How is Tabla played and tuned?
Sulekh Ruparell on tabla
The tabla is traditionally played in a cross-legged sitting position. The right hand is normally used to play the right drum or dayan and the left hand normally plays the left drum or bayan. For left-handers the opposite is true.
The dayan is tuned to the pitch of the instrumentalist or vocalist and provides the melodic open sounding treble effect. The bayan on the other hand provides the bass effect and its role in simple rhythmic accompaniment is to hold the beat structure together. Admittedly this is a rather simple way of looking at the combination of the two drums and the number of notes playable means that the variety of sounds is limitless overall.
The tabla notes or bols are syllables used by Indian musicians to express the content and musical phrase of a composition.
They are similar to the Western form of written music. Bols of the tabla are committed to memory as a way of learning the repertoire. They depict the strokes played by both hands and a combination of the two hands.
The bols have no literal meaning and the production of the sound should, like any other instrument, be taught by a teacher. The principal strokes given are similar in sound from one gharana or style to another but because of the variety of languages and different dialects encountered in India, the pronunciation of bols is reflected by the geographical location of where the bols originated.
Although sound production is the art of all the styles of tabla playing, the way in which some of the bols are executed differ. Mainly the difference lies between the open sounding gharanas such as Punjab and Benares (khula baj) and the closed playing styles (band baj) of the Delhi gharana but more importantly in the way the specific composition is spoken and referred to.
The link between the way that a bol is spoken and its sound on the tabla is inexorable. The teacher guides the student as to how the specific bol should be spoken and played from composition to composition and thus the student learns how the piece is to be played by understanding first how to speak the phrases with the correct weight and emphasis and then playing them with equal measure on the tabla.
Examples of such single handed bols are TeTe, TiTa, Ghe, Na, Ta, Tin, Tun and Ke. Other bols are then possible by combining the sounds together like Dha, where Na and Ghe are played simultaneously and Dhin where Tin and Ghe are played together. As one might imagine the possibilities are endless.
Tuning the tabla is a highly complex matter. The tuning method is directly linked to the size of the tabla puri or head of the tabla. In general the wider the diameter of the puri the lower the standard pitch of the tabla and vice versa. To take an average, a tabla with a diameter of around 5 inches will most normally have a standard pitch of c. This tabla could then be fine-tuned to c# or lowered to b. However, tabla do not always sound good a tone or semi-tone higher or lower than their standard pitch.
Finally, in hot conditions it is important for one to keep the tabla in a pitch lower than its standard as the puri itself expands in hotter conditions. The puri on a tabla should never be tuned too far differently on one side as compared to the opposite side. This may cause the puri itself to rip apart.
A typical tabla tuning hammer
The basic principle of tuning is to hammer the gittack or wooden cylindrical blocks down for an increase in pitch and loosen the gittack for lower pitch. Fine tuning is achieved by hammering on an area called gajara. It is an area which tightens or loosens the puri by micro-tones. Where exactly to place each gittack – in other words how many leather straps (baddhi) should fit around a single gittack - depends upon the desired pitch. Normally 2 or 3 straps are pulled around each gittack. The more straps that are pulled the higher will be the standard pitch. The recommendation of an experienced tabla player or maker would be required to assess how many straps should cover a single gittack for the tabla sound to be considered ideal.