Dha Ge Na, Tin Na Ka, Dhin Na, Da Ge Na, Tin Na Ka, Dhin Na, Dha Ge Na, Tin Na Ka, Dhin Na...

Or something like that. I just had my first tabla lesson yesterday. Since my set hasn't arrived yet, we were just going over the basics of North Indian talas - rhythmic cycles that lay the foundation for any North Indian percussion. The repetition above, for instance, is the Keharva tala (printed three times), actually one of the shorter ones. The basis is a 3+3+2 division (Dha Ge Na + Tin Na Ka + Dhin Na) of beats, totalling 8. Other talas have many more; the most I've seen in my one-lesson-of-tabla-experience is Tintal, which has 16 beats. Fortunately for my scrawny brain, Tintal is also the easiest tala to memorize as it is divided into 4 groups of 4, similar to the vast majority of Western pop music.

I have been working on memorizing the common talas and their respective beat emphases. I especially enjoy the Keharva - partially because it's relatively simple to recite in double or triple time over itself (tapping the pattern slowly using hand gestures while reciting it at twice or thrice the tempo). 

In other news, I've been gathering the beginnings of a more extensive post on the relationship between music and the brain, a subject about which I know only a little but am excruciatingly interested. So that should be coming in a few days. In the meantime, here's a little electronic tune to celebrate autumnal beginnings - inspired by Boards of Canada, Rjd2, and majestic midwestern foliage (sob):

Washed Ashore.mp3 ©Copyright Alex Legge 2009

(I strongly recommend turning the bass down)