Tabla

The Tabla is North India’s most popular percussion instrument for devotional as well as classical music, and even popular and folk music. The Tabla consists of two single-headed, barrel-shaped small drums of slightly different size and shapes made of hollowed-out wood or clay or brass. Both drumheads have a central area constructed out of several thin layers of a paste made out of either wheat or rice-starch to which blackening is added. The playing technique involves extensive use of fingers as well as the palm to create different syllables known as bol[s], it is the precise construction and shaping of the central area which determines the instrument’s final tonal quality.

Pt. RAJKUMAR MISRA - A Fellow of Trinity College London, Rajkumar Mishra comes from a long line of illustrious Indian classical musicians and Kathak dancers of the famous Jaipur Gharana (style). He represents their seventh generation. He has toured extensively in India as well as internationally and provided accompaniment for such illustrious artists as the classical vocalist Rashid Khan and the duo Rajan and Sajan Mishra.