LEHRA’S
WHAT IS A LEHRA
A Lehra is a piece of music that acts as a melodic accompaniment to a rhythmic ‘lay’, that can be a tabla, or another percussion instrument. Lehra’s exemplify their own ethnicity, that acts as a musical blend to a sound outfit.
Harmonium, Sarangi, Violin are some important instruments that are used for playing the lehra’s.
NAGHMA – Variation of a Lehra.
A Similar combination to a lehera, yet improvisational in nature gets termed ‘nagma’ which can be understood as poetic variation.
VARIATIONS in the melodic understanding of Lehra
Naghma – being improvisational in nature
Sam – Both rhythmic and non – rhythmic styles of playing lehra, also means understanding the taal/beat that the lehra being played with. ‘Sam’ would mean the melodic accompaniment being of the exact length of the rhythmic drumming, that can also be varying in nature.
Symphonic and also experimental styles of playing lehra are pertinent where ensembles or digitalized music exemplify the percussion aspect of a musical journey.
A lehra can also go on to include naturalistic components, like the sound of rain falling, the rustling of trees, the humming of clouds, thunder, lightning, flying bodies like planes etc in musical recordings and also live ensembles. It is also possible that one uses white noise as an expressive accompaniment.
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