Alok Verma
Tabla
With a strong musical influence from his parents, Alok, started learning Tabla at the age of seven. He went on to devote a minimum of seven hours daily, for the next twelve years, which helped carve a niche for himself in this beautiful world of music.
Aged eight, Alok had his first public performance with his mother and by 13 years, he was working with All India Radio on numerous recordings. He won all his school, inter-school, inter-college competitions, performed local gigs and simultaneously worked with the Gujarati film industry. In 1998 he won the Classical Tabla Solo competition at national level in India.
This followed with an introduction to Bollywood where he got to play with the Artists and Directors that he had grown up admiring during his childhood.
In 2001, Alok did his first UK tour which coincided with him wanting to push boundaries to explore further into international music and the diversity of musical traditions.
Alok has played different forms of percussion with many bands including Fusing Naked, Rebel Uprising, UK Transculture, ‘El Aire’ a unique experience of Flamenco Fusion spanning spiritual world music, fusion, indo-jazz, hip-hop and African drumming.
His inspirations vary a lot from Ustaad Zakir Hussain to Hidalgo Giovanni to Buddy Rich. Alok has performed all over the world in various countries like France, Italy, Mexico, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, UAE, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Morocco, Belgium, Russia, Germany, India, Spain, Switzerland, Singapore, Zimbabwe and the United States of America.
He has played on many albums across the globe with different producers and singers. He also produces own music and beats – Avartan and Aura are the two albums which were the highlight of 2019.
Greatest Musical Inspiration
My inspirations vary a lot, from Ustaad Zakir Hussain to Hidalgo Giovanni to Buddy Rich, to name but a few.
Best Musical Advice
Set goals and monitor them by keeping a practice log. Break your difficult pieces into smaller ones, and repeat until you feel comfortable. Record yourself and listen back to keep track of your progress. When playing an instrument there is no magic, just lots of hard work.