Metal Reviews

I bought a tabla set!!! :D:D And now I'm going to practise and be as good as this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXxJGtnOrOE
What dost thou think of this mighty instrument?

Cool! Make videos while your skill grows on the instrument and post them!
I've never seen or heard this instrument before but it really sounds wonderful. I love that strange harmonic sound that comes out now and then, I wonder how it is produced.
Anyway, good luck learning!

i hear them all the time (i'm indian). i thnk the amount of different music you can get out of such small instruments is incredible.

EDIT - what the hell is that other guy playing?

Indian wannabe....pfft!!

Lol just jokin, Misha . That's really nice of you trying to pick up an instrument of another culture. We should feel ashamed of ourselves, Az!! I'm Indian and I know shit about Indian instruments. My girlfriend plays the veenai, though. Big fan of Ravi Shankar.

Zakir Husin is probably the best tabla maestro ever. He's playing here in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, this Wednesday. Too bad I'm too busy to catch it.

The other instrument Az, if I'm not mistaken, is an Indian folk violin. It's only got one string, I stand corrected. I used to see it in Indian movies a lot.

EDIT: Geez, sorry there. Didn't realise what that 'thing' really is. I thought it was a one string violin until I saw the close up. Now, that's seriously something I haven't seen before, Az. Damn.

How's the hellbattery going, Mish?

yeah, i ought to learn an isntrument :/ i have a cousin who plays the sitar, she says it's hard as fvkk.

check out Anoushka Shankar (Ravi's daughter). she's hot and the music isn't bad either.

Yeah the sitar is hard as fuck to learn. The strings are wider, thicker and far from the err..'fretboard'?

I was thinking of picking up an instrument (indian) as well. But I just couldnt make my mind. I'll just settle with my bass. It's a electric sitar if you see it from a different perspective!

The bwoooooooong, is when you hit the bass drum and then push the skin with your palm to rigorously adjust the pitch.

That's a Sarangi, an instrument from Nepal, if I'm not mistaken. Thanks for the positive replies everyone!

I've been listening to raga for quite a while and I really like a lot of it. Tabla is just the most beautiful percussion instrument there is.

Hussain is a master indeed, I saw him improvise on a 10 over 7 polyrhythm once. I think that there are very very few drummers who can churn up a 10 over seven polyrhythm in any way.

Very cool. Perhaps you could post a video or a sound clip of your playing sometime? Great sounding stuff in that vid and a couple others I checked out. ... I have several practical questions too (as someone who doesn't know much about them):

How hard is it to build up strength/dexterity and consistency in your fingers to play? I am thinking, based one the little I've seen, that there is a lot of use of the individual fingers and that would be pretty tiring in just a few minutes to me. ... Can you wear some kind of rings or something else on your fingers for specific sounds as well? Are there special devices that do that? ... Also, and this is something that I guess applies to all hand drums, but how much degradation occurs from oils on your skin to the drum (heads)? Even if you wash them before playing, I would think they would get quite sweaty and oily pretty fast when playing, and I have to wonder how easy it is to get replacement skins for them....

I too like some raga. I saw a particular video on youtube awhile back that I really enjoyed, but I didn't save it and I don't know who was playing in it. I really want to find that again and hear more of their music.

-Tyrion

Sorry for the double post, but here's another interesting video I stumbled onto that really illustrates the sounds you can make and you can see some of the technique...

Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha - Tabla Solo in Jhaptal

-Tyrion

Good work Misha