tabla

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Indian tabla, consisting of two drums, …
James Blades

Pair of small drums, the principal percussion in Hindustani music of northern India.

The higher-pitched daya, played with the right hand, is a roughly cylindrical one-skinned drum, usually wooden, normally tuned to the raga's tonic. The baya, played with the left hand, is a deep kettledrum usually of copper; its pitch varies with pressure from the heel of the player's hand. A disk of black tuning paste on the membrane of each drum gives it harmonic overtones.

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percussion instrument - A musical instrument that is struck (or sometimes shaken or scraped) to produce sound.

sitar - Long-necked stringed instrument of northern India, the dominant instrument in Hindustani music.

drum - Musical instrument, the sound of which is produced by the vibration of a stretched membrane.

Glass, Philip - U.S. composer.

South Asian arts - Literary, performing, and visual arts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.

More on "tabla" from the 32 Volume Encyclopædia Britannica:

tabla - pair of small drums fundamental (since the 18th century) to Hindustani music of northern India. The higher-pitched of the two drums, which is played with the right hand, is also referred to individually as the tabla or as the daya (dahina or dayan, meaning "right"). It is a single-headed drum usually of wood and having the profile of two truncated cones bulging at the centre, the lower portion ...

Tablas de Damiel National Park - nature reserve, located about 19 miles (30 km) northeast of the city of Ciudad Real, south-central Spain. The park, created in 1973, occupies 4,633 acres (1,875 hectares) and lies at the confluence of the Guadiana and Ciguela rivers, where fresh and brackish waters converge on the marshes and support both migratory and resident waterfowl year-round.

Azuero Peninsula - physical region in southwestern Panama, protruding south into the Pacific Ocean between the Gulf of Panama to the east and the Gulf of Montijo to the west. It measures 60 miles (100 km) from east to west and 55 miles (90 km) from north to south. It attains a maximum elevation of 3,068 feet (935 m) at Mount Canajagua, southwest of Las Tablas. The main towns of the region are Chitre and Las Tablas, ...

Alla Rakha Khan - Indian musician (b. April 29, 1919, Phagwal, Jammu province, India-d. Feb. 3, 2000, Mumbai [Bombay], India), was a maestro of the tabla, small drums used in classical Indian music, and was the first tabla player to give solo concerts. Alla Rakha, who was awarded the honorific ustad ("master"), supplemented his virtuoso classical performances with occasional work in jazz, on the radio, and as ...

kayal - in Hindustani music (q.v.), a musical form based on a Hindi song in two parts that recur between expanding cycles of melodic and rhythmic improvisation. In a standard performance a slow (vilambit) kayal is followed by a shorter, fast (drut) kayal in the same raga.

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