Tala (music)

Tala (music)

'Tāla, Taal or Tal (Sanskrit tālà, literally a "clap", also transliterated as "tala") is the term used in Indian classical music for the rhythmic pattern of any composition and for the entire subject of rhythm, roughly corresponding to metre in Western music, though closer conceptual equivalents are to be found in the older system of rhythmic mode and its relations with the "foot" of classical poetry, or with other Asian classical systems such as the notion of usul in the theory of Ottoman/Turkish music.

A tala is a regular, repeating rhythmic phrase, particularly as rendered on a percussive instrument with an ebb and flow of various intonations represented as a theka, a sequence of drum-syllables or bol. Indian classical music, both northern and southern, has complex, all-embracing rules for the elaboration of possible patterns and each such pattern has its own name, though in practice a few talas are very common while others are rare. The most common instrument for keeping rhythm in Hindustani music is the tabla, while in Carnatic music it is the mridangam (also transliterated as mridang).