Tabla

The tabla holds an unusual place among instruments in this atlas because nothing about its construction or its origin marks it out as religious: it is the primary rhythm instrument of Hindustani classical music generally, played in secular concerts, film scores and private practice with no devotional content at all. Its place here rests entirely on how it is used in specific settings, chiefly Sikh kirtan, the devotional singing of scripture that forms the core of gurdwara worship, where tabla keeps time under the harmonium and the voice, and Hindu bhajan, congregational devotional singing that ranges from temple settings to home gatherings.

In both contexts the instrument itself, its construction and its playing technique, is identical to what a classical or film musician would use; the devotional character comes entirely from the text being sung and the setting it is sung in, not from the drum. This makes tabla a useful test case for how this atlas treats instruments generally: an object earns an entry here through documented religious use, not through any claim that the object is sacred in itself, and tabla's is a genuinely devotional use even though the instrument is shared with entirely secular music.

The tabla is actually a pair of drums rather than one, and the pairing is functional rather than decorative. The dayan, the smaller of the two and played with the right hand, is tuned to a specific pitch, usually matching the tonic of whatever is being sung or played, and produces the higher, more melodic sounding strokes. The bayan, the larger drum played with the left hand, produces the deep bass tones and is where a skilled player achieves the instrument's characteristic pitch bending sound by varying the pressure of the heel of the hand against the head while striking. Both drumheads carry a black paste of iron filings, rice starch and gum applied in layers and left to dry, called the syahi, which is what gives tabla its clear, resonant, almost bell-like tone rather than the flatter sound of an untreated drumhead.

In a kirtan setting, the tabla player follows the singer and the harmonium rather than leading, providing a steady rhythmic cycle, or tala, under the hymn, a role that requires the same rhythmic vocabulary used in classical performance but applied in service of the text being sung rather than to a soloist's own improvisation. Students typically spend years mastering the vocabulary of strokes, called bols, before being considered ready to accompany devotional singing in a public setting at all.