Yes! We just pinned down dates for a Harmonium Intensive Weekend at Yogamaya New York. We’ll begin Friday evening October 1st, and continue through Saturday and Sunday. Yogamaya is a beautiful and hip new kirtan and yoga center in New York City. Check out the workshops page for more info.

May 21 2010 – A batch of harmoniums from Delhi has finally arrived, after two and a half months in transit. Thirteen wooden crates each contain three harmoniums, which have magically survived their epic journey fully intact.

Snapped some pictures of the process so you can get a sense for one step in these harmoniums’ journey. They were produced by DMS in Delhi, India, and have since ridden on the back of a flat-bed bicycle rickshaw, an Indian train to the port, an intercontinental ship to an American port, an American train to San Francisco, a big-rig truck to the warehouse, and finally my rental truck to get them home!

It’s a moving sight: thousands of people from all corners of the world, gathered together to sing the divine names.

This was in Mayapur during Gaura Purnima time, February 2010. Many pilgrims from Russia had just arrived, to join the already international group of Indians, Europeans, Africans, Americans, in chanting the Hare Krishna mantra nonstop. Literally, nonstop! When there wasn’t kirtan happening in the temple (and sometimes when the was), there would often be kirtan happening out in the streets, or in this case,

One major highlight of my trip to Mayapur was a full-on maha mantra kirtan led by Radhanath Swami.

I had been in Mayapur for a few weeks, and a friend recommended that I check out a book entitled “The Journey Home” by Radhanath Swami. I got a copy in the main temple’s book shop, opened the cover, and three days later, finished the book and came out for a breath of fresh air. This guy’s story is incredible – a cinematic wild ride, like a spiritual action-adventure, with encounters with saints, pilgrimages to holy places, soul searching and

This kirtan singer’s beauty and sincerity still haunts me, along with this simple and delicious maha mantra melody.

In Mayapur in mid Feb 2010, the village was growing by the hundreds every day as pilgrims from all over the world arrived. By the end of February, dozens of thousands of pilgrims would inflate this otherwise tiny village into a Vaishnav Mecca – for a couple weeks. With the crowds came many many kirtan leaders from many countries, and so often an informal kirtan would spring up on a street, in a park, near a temple, in a hotel room…

One day I happened upon this kirtan, in front of

Here’s a glimpse of Mayapur, the tiny village in West Bengal, India, that swells to 20 times its size annually when tens of thousands of Vaishnav pilgrims arrive for Gaura Purnima festival. This is the festival celebrating the ‘appearance of the golden one,’ the birthday of Chaitanya, the sixteenth-century Bhakti saint who launched what today is the modern Haré Krishna sankirtan movement.

Internationally renowned Loknath Swami is leading this kirtan, surrounded by a large crew of drums, cymbols, gongs, clappers and enthusiastic singers. You’ll see mostly

I’m stoked to be back in California, where the blossoming daffodils don’t know it’s still winter. I’m starting to unpack all the pics and vids from my trip.

Here’s some video footage from Kirtan Camp Costa Rica, which was entirely off the charts. They gotta make new charts periodically because of things like kirtan camp! I’ll post one of the vids here, and if you want to see another half dozen high-times clips from camp, follow this clip onto my you tube page.

The incredible thing about Kirtan Camp is

Welcome to the new HarmoniumLessons.com experience! It’s been in the incubator for a few months, and I’m so proud to finally be sharing it with y’all. There’s lots of juicy new stuff packed in here, including a series of nine video lessons to guide a beginning harmonium player through the basics of playing kirtan. Also new: DMS-24a harmoniums can now be bought through this site, as I’m soon headed to Delhi to pick out a batch of about 50 of them to be shipped back to my home base in Berkeley, California.

I’ll be adding more content soon, like songsheets for all the rockin’ kirtans Jai shared at this New Year’s Kirtan Camp Costa Rica, and pics too. If you want to catch word about updates, as well as special deals, live kirtans and workshops, please hop on the mailing list!