Indian Slide Guitar Masterclass in London with Pandit Debasis Chakroborty

Pandit Debasis Chakroborty brings the Indian slide guitar to Oasis Academy Silvertown, Royal Wharf, on Wednesday 16 September for a three-hour evening masterclass. He is in the UK for the Kala Festival 2026 concert tour, performing in Reading, Bristol, Norwich and Cambridge that same fortnight, and this is the one session where you can sit in front of him with your own instrument and learn.

A pandit of the Senia-Maihar Gharana, the lineage that produced Ravi Shankar and his own guru, Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, Debasis Chakroborty has spent more than 30 years translating the vocal art of Hindustani classical music onto the slide guitar. He has taught at Monash University in Melbourne and California State University, Fresno, and over 3,000 students in between.

You do not need a slide guitar to attend. Bring an acoustic or electric guitar, a violin, a cello, a sitar, a sarod, or a mandolin. The session works on musical ideas that carry across instruments, and Pandit Chakroborty will show how each technique adapts to frets, fretless necks and bows. Beginner to advanced, no age bar.

What the session covers

Gayaki Ang, the singing style: how an instrument imitates the human voice. You will work on meend (joining notes in a continuous glide without restriking), andolan (a slow oscillation around a note), and kan (grace notes), and on carrying each of these onto your own instrument.

Raga architecture: how a raga grows from the free-time alap through jod into the fast-stroke work of jhala, and how taan patterns build speed and invention within the raga's boundaries.

Rhythm and tala: the time cycles Teental and Ektaal, locating the sam (the first beat of the cycle), and composing a tihai, the phrase repeated three times that lands a piece back on the sam.

The masterclass mixes group teaching with individual attention. Pandit Chakroborty opens with a short demonstration recital, teaches the material hands-on, takes questions on technique, theory, practice routines and fusion work, and gives one-to-one feedback on your playing before the close. Every participant receives a certificate of participation, and the session connects you with the KalaSudha learning community for continued study.