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for the Perfect Tabla
I have been playing tabla
for about seven years, taught informally for about five years, and I am
currently teaching formally for about three months. In my own experience in
either playing tabla or teaching tabla,
I have seen a wide variety of tabla with interesting
ironies, surprises, and experiences. Sometimes, I
would meet other tabla players or tabla
students who have superb sounding tabla. I also get tabla students who purchased tabla
sets which needed extensive repair or were just plain pathetic, despite the
words “artist quality” or “professional pair” rubber stamped on it. It becomes
frustrating for the student as poor sounds from the tabla
is a difficult and poor way to see if the student is learning something or not.
Financially, tablas are not cheap, especially if you
consider purchasing a superb quality set. Hopefully, this article can help you
judge and see which tabla sets are a winner, second
place, and dishonorable mention.
THE SHELL
The shell of the drum is very important in the life
as well as the sounds produced on the drums. Not only the puri
(the head of the drum) vibrates when struck, but the whole body vibrates also.
Each material has some degree of resonating factor. For instance, plastic and
glass have poor resonating factors, while clay, wood, and metal has good
resonating factors. For the dayan,
or the small treble drum, rare sheesham wood is
typically the most preferred material. Other acceptable woods are rosewood and
teak. Any mango wood or wood with fault-like cracks are definitely not worth
it. The wood should look nicely finished without any unusual cracks or gouges.
With the baya, or the bigger bass drum, look for
nickel or copper with a good weight to it. A poorly weighted baya will result in loud volume without any real bass,
while an extremely heavy baya will absorb all of the
sound result in a deep thunderous sound without volume. Aluminum bayas or dented bayas are
definitely no good. Although dented bayas rarely ever
affect the sound, the tabla purchased should be
virtually good as new. Aluminum bayas are too light
weight and they dent very easily.
THE HEADS
The heads, or the puris,
is pretty much the life and the vital force behind the sounds of the tabla. In fact, the tabla head is
indeed the most difficult head to produce as it is the most complicated and
complex head design in the world. The world can produce bongo, conga, drum set,
African drums, Mid-east drums, and even dholak heads
easily, however producing a tabla head is only done
in India. First, look at the head and make sure it is circular. I have actually
seen drums with oval-heads, and they were, needless to say, were difficult to
tune, and thus, a great displeasure in playing. If your head passes the
circular test, then look to see if there are dangling pieces of skin. If there
is, do not even consider it. Dangling pieces will means that the cleaning
process was rushed. You want an instrument which had time and effort placed in
it. Dangling flesh is never a good sign in a skin. Pay attention the syahi. Is the syahi made of
concentric circles? If so, are there about five to six circles? If there are, are
they almost perfectly round? If so, in most instances, the head will sound
great when installed. The more circles that are actually circles and not ovals
there on the head, the heads will typically sound great, since there is a great
deal of sound control. Lastly, look at the gajara.
Does is your gajara tightly woven without big gaps? Gajaras that are tightly woven without having too big of
gaps tend to keep a drum in tune and add strength to the skins attached to it.
There usually is another feature of the gajara found
called the “bunad.” The bunad
is a braid weaved against the direction of the the gajara. The bunad does not serve
any purpose, as far as functionality of the head is concerned. The presence of
absence of the bunad should not affect the sound of
the head, although the bunad, like the head’s finish,
shows that work was really put into this.
Another subtle point worth mentioning is the tasma to insertion ratio. Between two consecutive tasmas, the head should have three cuts or insertions where
the gajara weaves through. Since there are sixteen tasma insertions, there should be forty-eight insertion
points. Anything more or less means that it will be difficult to fine tune.
Three to one insertion between tasma ratio is the
best. My bolt tuned tabla set has four to one, which
is not bad, but three to one is most preferable.
STRAPS
The straps should be flexible, but not too flexible.
Overly flexible means the high potential of the drum slacking through time.
Keep in mind, the straps are made of raw leather. Even though they will hold
the heads stronger than rope, straps will eventually wear out. I usually do not
like to be picky on the look, but here, see if the tasma
at least “looks” good and strong. My very first tabla
pair’s tasma is incredibly flexible and weak, which
is why even when I had the finest skins installed, the drum would still sound
not too high, and if I ever got in it tune, that would just be a very temporary
thing.
Another thing worth checking out is the kundal (bottom leather ring). From experience, I have seen
weak kundals (characteristic of their oval shape,
rather than the intended pure circle shape) and they are very difficult to
tune. Even when you get it to tune, this also becomes a temporary deal. Strong kundals are easier to find tune as their tension would not
change, while the head does.
FINAL
REMARKS
Tabla searching can either make or break somebody’s
desire to play tabla. If you have a pair that
produces inferior sounds or no sound at all, the person might feel that he or
she is not playing correctly and getting the correct sound is impossible. For
this reason, I do not recommend student’s purchasing low grade or student grade
quality tabla sets. At the same token, do not buy a
very expensive set either. Buy a medium to a high grade quality. Tabla, in the grand scheme of Indian musical instruments
sold in the U.S., is the cheapest one of all, although I have seen exceptions.
If you go to a store where tabla is sold, try to ask
the store-owner if they can tune the drum for you. The ability to tune the drum
is very important. If the drum won’t tune, or if it is taking ages to tune, it
is almost always not a best buy. If you have to purchase a set online, it is
indeed risky business. Try to purchase it from people who specialize in tabla. I have seen quite a few website that will tweak the
drums before shipping. Unless you are extremely well versed in the tweaking of tabla sets, get the sets from the tabla
experts. If you have a friend or know somebody who is a tabla
player, ask him or her to come along with you and test out the sets. These are
many ways to ensure that you won’t be cheated and that your tabla
playing experience will not be hindered by a poor quality drum.
UPDATED: July 10, 2009