The tabla is capable of a great variety of sounds depending on the hand position, the finger position, the way the skin is struck, and which skin is struck.
You could think of these stroke sounds as notes or syllables.
These syllables are also spoken. Knowing the spoken sound is an important part of playing tabla.
There are two types of sound stroke; bandh and khula
Bandh - A closed stroke making a flat, non-resonant sound.
Khula - An open stroke making a resonant sound.
Sounds are played in three ways;
Right-handed
Left-handed
Two-Handed
We have listed the basic sounds to help you understand how to pronounce the sound and execute the stroke, however, just like in language, these sounds don’t occur in isolation, they are used in phrases. These phrases are called bol and are introduced in the BOL EXERCISES GALLERY.
