Pandit Vinod Pathak is a torchbearer of the Farrukhabad Gharana of tabla, belonging to a well-known musical family that traces its ancestry back to Nayak Gopal of the 12th-13th century. His father was the legendary sitar maestro Pandit Balram Pathak. 

Pandit Vinod Pathak has had the good fortune of learning tabla from Pandit Jnan Prakash Ghosh and Ustad Ahmad Jan Thirakwa Khan Saheb. For twenty-eight years, he played for All India Radio New Delhi as a top graded artist.