1) Focus on Tone and sound quality – Thought I’d talk about the importance of clarity and tone in playing tabla.
It’s key for any tabla player to produce the highest quality of tone.
Benares tabla players are renowned for their quality or strokes and clarity.
Speed doesn’t matter to a certain extent, first it’s important to play any piece slowly and with clarity.
You should be able to hear every stroke you play with a crisp clarity 2) Keep it simple The key to any great composition is usually simplicity.
If you look at compositions by the great tabla players such as Pt. Kishan Maharaj, Pt. Sampta Prasad and many more.
The more simple the style of playing therefore provides you space to include small intricate pieces to provide the contrast to uplift the composition.
Before you start to play, be sure you do Namaskar to them as God resides within them.
4) It’s not just about ‘You’ Playing tabla is not all about “You” and how many variations and cuts you can play to get the audience applauding.
The same goes for showing the same respect to fellow tabla players you may know.
Riaz is the most important part of playing tabla or any musical art.
You need to play one beat, one composition or just one kayda over and over until you can play this for at least an hour.
If you’re playing Ti-Te over and over again using single fingers, you’ll slowly increase your stamina form playing for 2 minutes, slowly to 5 minutes and the next thing you know, you’ll be playing it with ease for longer stretches of time.
In order for you to play clean tabla, your mind needs to be clean and completely thoughtless.
You will notice a huge difference in your state of mind in not only when you play tabla but you will be able to focus on any activity you perform.
So this doesn’t mean that you blindly just listen to music, actually listen to what they are playing, how is it structured, what instruments are playing, what Taal is playing, what is the person playing on the tabla or any instrument you can recognise.
So if there is a tanpura playing at C#, you should be able to recognise what chord is playing.
Everything in music is based around timing and especially for tabla players who are known as the Time Keepers.
Make yourself a medium through which God provides his energy for you to perform and play tabla every time.
So just play as a free spirit and express yourself through your music.
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