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Describe the atmosphere and live music at a local pub, restaurant, festival, church or temple, club night.... inspire other people to check it out!
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Musician: Ritu Sharma
Location: Wembley, London
Instruments: Dhol Drum
Music: Indian/ Punjabi
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HOW I CAME TO THIS MUSICÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýWHERE I PLAYÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýA FAVOURITE SONG |
  
Explore dhol drum rhythms with our own online Dhol Drum Player |
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 ÌýÌýListen (1'00) to an excerpt of the Dhol Foundation playing at the London Concert for Afghanistan. (Broadcast on Radio 3: 16/03/02)
Where I Play:
I am learning at an evening class which takes place at Preston Manor School and is led by Johnny Kalsi of The Dhol Foundation. I’m still a beginner, I started last October. The first time I went to the class I was quite nervous because there weren’t any other girls there. I hid in one corner and just kept to myself. But then I started to mix in with a few people and I offered to drop one boy home because he’s quite young and he catches the bus and I don’t like the idea of people going home alone like that. I made friends from there on and they’ve treated me the same as everyone else really. It’s not about boy or girl or anything like that. They started asking me, 'Oh what stage you on now?'. That made me feel a part of the group. They don’t just assume that you’re not as good just because you’re a girl, they’re quite welcoming.
For a lot of the young people involved, the class is all about getting back in touch with their culture. They get to know a bit of the history from Johnny. He's such a brilliant player, he's like an idol to them. They’ve got a lot of respect for him and then they look into what he does, which is bhangra and they take it further from there. They listen to the music, they find out where the music comes from as well. And even though I come from a musical family, I’m learning too. When I was growing up I never used to show much interest. Now the class has allowed me to go back a bit more into the culture. I've started to listen to more of the music and find out about other people in the field.
A few days ago I made my public debut with the Dhol Foundation at the Concert for Afghanistan at the Royal Albert Hall. I was on stage in front of that many people! I was really nervous and quite a lot of the others were too. But we had really good support and we just went out and did our thing. It was great to see people complimenting us afterwards. It was even more exciting to reaslise that lots of people had actually heard of us before. That's something that surprises me. It’s not just Asian people who know of us. I’d always stereotyped and assumed that it would be. But I’m starting to realise that the group is quite a worldwide thing.
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