By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Aurally identify the teentaal cycle
Perform seven popular taal using traditional clapping/waving hand gestures.
Aurally recognize beat patterns in a taal and transcribe the rhythm of a short example.
Sight read melodies with multiple skips/leaps using scale degrees 4 and 6.
Sight read and aurally recognize more difficult rhythms in simple time with 16th note rests (continued work from the previous lesson).
Review the Taal Handout, as needed
Count & Sing Along: Flip through the Taal on this page (digitabla.com) and pick out a few to practice. Keep time using the hand gestures Urmi presents in her video and sing the syllables of the Theka along with the tabla player's performance.
Counting Taal: As a class, sing and count through the seven taal that you practiced in Urmi Battu's video. There's a summary of the counts and hand gestures for the video here and in your anthology.
North Indian Rhythms: Work through the permutation exercise from Shawn Mativetsky's video in the pre-class materials, along with the tapping and waving Mativetsky demonstrates. The notation for the permutations demonstrated in the video is provided here.
The Jhaptal in Context
Review the structure of the Jhaptal.
Count along with Zakir Hussein on a tabla solo in this recording, using the tapping and waving gestures for the taal.
Then, count along with Ravi Shankar (sitar) and Alla Rakha (tabla) here (starting at 3:30 in the video). Watch Ravi Shankar's hands as he helps you count along with the Jhaptal rhythm cycle.
Taal Dictation:
Listen to "Raag Bilaskhani Todi," performed by Pandit Kamalesh Maitra (on tabla tarang) and Trilok Gurtu (on tabla).
There's a recording available here. Play 7:52–8:07 from the track.
In the recording, Maitra is performing on tabla tarang (a pitched tabla drum that provides the melody) while Gurtu performs on the tabla and provides the accompaniment. Your task is to transcribe the rhythm of the tabla tarang.
On the first hearing, identify the meter and discuss as a class. Once you've settled on a meter, transcribe the rhythm. There are 8 bars total.
Once your transcription is complete, clap and sing back your transcribed work. Then, sing through the theka for the taal.
Sight Reading:
Rhythm: Continued work with 16th note rests in simple time.
Melody: Melodies with multiple skips/leaps between scale degrees 4 and 6.
Taal: This page contains the hand gestures and counts for the taal outlined in Urmi Battu's video of 7 popular taal.
Raag Compositions:: Visit the composition page of "Demystifying Indian Classical Music" to find a list of compositions, audio files, Western notation, and descriptions of the taal and raag for each. Sing along with the recordings or try your hand at some transcription.
Want to explore rhythmic cyles in Arabic music? Arabic music uses cyles of rhythm called iqa‘at. Check out this page to see some examples and hear them in music.