I learned tabla for three years when in school, then started picking up the basics of the acoustic guitar when in college.
As a teen, I enjoyed Sufi music and ghazals the most. But as my career began, I drifted off to playback and other streams over the years.
When I began competing with the other artists in New York, I discovered classical North Indian music.
These three elements are called Qawwali, and they've got to be there.
My father taught me to play the sitar when I was seven years old. He and his elder disciples oversaw my teaching from the beginning, looking after my scale work, the poor things.
I can't escape crooning the 'Mitwa... Kahe Dhadkan Tujhse Kya' number wherever I perform. Basically, I am a classically rooted musician.
I'd play with these Indian players, the tabla and sitar.
I have been a tabla player since the age of four.
Punjabi music is loved across the globe.
For me to have the opportunity to learn the darbuka and the tabla in Dubai, it created my own thoughts for music.
The strangest part of Indian music is its lack of chords: There's no such thing as major or minor, and it's unusual to hear more than two different pitches at the same time.
I had been interested in Indian music and I actually started studying Tableaus before I met him.
From childhood, I had been instructed in the tablaa by my father, along with the astaais and antaraas specific to our Gharana.
I've been taking tabla lessons and they've helped expand my rhythmic horizons.
I know what tablas sound like, because my father played a lot of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
Indian classical music was born when time barely existed. It developed further within the structures of royal courts and a system of patronage where the ruler or the feudal master determined all.
I appreciate very much Vilayat Khan, the sitar player, and Bismillah Khan, the shehnai player; and among the tabla players, of course, Alla Rakha, Kishan Maharaja, and all these people.
I've been writing Indian music for a while. Indian music is about Mother Earth, and mine is no exception.
Indian classical music is charming and currently there are a wide range of musicians who bring great classical tunes to the Bollywood industry.
