Comprehensive guide to playing the Tabla

Over view

With over 30 years of experience of teaching Tabla to hundreds of students, many of whom have taken tabla as a profession, Muthu kumar have organised a systematic, step by step approach to learning the tablas.

The approach is to learn tabla like a language - learn the alphabets or the sounds and form words and rhythmic sentences.

The goa is to be able to play a tabla solo or accompany other musicians

The whole course is taught in three levels - Beginner, Intermediate and advanced.

The Beginner courses B1, B2 and B3 will help an absolute beginner to understand the correct sitting position, hand placement, fingering techniques, strokes and sound productions. The student will also learn the one handed and the combined strokes. and learn to play some simple compositions. In this course, the student will learn all the basic concepts relating to Taal and compositions like Kayda and tukdas.

In the Intermediate course, More vocabulary is learnt by studying more complex kaydas and Gath compositions. Popular Taal like Teen taal , Ek taal, Rupak taal and Jhap taal will be studied.

In the advanced level, an outline of a tabla solo is prepared for the student to work on. Compositions in other taals or rhythm cycles are also learnt. Fast compositions like Relas are also learned.

Among the various compositions taught in this course will be many Kaydas, Gaths, Tukdas, Chakradaar, relas, and various taals.