T?LA

T?LA In the classical music traditions of India, t?la (Sanskrit, "palm of the hand," or "clap") is the combined concept of rhythm and meter. Analytically, a t?la is a cyclic and additive measure of musical time. That is, unlike the approach to musical time that has prevailed in Euro-American culture (which has parsed pulses into linear duple and triple patterns and then has subdivided the pulses), South Asian musicians have constructed time by cyclically patterning added subsections of pulses and subdividing the beats. The conceptual categories for t?la stem from South Asia's language and poetics, in which verses consist of patterned long and short syllable combinations. Cyclical musical time parallels other Indian conceptualizations of time, such as the agricultural rhythm of the seasons, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, and notions of cosmic time.

As with r?ga, musicians in North and South India understand t?la similarly, while differing on the specifics. The common concepts are those of cycle (?varta/?vartanam in the South and ?varta/?vard in the North), structural subsection (anga in the South and vibh?g in the North), and beat (m?tra in both cultures), as well as the notion that these beats can have subdivisions. Similarly, the North and the South generally pattern performances from open, pulseless, and meterless beginnings (?l?pana/?l?p) to the microsubdivision of the mensural musical moment. Finally, both systems think of tempo in three

broad (but modifiable) tempi: vilambita-laya (slow tempo), madhyama or madhya-laya (medium tempo), and druta-laya (fast tempo). The differences derive in large part from the historical and cultural contexts of music performance, but also from the cultural disposition of the cultures.

As with scale types, southern traditions have systematic structures for generating and categorizing musical time that inform and have been informed by performance practice. Northern traditions, on the other hand, derive heavily from performance practice, so that t?la structure emerges from an ecological evolution of practical forms.

South India

Musical time plays a prominent role in Karn?tak music practice and is an integral part of South Indian musical instruction, while functioning as an underlying, albeit often unstated, principle. That is, in South Indian musical practice, performance reflects the underlying structures of t?la (the patterning of sections and relative points of importance), but no specific musical part has the charge of keeping and showing the t?la. Musicians will often reveal the t?la in which they are performing through standardized gestures (and the audience may also "keep time" in this fashion), but no musical part has the specific charge of keeping or showing the time for the other musicians.

South Indian musicians and music scholars have developed systematic formulas for generating time patterns. The overarching idea is that of cycle. An ?varta/?varttanam (Sanskrit/Telegu, "cycle" or "a return to the beginning") is the span of one cycle of a t?la. Once established, the pattern of an ?varta—the t?la—remains consistent until the end of the composition.

This pattern derives principally from the arrangement of the subsections. Each subsection, or anga (Sanskrit, "member" or "part"), can consist of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, or 9 beats or m?tras (Sanskrit, "syllable"). Karn?tak musicians and scholars have developed ways to symbolically represent angas both by a physical gesture and/or a written symbol. The two most common physical gestures employed today are the tattu (Telegu, "beat" or "clap") and v?ccu (Telegu, "wave") with smaller articulations of the fingers to help in the counting of longer angas.

Karn?tak practice recognizes three different kinds of anga and represents them with written symbols. The drutam is a two-m?tra anga marked by a clap (tattu) and a wave (v?ccu) and symbolically indicated as a circle (O). The anudrutam is a one-m?tra anga marked by a clap (tattu) and indicated as an upwardly opening circle (U). The laghu is a multiple-m?tra anga marked by a clap (tattu) and a number of additional silent beats to complete an anga. Musicians represent the laghu with a vertical bar and a number indicating its duration (|n). A laghu can be tishra (triple) with 3 m?tras (|₃); caturashra (quadratic) with 4 m?tras (|₄); khanda (broken) with 5 m?tras (|₅); mishra (mixed) with 7 m?tras (|₇); or sank?rna (composite) with 9 m?tras (|₉).

Practice also allows the subdivision or laya (Sanskrit, layate, "to go"; laya, "the act of sticking or clinging to") of each m?tra in several ways. The single count pulse division is gati or natai (Sanskrit and Tamil, "pace"), tishra natai is a triple submetric division of the beat, caturashra gati/natai is quadruple (also known as sarva-laghu), khanda natai is quintuple, and mishra natai is septuple. That is, each m?tra at tishra natai can have triplets at tishra natai, quadruplets at caturashra natia, and so on.

S?l?d?T?las

The devotional singer Purandara Dasa (1480–1564) established a musical time system based on seven s?l?d?t?las for use in formal compositions by combining the laghu (|), drutam (O), and anudrutam(U) in ways that reflect the performance practice of his time. The most commonly used of these t?las appear in Table 1.

When naming the different versions of these t?las, one first names the quality of the laghu followed by the name of the t?la; however, particular versions of these t?las have special recognition. For example, caturashra Triputa t?la (that is, the eight-m?tra version of Triputa t?la with a laghu of four m?tras followed by two drutams) more commonly carries the name ?di t?la (first), as this is one of the most common t?las in South Indian music. However, some t?las are common in particular contexts and yet have no special name. For example, khanda ?ta t?la (the 14-m?tra version of ?ta t?la with two five-m?tra laghus and two drutams) is particularly important in tana varnam compositions, but has no separate appellation.

Capu T?las

While the s?l?d?t?las have been the choice of composers for the most complex compositions of the repertoire, the c?pu t?las are common in lighter works and occur most often in fast laya. A characteristic of the c?pu t?las is that each t?la has two parts, with the second part one beat longer than the first. The most important of these are (a) mishra c?pu (3 + 4; sometimes known only as c?pu) which often acts as an up-tempo version of tishra triputa (3 + 2 + 2); (b) khanda c?pu (2 + 3; often called ara Jhampa [half Jhampa]) which similarly functions as an up-tempo version of mishra jhampa (7 + 1 + 2); (c) tisra capu (1 + 2 and a slightly different emphasis than tishra Eka t?la); and (d) sank?rna c?pu (4 + 5).

North India

Again, North and South India share conceptions of tal. Each cycle or ?varta (or sometimes ?vard) consists of one or several vibh?gs (Sanskrit/Hindi, "partition" or "breakdown"), which in turn usually consist of two, three, or four m?tras. A clap (t?li [Sanskrit-Hindustani diminutive of tal, "beat" or "clap"]) or wave (kh?l? [Hindustani "empty"]) marks the beginning of each vibh?g. The most important vibh?g marker is the sam (Hindustani, "together"), the first beat of an ?varta and the point at which the end of the time cycle comes back and joins the beginning.

North Indian musicians and scholars use a schematic system to describe the structure of t?la. An "X" marks the sam. T?lis are numbered (with the exception of when the sam is a t?li—which is true of most tals). An "O" marks the kh?l? or beginning of an "empty" vibh?g. Figure 1 illustrates these parts in the context of one ?varta (cycle) of the most common tal in the Hindustani sang?t paddhati (North Indian classical music tradition): T?nt?l.

In Figure 1 the ?varta consists of 16 m?tras divided into four vibh?gs of four m?tras each, with the first, second, and fourth vibh?gs marked by t?lis and the third vibh?g marked by a kh?l?. (Note that an X marks the first t?li, the sam. The number "1" appears only when the sam is kh?l?.)

The Hindustani sang?t paddhati sense of lay (subdivision, tempo) parallels that of the Karn?tak sang?t paddhati in that the metric subdivision of m?tras can be caturasra (quadratic, 4 subbeats), tisra (triple, 3 subbeats), misra (mixed, 7 subbeats), khanda (broken, 5 subbeats), and sank?rna (composite, 9 subbeats). Thus, the above schematic of T?nt?l could have m?tras further divided into triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, or groups of nine. And, as in South India, the terms vilambit (slow), madhya (medium), and drut (fast) describe tempo, with the prefix ati (very) modifying the slow and fast extremes.

North Indian time, like that of South India, is conceptually additive. However, rather than a standard set of formulas modified through a grid of metrical options (like the s?l?d?t?las) or meters, which follow a standard mathematical function (like the c?pu t?las), North Indian t?ls derive almost entirely from performance practice. Hindustani musicians generally describe t?ls not as a series of laghus, drutams, and anudrutams, but rather as a stylized series of drum strokes. These drum strokes most often come from the performance practice of tabla and sometimes, the pakh?waj.

Figures 2 through 6 illustrate the most common t?las, beginning with the aforementioned T?nt?l. In general, syllables beginning with a "dh" sound indicate "open" strokes played by both drums in a pair of tabla (or drumheads, in the case of the pakh?waj), with the lower-pitched drum resonating or ringing. A syllable beginning with a "t" represents a stroke played only on the higherpitched head. A syllable beginning with a "k" or "g" represents a stroke played only on the lower-pitched drum. (Note: the use of Western notation to represent these drum strokes is for the convenience of those familiar with this mode of musical representation.)

In Figure 2, note how "open" strokes (dh?, dhin) predominate in the first, second, and fourth vibh?gs—marked by t?l?s (claps)—and how "closed" strokes (t?, tin) predominate in the third vibh?g—which begins with a kh?l? (wave). This example is in medium tempo (madhya lay). Figure 3 is an example of the same t?l in slow tempo (vilambit lay). The structure remains on the principle of m?tras, but each m?tra has an underlying quadratic (caturashra) subdivision (represented by the sixteenth notes).

In Figure 4, the same pattern of t?l?s and kh?l? is manifested in the ten-m?tra t?la, Jhapt?l; however, this time the vibh?gs consist of alternating patterns of two and three m?tras.

Not all t?las follow this pattern, however. Some treatises list tens if not hundreds of possible t?las; but in performance practice, one commonly hears only around a dozen t?las, some of which occur only in special circumstances. Figure 5 represents a realization of Ekt?l, a t?la that is commonly associated with both vocal and instrumental music. The twelve beats divide into six vibh?gs of two m?tras each. In contrast to the other examples (but imitating them), not all "open" vibh?gs have claps, nor are "closed" vibh?gs dominated by "closed" strokes. The resulting pattern has the curious complementary and overlapping arrangements of m?tras into three groups of four (clap-wave + clap-wave + clap-clap) and two groups of six (as defined by the rhythm: clap-wave-clap + wave-clap-clap).

Finally, not all t?ls begin with a clapped sam. The popular R?pak t?l (Figure 6)—a seven-beat t?l—begins with a kh?l? and a vibh?g of three m?tras, followed by two t?li-marked vibh?gs of two m?tras.

Gordon Thompson

See alsoMusic ; R?ga ; Tabla

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kippen, James. The Tabla of Lucknow: A Cultural Analysis of aMusical Tradition. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.