masterclass, so we’ll wrap up there before we dive in more with them.

Alex, if people are curious to know more about you and experience this for yourselves, where’s the best place for them to go?

Alex: Well, there is a course called Languages Of Rhythm. Konnakol and body percussion, two in one.

It’s exactly about what we are talking about here. And I gave you the link so you just can share it.

And also soon we will make another course, we will publish another course, which is called Rhythmic Neuro-games. It’s a super crazy course where your mind just like this, kapow! Because it’s specially designed for that, you know. But after that, when you master these little exercises, you feel yourself like, you know, a superhero. Because it’s like for separate working of different hands and like polyrhythms with your legs, hands and sometimes voice.

So it’s super nice. A lot of exercises.

Christopher: Amazing.

Well, we’ll definitely have to have you back on the show to talk about that course in more detail on another day. Thank you so much, Alex.

We’ll have the link to that course and more details about you in the shownotes alongside this video or episode.

And we better dive over to the masterclass. Thanks again for joining us today.

Alex: Yes, thank you, Christopher, for your nice questions. I liked our conversation.

Christopher: My pleasure. I hope to have you back on the show again soon!

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Christopher: Isn’t Alex awesome? I hope you enjoyed that mini-interview and a little glimpse into konnakol and body percussion.

I’ll put links in the shownotes to his YouTube channel and also his courses, The Languages of Rhythm and also Rhythmic Neuro-Games, which is out now, so definitely check that one out if the idea of having your mind blown when it comes to rhythm appeals to you.

Our members loved getting a taste, an introduction to both konnakol and body percussion in his masterclass, and I’m going to be back tomorrow to share a section from that masterclass where he runs you through the basics of konnakol.

Really cool.

Again, you’ll want to check out the video version, if you’re normally an audio listener, to see it in action.

Until then, cheers! And go make some music!

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