hydraulaphone

Hydraulaphone in front of the Ontorio Science Centre

Hydraulaphone is a musical instrument. There is one right infront of the Ontorio Science Centre, two minutes walk from where I live. Pressurised water flows out of a pipe through wholes and closing those holes produces flute like sound. The instrument is big and produces lound notes.

I met a guy called Steve who played it very well. He asked me some questions and I ran home and back to bring my Tabla. He helped me by tapping his feet and we played. It was ok. He recorded some beats and said will send the video.

There was a Phool and a Fool took a photo:

a dance in tabaal room.. :)

it will be a year this june 10 with my Tabla. it is out of shape. but i left Saskatoon last year on May 9 thinking i will bring a Tabla.

here is my 12 beat khaida do not ask me the precise bols... its actually

taink taink taink da
taink taink taink da
taink taink taink ta
ta taink ta taink da :)

[Teen Taal 12 beat composition (Khaida bols and emphasis are mine)]

adjust maadkolli.... recorded using my chat microphone.... and dust bin did not refuse to play the role of a mic stand :)

taink taink taink da
~rAGU :)

ergonomics of rhythms

excuse me for using an awkward looking phrase for the tittle: it is accurate. the production of a particular rhythm pattern needs a particular posture, when playing a drum. in this post i will use tabla and mrudanga two indian drums to talk about the ergonomics of rhythms.


tabla is kept vertically and played predominantly with fingers. mrudanga is keep horizontally and played with palm and fingers. when i tried to play aditala a rhythm of 8 beats on tabla, i found myself exhausted when a composition was half the way. there are two reasons. first, the tempo was too high, second, i felt i had to spend lot of energy against the gravity. This leads me to think that a mrudanga has better ergonomics for certain rhythm patterns.

(a third one more imortant than the two is i am inexperienced! other reasons are hindustani compositions have less tempo. karnataka compositions should get slower at least to give marudanga some room to improvise :) )


tabla has certain advantages when playing rela or the fast compositions. face of the forearm is horizontal to the ground when playing tabla allowing better control of fingers for a particular kind of movement useful for rela. the orientation of tabla has a significant effect of the quality of rhythm because of the ergonomics. a player will have to remember these factors to produce better rhythms. two most important things to remember are, as i see them, the angle palm makes to the horizontal line passing through the ink of the tabla and the angle of the drum head with respect to the floor. i can not speak for mrudanga but i am willing to bet that similar adjustments have to be made to mrudanga as well.


these are usually not taught. there are the things that a player has to learn by practice. However if these factors are more rigorously documented, a teaching mechanism incorporating these details can significantly reduce time required to learn indian percussion instruments.


[1] c v raman, the indian musical drums
[2] ergonamics of drums
[3] overview of Tabla
[4] evolution of hormonic indian drums

Tabla on its way back to shape.........

Tabla Saathi

Robert Helgason (Giteelu) , Navdeep Sidhu (Throat), Aratrika Aktar (Neck), Ragu (Bajantri)

bisakallu-tabla-kolalu