What is Indian Tabla, how is it made and what are its origins?
Tabla is the main percussion instrument of north India and is used primarily in the accompaniment of hindustani music. The mridangam carries the same stature in south India where music is referred to as carnatic music. The name tabla is most likely to have derived from the arabic term ‘tabl’ which means a drum and although its origin is often traced back as far as Amir Khusrau in the 13th century the tabla in its present form is more likely to have been a much younger invention. Historically dhrupad, the oldest form of classical north indian vocal music, gradually declined in popularity during the 18th century and slowly gave way to the livelier genre of khayal. The tabla, the percussion instrument used for the accompaniment of khayal consequently began to replace the pakhawaj, a single barrel drum which was and still is the instrument traditionally used to accompany dhrupad as well as kathak, a style of north Indian classical dance.
A Pakhawaj
A popular story relates how the tabla is said to have come into being when Sidhar Khan Dhari, a famous pakhawaj player in the court of Mohammed Shah (1719-1748), chopped his instrument in half when he was judged to have lost a pakhawaj contest. The tabla is likely to be about 300years old and still retains the composition material of the old pakhawaj. The Delhi gharana or Delhi style of playing tabla, to which Sidhar Khan belonged, became the original founding style of tabla from which other gharanas are said to have based and then expanded their repertoire upon.
The tabla consists of two drums, the dayan / dahina or the right drum and the bayan / duggi or dugga or the left drum, but the collective name for both the drums is tabla as seen below.
Tabla or Dayan / Dahina (meaning right)
- Normally played with the right-hand and essentially made from seasoned wood.
- Seesam, Neem or Mango wood is used most often. The wood is refereed to as referred to as lakari.
- It is made of a double-layer of goatskin on top.
- Leather straps hold the skin in place. (baddhi or chota)
- The skin is in turn tightened and loosened by wooden cylindrical blocks of wood which are wedged at regular intervals. (gittack)
- The black circle is referred and is made from a composite mixture of iron powder, glue, wheat flour and charcoal powder paste. Rice powder is occasionally used instead of wheat flour by some makers. (syahi)
- The blocks are hammered down to tighten the skin and thus increase the pitch.
- Fine tuning is achieved by hammering the area just below the edge of the head. (gajara or pagri)
- The desired pitch is reached when it matches the key of the lead instrumentalist or vocalist The standard C pitch tabla has a head of normally around 5 inches in diameter.
- Wider heads have lower standard pitches.
- The dayan stands around 10inches in height.
Bayan / Duggi or Dugga or (meaning left)
The puri (the head of the tabla)
- Normally played with the left-hand
- It is made from goatskin on top
- The shell is constructed from metal or such alloys. Examples are aluminium alloy or brass. More expensive bayan are cased in copper. Occasionally clay is used as the shell. (kuri)
- It is tuned although not as precisely as the dayan and it should provide consonant sound. It can be tuned anywhere from the fourth to the octave below the dayan pitch.
- The bayan stands around 10 inches in height and around 10 inches in diameter.
Other useful sources
Very useful source material on history