Tabla, My Way

As you can see from the YouTube link above, I'm playing tabla is what diehards will surely call an unorthodox style.

The tabla is an intimidating instrument to buy, to learn, and to maintain. 

The buying process.

When I first looked into buying a tabla, I looked at the usual places. I first bought a tabla from eBay for ~$200. It was so out of tune or poorly constructed that I could not get the Na or Tin sound out of it. This is the sharp and resonant sound you get from hitting the edge or the maidan/middle ring of the dayan/right or treble tabla.

I then tried Facebook's marketplace, thinking that there's no way I'm going to try to make another purchase without trying it out first. I drove almost 40 minutes to a lady living in a nice house. She brought the tabla out to the front deck instead of inviting me in. Again, she was asking around $200. I took the dayan out and tried the Na/Tin sound. Nothing. Just like the eBay tabla, I got a dull thud. No sharp sound. Obviously no resonance. With a heavy heart I declined the purchase and left.

As I learned more about the tabla I thought perhaps I should have offered $50 or something to take it off her hands and tried to fix it myself. But even with all of the hindsight I now have, that's easier said than done. Restringing the dayan (tightening the baddhi to restore the correct tension on the tabla's drum head) is tough work.

Tabla stores.

I then started looking for tabla stores where I could walk in and demand that they play the tabla set for me before selling it to me. After two failed purchases, self-doubt was starting to set in. What if my technique was flawed? I figured if there was something wrong with my technique, then at least the professional tabla shopkeeper ought to be able to play it correctly to prove to me that the instrument is functional and well-constructed and well-tuned or whatever before I shell out my hard-earned dough!

Of course, Boston has no such stores! But I did find one in Toronto and another in San Francisco. I got in touch with them and they were willing to demo a tabla set to me online before shipping it to me. But how would I know for sure that the set they sent me is the one they demonstrated online? So, the only way it could work was if I visited the store in person. But then how would I bring the tabla back with me on the plane? I would have to ship it to myself. Ugh.

Finally, by pure luck, I found a hidden gem in the New England area who constructs tablas and sells them more or less at cost. He does it out of pure passion and not to get rich. He said he would sell me a set for just under $400, which was cheaper than what the stores in Toronto and San Francisco were charging but more expensive than the duds I could buy off eBay or Facebook marketplace. He wanted a small deposit to start construction and said that since this just a hobby and not his full time job it would take him a few weeks to have it ready. Who was I to argue? I had been waiting nearly all my life to get my hands on a tabla set and continue that journey I briefly started and abandoned in grade school.

So I happily gave him the deposit and started counting the days. While he was constructing my tabla set I actually happened to visit SF. But I didn't bother to visit the tabla store because I had found my supplier. After my trip to SF, on the way back home from the airport I stopped by at my supplier's place and picked up my new tabla set. Lo and behold, I discovered that there was nothing drastically wrong with my technique. On a well functioning tabla set, like the one my supplier had made for me, my Na/Tin stroke sounded like a silver chime.

Tabla anatomy.

What I came to realize is that the tabla is a very fickle instrument. It's not like buying a guitar or a conga. Those things just work. Partly because a tabla drum head is constructed like no other percussion instrument, with three distinct sections: 1) a dark center (made by applying a think layer of syahi/ink), 2) a middle section (maidan), which is perhaps most like a typical conga drum head, and 3) an outer edge (chanti) made of thicker skin.

As if the drum head construction isn't complicated enough, the way that the drum head is tensioned onto the body of the tabla is another reason why the tabla is so fickle. A continuous leather strap several feet long runs up through the drum head and down to the base going full circle around the drum. If this baddhi/strap isn't tight enough to begin with you're never going to get the right sound out of the tabla. Even if the tabla was constructed right, over time the leather settles and the tension changes.

This is where the gatti/pegs come into play. You move the pegs up and down inside the straps to adjust the tension on the drum head. You're supposed to be able to tune the tabla to the desired key but that is for experts and aficionados, not for me! I'm happy enough to get a sharp resonant sound out of both tabla drums (the dayan/right/treble drum and the bayan/left/bass drum) and I am a happy camper!

The learning process.

I took tabla classes in grade school but remember precious little of it. I've been playing drums since college and like to think that I have a percussive mindset. I also dabble with the dhol (a Punjabi drum that's worn around the neck and played with two sticks, one on each side). And I've got a conga that I play once in a while. All that is to say that I think I sort of know where to start when it comes to the tabla.

But as any tabla expert will insist, that is not nearly enough to learn the tabla. If you skimmed over the section above on tabla anatomy, you might want to read it again. Because the tabla drum head has a three-layered construction, there are also that many more bols/strokes that go along with traditional tabla playing. Which finger you use and whether you hit it on the edge, the middle, or the center of the drum head adds up to a different bol/stroke in tabla playing.

And if you follow a rigorous learning regiment it would take you years to even play a basic taal or beat with a tabla. But I wasn't going to invest all that time and effort into it. I wanted to fast track my tabla usage.

So do I do daily riayaz (practice) for hours? No. I have a full time job and there's no time for that. Also, I have other interests so I'm not THAT devoted to tabla. But I have it setup in my study upstairs at home and play it for a few minutes everyday between meetings at work and whenever I feel the need for a break or need to wind down. Unlike the drum set, which I keep in the basement due to how large and noisy it is, the tabla is a relatively quiet instrument and I can play it for several minutes with the door closed and no one outside the room really hears it.

Vocabulary.

Understandably, the tabla vocabulary is just as complex as the instrument itself. The word bols/strokes is used to refer to both single strokes on one drum, combined strokes on both drums, and a sequence of strokes.

One example is tirakita, actually ti-ra-ki-ta, a combination of four bols, which when played fast on the dayan syahi and the bayan with the flat palm sounds like a machine gun or drum roll and is arguably one of the harder skills to master.

In my video above you'll notice that I try to incorporate the syahi in some of my beats. It's the best way I can think of to gradually build that skill set.

The maintenance process.

I've only had the tabla for a few weeks, so I haven't had to do any maintenance. But I'm told that over the years the tabla undergoes changes due to playing and moisture and changes in temperature. This can result in the tabla needing to be adjusted or retuned. If and when that happens perhaps I will come back and update this section.

My life philosophy.

So, just like everything else in my life (tennis, drums, photography), I am a self-taught, highly imperfect tabla player! But boy do I enjoy it! Of course, we live in an age where we can learn a lot just from watching YouTube. But when I learned to play the drums in the late 1980s there was no internet and no YouTube. I just learned from watching others and experimenting and going for it. And that, dear reader, is what I would recommend you do if you're interested in trying out the tabla. Good luck!