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make music now Percussion programming

The cm guide to

Tablas World renowned percussionist Pete Lockett shows us


how to recreate the sublime rhythms of the tabla…
On the DVD
O
f all the drums in the world, the
TUTORIAL FILES tabla has to be one of the most
All our tabla MIDI parts and complex, with its intricate and
samples are in the Tutorial finely articulated stroke combinations
files folder, as well as two
and highly developed rhythmic
Battery kits and an MP3
talkthrough to accompany systems. It’s truly amazing how many
the walkthroughs distinctly different sounds can come
from such a tiny set of drums, and
programming something that sounds
even close to an authentic tabla part
can be a huge challenge. Of course, if
you have 30 years to spare, you could
always learn how to play the instrument
yourself, but I doubt the record
company would wait that long for the
master mix. Fear not, though – here I’m
going to show you how create that
realistic tabla vibe using nothing more
than a MIDI editor and a set of samples.
Let’s start by looking at the drums

046 | COMPUTER MUSIC JUNE 2005 TUTORIAL


Percussion programming make music
Q&A focus
now

The Indian phonetic system


TI TE
The
second Treble drum closed
finger sound with flat
Rather than a system of written notation, Indian percussionists use fingers. Staccato.
a special vocabulary of syllables to describe the patterns they play strikes the treble
drum with the third

NE
(‘bols’, which translates as ‘word’). These syllables are intended to
and fourth fingers Ring finger on the
mimic the sounds that come from the drums. Each stroke, or
down, and the index edge of the treble
combination of strokes, has its own word or set of words that
finger raised. A soft drum. A soft
combine into an alphabet of phrases, out of which longer and
version of ‘te’. sound, almost like a grace note.
longer patterns are composed. The words have no meaning beyond
the patterns they represent, and generally they’re the first thing a

THUN
student studies when learning tabla. Here are some example bols, Open resonant
along with an explanation of the strokes that they describe: treble drum
stroke.

GE
A resonant bass tabla
stroke, played with the

TIN
finger tips. The wrist bends Treble drum
the pitch of the drum. inner rim sound
played with the
index finger, the second finger
raised, and the third and fourth
And here are some bols used to fingers damping. Similar to ‘na’
describe pairs of consecutive strokes: but with slightly more bass.

Dha: Ge+Na

NA
Dhin: Ge+Tin Treble drum sound with the index finger striking
the edge of the rim, the second finger raised,
Dhe: Ge+Te and the third and fourth fingers damping. This

KE
There are many other stroke Bass drum closed creates the characteristic ringing tone of the tabla. There’s also
combinations and sounds in the tabla stroke, played with the the closed ‘na’ stroke, which involves leaving the finger on the
vocabulary, but these are the whole hand flat. skin after the stroke, creating a sharp ‘chick’ sound.
essentials to get you started.

themselves before moving on to some


practical programming concepts
The bass tabla is essentially a small,
single-headed kettle drum made of
Info
About the author Texas, Craig Armstrong, Transglobal Underground,
for them. nickel alloy (although occasionally you Pete Lockett is one of the most Mel C, Bedlam, Beth Orton, Kula Shaker and
versatile and prolific percussionists Vanessa Mae, amongst others. He’s also played
might see one made of clay). Both drum
Turning the tablas in the world. Renowned for his on numerous film soundtracks, including the
heads (‘puri’) are made of goatskin and remarkable ability to bring three most recent James Bonds, City of Angels,
traditional instruments out of their Moulin Rouge, The Insider, Plunkett and Maclean
The tabla originate from North India and held in place by a complicated hoop and Snatch, and has four critically acclaimed
original cultural setting, he’s
comprise of a set of two drums – treble (‘pagri’), which is woven around the recorded and/or performed with Björk, Afro Celt solo albums to his name. To learn more about
Sound System, Peter Gabriel, Robert Plant, The the world of percussion, or to contact Pete
and bass. They’re distinct from most edge of the skin. The heads are fixed to himself, visit his website.
Verve, Nitin Sawhney, Bill Bruford, Jeff Beck, Zakir
other drums in that each is played with the drum with a long leather strap Hussain, Viku Vinayakram, Mandolin Shrinivas, www.petelockett.com.
a different hand. Very seldom do you (‘chot’), which is threaded through the
see both hands playing one drum. The hoop and underneath the drum via a
tablas have a regal history dating back small leather ring. A thin rim (about 1" this particular drum. bass tabla and right for the treble tabla.
centuries to the time when Indian wide) runs around the edge of the skin, The treble drum is tuned by This gives a good level of control over
palaces had resident court musicians. both inside and out; this is known as knocking the wooden blocks with a the two drums later in the mix. With this
The performer sits on the floor with the ‘kinar’ or ‘kani’ and is also made of small hammer. Fine tuning is carried out in mind, we’ll be making the overall
by hitting the leather hoop. The drum is sound of our tabla from two sets of

TABLAS ORIGINATE FROM NORTH tuned to the tonic or dominant note of


the scale of the piece of music to be
samples: one for the bass tones and
the other for the treble tones. In the

INDIA AND COMPRISE OF A SET OF


played. The bass tabla isn’t actually Battery kit on the DVD, the tabla are
tuned to any particular pitch because already panned left and right – so if
of the essential glissando pitch- you’re using that, you can leave them

TWO DRUMS – TREBLE AND BASS bending that features so heavily in its
playing technique.
just as they are (unless you want to
create a different effect, that is). For me,
To get that essential tabla these pan settings are ideal as they
the drums in front of them, nestled in goatskin. Tensioning the skin is done by resonance, paste patches are applied provide a good balance between the
two supporting rings called ‘adharas’. pulling the long leather strap – the to both heads. These patches (‘shyahi’) two drums.
The high pitched drum is cylindrical in treble drum is pulled a lot tighter and are made from a paste of iron fillings, All the grooves we’re going to put
shape and about 10" tall. It’s made from has small wooden blocks (‘gattha’) flour and ground hill stone. In India, a together in our walkthroughs, including
PHOTOGRAPHY: James Cumpsty

wood, usually shisham or nim, and is inserted between the shell and the chemical is also sometimes added to the glissando on the bass tabla, will be
hollowed out from the top, like a cup, straps to get it up to the pitch required. stop ants eating them – not particularly created with single-shot samples – no
remaining sealed at the bottom. The Sometimes you see even smaller a problem in the UK, of course. loops will be used at all. I recorded the
drum has only one skin, which is wooden blocks used for the bass tabla, hits in a top London studio, including
generally about 5" in diameter, and the and in Benares, things are done Balancing act bass tones at various pitches so we can
shell is wider at the bottom than the top completely differently, with rope and When I record tablas in the studio, I create the glissando effect by sheer
by about 11/2". metal rings used to set the tension of prefer a stereo pair of mics – left for the force of programming. Let's begin… cm

TUTORIAL JUNE 2005 COMPUTER MUSIC | 047


make music now Percussion programming

STEP BY STEP Treble tabla concepts

1 2 3
Having normalised and trimmed our individual hits, we To do this, first import all of the required samples Select All but MIDI from Battery’s drag and drop
need to import them into our sampler – in this case, towards the bottom of Battery’s interface, just to get options. This means that when you drag a sample from
Battery, but any will do. We want to lay the samples out them all in there before actually positioning them. >> say C2 to C1, then the note will sound when you strike
across the keyboard in a way that makes it easy to play parts C1 and not when you strike C2. >>
in by hand without crossing over awkwardly. >>

4 5 6
We’ve dragged the sample from Row C, Column 1 onto Here we have our first simple part, using two sounds on This second part is similar to the first, but with just a
Row A, Column 1 to duplicate it, and then deleted the the treble tabla. The pattern is ‘Na tin tin tin’. We’re little more space. We’re going to look at a few treble
original. Go through this process note by note, putting using two slightly different ‘tin’ samples to make the drum patterns before moving on to the bass parts;
each individual sample on a key that suits your fingers. Of sound a little less mechanical. It’s always a good idea to put notice that we’ve not put any open bass sounds in our
course, you could just import each note individually but that’s a few different versions of each sound in your sampled Battery kit. We’ll be building a bass tabla kit a little later. >>
more time consuming. >> percussion kits for this reason. Velocity variation is another
way of getting a more natural sound. >>

7 8 9
This type of treble tabla part is commonly found in folk Here we’ve introduced the closed ‘na’ sound. This is an Now we have the characteristic open ‘thun’ tone. This
styles. It’s this style that you usually hear applied to a effective tone for enhancing a groove. It’s articulated by sound really cuts through and leaps out of any mix. Like
contemporary western environment. Looking at the MIDI the finger remaining on the skin after the stroke. >> all the sounds in the treble tabla kit, it's on the same
part, we can see how short the notes are. The sounds are mute group. Think of the high tabla in the same way you
fairly short too, but this is academic as they’re one-shot would a hi-hat – it can only make one sound at a time.
samples that sound until another member of their mute
group is triggered. >>

048 | COMPUTER MUSIC JUNE 2005 TUTORIAL


Percussion programming make music
Q&A focus
now

STEP BY STEP Bass tabla concepts and fast groove patterns

1 2 3
Here’s our bass tabla kit, on a separate audio Here, then, is a simple bass tabla part. The fact that it’s Here you can see how the bass part sits with the
instrument channel. It’s really four little mini bass tabla a complicated instrument doesn’t mean you have to corresponding treble tabla part. In terms of panning, the

kits in one. The first has four tones from C1 to D 1 over-program your parts and make them too busy. >> bass is 11 left and the treble is 11 right in Logic. I don’t
(open, high, low, fast bend up), and then the closed bass tabla like to split them any further than this, especially when some
stroke (‘ke’) on the next note. From C2 we have a similar set of the interlocked linear patterns start to come out. >>
with slightly different nuances, and then again upwards from
C3 and C4. Putting the groups across octaves like this makes
it easy to switch between them. >>

4 5 6
Here we have the bass and treble MIDI parts for the Another bass melody. This one employs a little high- Essential elements of any ‘proper’ tabla part are the
second groove. Notice the melody and resolution of pitched flick at the end. This is a variation of the ‘ke' high-speed pick-up and doubling of the groove. This is
the shape of the bass tabla part. As an experiment, try stroke used for embellishment. Notice how it leaps out the basis for our first high-speed groove on the treble
using only one sample for all the bass tabla hits and hear when there’s a gap in the high tabla part. If this stroke was tabla. It only uses the ‘na' and ‘te’ tones. We’ve used two
how it kills the part. >> employed over another staccato stroke on the high tabla, it versions of the ‘na’ stroke to give more of a natural feel. >>
wouldn’t be half as effective. >>

7 8 9
Here’s the first bar of the bass part for this fast pattern. The whole bass part is actually four bars long. This is a This pattern sounds much more complicated than it
It stays fairly on the beat and fills any gaps in the treble common characteristic of tabla: playing one very short, actually is. The bass part repeats over two bars while
part, either with the bass tone or the closed staccato repetitive part on one hand while the other hand the treble part is one bar long. The treble part is based
bass tone. >> defines the pattern over a longer period. >> on the part in the previous example, but with beats 2 and 3
turning the pattern around so that it starts half-way through –
if you were playing ABCD ABCD for the first two beats, then
for the third and fourth you’d play CDAB CDAB.

TUTORIAL JUNE 2005 COMPUTER MUSIC | 049


make music now Percussion programming

STEP BY STEP Fast rolls

1 2 3
Fast tabla rolls are very difficult to conceptualise and Notice how this roll only uses four strokes. Here we see Here we’ve cut our part up into units of different lengths
program. They involve very fast linear stroke it repeated to fill one bar. Thinking of this in a division of to create something slightly more rhythmically
combinations employing staccato tones. To play this on eighth notes, this would be divided 2+2+2+2 to make interesting. We’ve changed the snap setting to eighth-
a MIDI keyboard, we need to put a sample of the staccato up the bar of 4/4. >> notes and cut some different length combinations. >>
closed bass tone in our high tabla kit, panned to the centre
so as not to knock the roll off balance (the one disadvantage
of recording tablas in stereo). >>

4 5 6
We got this pattern from joining a two-eighth-note Repeating this three times makes a combination of Here we’ve deleted the very last eighth note, making
section with a one-eighth-note section. >> parts nine eighth notes long, divided 3+3+3. >> our combination of parts 3+3+2. This gives eight eighth
notes in total. >>

7 8 9
Merging the parts creates one part that’s one bar Finally we’ve reinforced the accents of the resonant high One funky groove later, we’ve stuck elements of all
in length, making it more manageable on the ‘na’ tone from the high tabla with the bass tone from this together and come up with this! Check it out on
arrange page. >> the bass tabla set. >> the DVD-ROM…

050 | COMPUTER MUSIC JUNE 2005 TUTORIAL

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