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Today I stumbled upon this tabla notebook from 11 years ago, back when I was 12 and used to learn tabla. When I looked at these weird phrases today, they instantly made sense to me.
Each of these syllables is played using different fingers and different parts of the tabla. For example, dhin, from what I can vaguely recall, was played on the larger of the two drums (for the unfamiliar, tabla has 2 drums: one small and one big) using the middle and ring fingers simultaneously, kind of exactly like how we play golpes. Except the former was done using the left hand.
It later occurred to me that I never played with a metronome or even knew what one was back then. You would imagine that a percussion instrument has to be practiced with a metronome. I didn't know much about rhythm and timing. But when I think back to my playing from that time, I remember playing decently and with good rhythm.
When I was learning tabla, our teacher would write these down, sing them for us, and make us rote-memorize these phrases until we could also sing them naturally. Only then would he teach us how to implement them on the tabla. Then he would make us sing and play on the tabla simultaneosly.
I realized the trick lies in the syllables themselves and probably why our teacher didn't introduce us a metronome. These syllables are quite fascinating. If you can memorize & sing them properly and fluently, you don’t really need a metronome. After all, how did people in older times develop rhythm when there was no metronome?
Take the second screenshot, for example; Ektaal - 12 beats, but once you memorize it, it becomes easy:
“Dhin dhin | Dha-ge ti-ra-ki-ta | Tu naa | Kat tin | Dha-ge ti-ra-ki-ta | Dhi naa”
If you had to rephrase it in western beats: 12 1 | 2& 3e&a | 4 5 | 6 7 | 8& 9e&a | 10 11 and sing it, it becomes easily challenging at faster tempos. Add to it playing an instrument simultaneously, it becomes even more daunting.
The first one, however, is easy to speak fluently at even faster tempos. And the crazy thing is, the first one does not need a metronome to space out the beats evenly. The syllables themselves do that trick.
To an American tongue, the first might take a while.
No question for today, just wanted to share this!
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RE: Metronome vs vocal clock (in reply to metalhead)
Flamencos have their own way of counting the beats. Ta-ka 8th notes Ta-ka-Ta-ka 16th notes Ta-ka-ta one triplet Ta-ka-ta-Ta-ka-ta two triplets
You see there are only 2 syllables ta ka which are not difficult to vocalise at faster tempos. tktktktk 150 bpm or higher. tkatkatka 100-150 bpm takataka 100 bpm or lower
quote:
If you had to rephrase it in western beats: 12 1 | 2& 3e&a | 4 5 | 6 7 | 8& 9e&a | 10 11
|ta ka | taka takataka | ta ka | ta ka | taka takataka | ta ka
RE: Metronome vs vocal clock (in reply to devilhand)
I think you haven't quite understood my post correctly. counting picado with a generic "tktktk" isn't remotely similar. And I don't think Paco was even meaning to count the picado with "tktktk". I think he was just setting a tempo for his playing.
RE: Metronome vs vocal clock (in reply to metalhead)
quote:
Take the second screenshot, for example; Ektaal - 12 beats, but once you memorize it, it becomes easy:
“Dhin dhin | Dha-ge ti-ra-ki-ta | Tu naa | Kat tin | Dha-ge ti-ra-ki-ta | Dhi naa”
If you had to rephrase it in western beats: 12 1 | 2& 3e&a | 4 5 | 6 7 | 8& 9e&a | 10 11
From this example, why do they use different syllables to indicate the same rhythmic bit? (dhin, tu, naa, kat, tin all seem the same length)
ALso, in terms of intuition, I can understand how "Dhin Dhin" could imply the longer durations when compared to dha-ge because the tongue takes a moment to adjust pronouncing the two consonants after one another - the "n" of the first syllable and the "d" of the second. But that is not true for "tu naa" which is very easy to pronounce as fast as the faster sequences, yet is interpreted as the same durations. Why? Is it all historical, so not necessarily very systematic and self-consistent?
RE: Metronome vs vocal clock (in reply to kitarist)
1. Each of the syllables are used to denote different ways of getting sound from a tabla. If all the phrases were same, how would players know what to play?
2. Dhage requires 2 vocal impulses to say out loud: dha & ge. These extra syllables help vocalize a subdivision of the beat.
dhin dhin & tu naa are interpreted as having the same duration due to how they are pronounced. All 4 are single syllables i.e requiring just one vocal impulse.
It's the same reason why you give beats 'two' and 'nine' in a bulerias the same rhythmic duration even though 'nine' appears to take longer to say.
RE: Metronome vs vocal clock (in reply to metalhead)
quote:
ORIGINAL: metalhead
1. Each of the syllables are used to denote different ways of getting sound from a tabla. If all the phrases were same, how would players know what to play?
How would I know? - I was asking because of not knowing much about the practice and notation. From your answer I now understand that a syllable is not just indicating rhythmic length but also type of sound; that explains why different syllables for the same duration are used.
quote:
2. Dhage requires 2 vocal impulses to say out loud: dha & ge. These extra syllables help vocalize a subdivision of the beat.
dhin dhin & tu naa are interpreted as having the same duration due to how they are pronounced. All 4 are single syllables i.e requiring just one vocal impulse.
OK, from this I understand that a single 'word' of one or more syllables implies the base duration (no subdivisions), and that things like dha-ge are not two one-syllable words one after another, but meant to indicate one single word 'dhage' with two syllables - thus have to fit in the space of the base duration, implying subdivision by 2. Analogously, ti-ra-ki-ta is meant to be seen as one 'word' of four syllables, and that one word 'tirakita' has to fit within the base duration , thus dividing by 4. And one-syllable words have just one tap for that duration.
Basically, single words = same base duration, and number of syllables indicates how many equally-divided taps one makes within that time. Interesting.
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