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Tala - Rythmical groupings of beats

There is a perfect balance in the universe. This balance is the essence of Tala and therefore Tala is in classical music is an important factor. The Tala is the theory of time measure. It has the same principle in Hindustani and Carnatic music, though the names and styles differ. The musical time is divided into simple and complicated metres. When accompanying the dance, vocal and instrumental music, the Tala maintains the balance which is the most essential function of music. Tala is independent of the music it accompanies: it has its own divisions. It moves in bars, and each beat in it is divided into the smallest fraction.

Rythm has three aspects:
Tala, Laya and Matra. Tala is a complete cycle of Metrical phrasecomposed of a fixed number of beats. There are over a 100 Talas, but only 30 Talas are known and only about 10-12 are used.

The Laya is the tempo, which keeps uniformity of time span and it has 3 divisions -- Vilambit, Madhya and Drut.

The Matra is the smallest unit of the tala.

Tala is the most important aspect of classical music, and it can be considered to be the very basis or pulse of music. To appreciate the structure of simple and complicated divisions, the improvisations of Tala and its theory, one should listen to an accomplished solo drummer. A classical drum player requires at 8-10 years of methodical training and another 4-5 years of hard practice.

There is unique intricacy and rhythmic sophistication in Indian music. There are talas ranging from a 3 beat cycle to 108 beats within a cycle! The most popular talas are those which have 5,6,7,8,10,12,14, and 16 beats to a cycle. There are also other cycles such as 9,11,13,15,17, and 19 beats, etc., which are only played by outstanding musicians on rare occasions.



The basic beat or theka of a tala is described using words called bole-s which relate to the different sounds of the tabla. The beat that starts a cycle is called the sam and marked with an\ X. Another beat that is given importance is the khali (o), which is usually the beat at the beginning of the second half of the cycle. These two beats, which have distinct sounds in each tala aid the musician in remaining in laya or tempo. The most commonly used tala is the teental or trital, which has 16 beats or matra-s per cycle, broken into four sub-groups of four beats each.

The following beats are tabulated according to the ascending order of beat counts. The divisions of the phrases (known as theka) are marked by red vertical lines.

Please notice the Jati (Group/Category) of the beats. There are 5 Jatis - Tisra, Chatasra, Khanda, Misra, Sankirna.

Tisra - 3 (counts) or multiple of 3
Chatasra - 4 or multiple of 4
Khanda - 5 or multiple of 5
Misra - 7 or multiple of 7
Shankirna - 9 or multiple of 9