r/Tabla

Hi everyone, if you have any broken or neglected tablas, I am interested in buying them and repairing them. I’m based in the US (northeast). Please let me know if you’d be interested!!

Hello from Mexico, everyone.

I've been learning online and found a solo for beginners that I can follow and play. Most things I find on the Internet are isolated structures or practice, and I have wondered how these elements are put together for a performance.

The one I found is in teental, starts with the theka, an uthaan, kayda, and paltas, has a tukra, tihais, etc. Some parts are joined with the theka, and it ends with a chakardar tihai.

It's clearly for beginners. The theme is made of bols I can play.

I know there are other things like peshkar, rela, etc., but even though I've learned some of them, I'm ignorant of the rules that help put these together into a solo.

I know, as an example, that paltas should derive from the bols of the original theme. Are there rules driving a solo as a whole? Can I mix a teental rela I learned with any other beginner teental kayda? Can I construct some of these sections?

I know the parts of a solo may be something like theka, uthaan, peshkar, kaida, rela, gat, tukras, final tihai... with tihais and the theka between them. Some videos and tutorials show these. Some are harder to find than others, but what's even harder is more info on the larger structures and how these are combined. I know that, eventually, a player will improvise, develop a style, but are there solos learned in the way the smaller sections are learned?

Do you know of any sources on this? Do you have files, links you can share? Or maybe care to comment?

I'd appreciate any help. Thanks!

Been playing for 30 years
Event maintaining good posture sitting on floor is not good for me.

¿ Anyone have luck creating a stand or system for playing while sitting in a chair or standing?

If I could be more comfortable and aligned properly I could riyaz more

Any tips, ideas, and advice would be appreciated e greatly appreciated

dont say qasim or overrated makers. i want a dayan for riyaz but im not a beginner per se , bad tabla effects my mood, confused between md shareef , arif ali , deen mohammad plz tell, jo paise bhi na loote zyada aur accha maal de , sheesham me , . im so confused , what if i dont like it after 3 months of usage? what if it goes bad matlab uska gajra neeche aa jae tuning kharab ho jae ghats uneven ho jaen , o godd so hard this decision is

One thing I’ve struggled with while learning Tabla is properly documenting compositions and practice material after lessons — especially with a busy work life.

A lot of times I’d learn something from my teacher, quickly note it down somewhere, and tell myself I’d clean it up later. But after a long workday, that “later” usually never came.

Weeks later I’d end up:

forgetting parts of the composition

struggling to read my own shorthand

or digging through notebooks, PDFs, screenshots, and random documents trying to find old material again

Over time I realized the actual learning wasn’t the hard part — consistently organizing and revisiting the material was.

So I started building a desktop tool called SwarTaal mainly to make Tabla notation faster, cleaner, and easier to revisit during riyaaz sessions.

Still refining it, but before going further I genuinely wanted to ask the community:

How are you all currently documenting and organizing your Tabla material?

And what part of the process feels the most frustrating or time-consuming?

hello! i know that tabla has kinds like mumbai tabla, varanasi tabla, bengal tabla.

i'm curious in here, there's kinds dholak too.

there are dholak playing styles but except this, are there categories about dholaks by region?