Tabla
The tabla, a pair of North Indian drums, in five languages — tabla, Tabla
Related
Five languages
| Language | Name |
|---|---|
| Chinese | 塔布拉鼓 |
| English | tabla |
| Italian | tabla |
| German | Tabla |
| French | tabla |
The tabla is a pair of drums in North Indian classical music: the right-hand wooden drum, called tabla or dayan, and the left-hand metal or clay bass drum, called baya or dagga, tuned and played together. English, German, Italian and French all borrow tabla; Chinese also writes 塔布拉 or 印度手鼓. Tabla normally names the pair, not either drum alone (a common usage).
Watch out: the tabla is a pair; the single wooden drum is only the dayan and does not stand for the whole set. It also differs from single-headed hand drums such as the djembe, since the two drums divide melodic speech-like strokes and bass resonance rather than one drum producing every tone.
Read deeper → The tabla
Sources
- 各语种乐器名与形制，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Tabla"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.