So you are ready to spend your money on the best Tabla set this side of the Ganges ;-) .... well, here are some tips to help you in your decision.
Clay drums, although still around in certain parts of India, are more a novelty nowadays for the obvious reason that they are hard to care for. Therefore I will not delve further into this. If you own one and have a specific question email me and I'll try and help.
If you find a shopkeeper trying to sell you an expensive tabla set chances are that the Dagga of this set will be the extra heavy type. Many of my students have bought into this, some over my objections, but then they find out the why I'm against buying these.
What I'm trying to say here is that an expensive set may seem to justify a heavier instrument if weight is what you were buying. The mis-conception here is that .....
Heavier is better for the sound.... on the contrary... heavier translates into lower volume! The heavier chasis kills the resonance gained from the drum walls. The skilled maker of this drum will melt lead on the bottom of a thin wall tabla. This gives you the weight and keeps the resonance intact! But these are increasingly hard to find. Indeed you might have to special order one.
Heavier is sturdier.....or "heavy dagga drums are more stable to play." This is true but technique is more important. The dagga tends to rock more as your hand moves over it. Especially if you try to make sliding bass sounds on the drum. With practice you can do this without problems and to reduce friction (often the cause of the rocking) use talcum powder.
The most common types of materials used for a tabla are clay, sheesham wood, tun wood, and mango wood.
I see clay tablas every now and then and they sound pretty good too but I cannot see myself trying to tune one lest my hammer finds an unintended mark :-)
The sheesham wood tablas are probably the best. The wood is heavy and the sound of the tabla is crisp and vibrant. I have played tablas made out of tun and mango wood. They don't sound that bad. Whatever you do stay away from drums that have oval looking heads this is a sign of warping or just bad design. These are also very hard to tune properly. Also make sure there are no surface cracks on the wood as this could be a "growing" crack. I've seen tablas where the crack looked superficial but after six months the crack became substantial. This is usually caused by the drying factor of the wood. If you do somehow end up with a crack on the side of the wood, fill it immediately with a good quality wood filler and varnish the drum. Don't delay this because contact of raw wood with air opens the crack up further. Another thing that you can check is the weight. A lighter weight tabla will not sound very good and will not be too stable while playing.
Good tabla pudis are assembled with great skill. The maker hails from a generation of Tabla walas (family business). I have seen a whole family clan from the youngest children to the oldest members doing the necessary proceedures. The art of pudi making is indeed one of great endurance and skill.
First they have to find the right piece of skin. The thickness is very important. The under-belly of the goat is used as this is the softest and the most uniform in thickness. Then it is cured, cleaned off and de-haired. Flat pieces of the best quality skins are seperated to be used as the main head material. Smaller pieces are isolated to be used as secondary "chanti" (edge) and backing material. Some of the thicker skin material is made into threading material for the "gajara" (braiding) around the pudi and the thickest and toughest material is cut into continuous strap material. This is used for the final assembly of the pudi to the tabla and dagga.
The actual making of the pudi is quite amazing to watch but it is beyond the scope of this article so I'll talk about this another time. But it is important to know that the process of applying syahi is the most crucial point to the creation of really good pudis. The syahi material is composed of hide glue, india ink, and iron filings rolled into a doughy ball and it is applied with a rolling action.
If you look at your tabla's syahi, you'll notice concentric circles. The smallest circle (about the size of a nickle) is the final one in the center of the syahi. Notice also that the syahi gets thicker as it comes towards the center. Know then that tablas that have more circles (between 5-6 plus) have had more syahi work done on them and will, in most instances, sound better than the ones with only a few such circles (2 - 3). I call these the rush job!
The syahi is put on the pudi in layers. This causes it to gradually build as each layer is rolled on. The process is as follows: The ball of syahi is held in the palm of the hand and as it rolls the syahi dries on the pudi. New material is deposited on the dried areas as the tablawala patiently continues this process. when one area is finished, he starts on the next circle which is about an eighth of an inch inwards. This continues until he reaches the very center of the pudi.
Again, it is facinating to watch and probably has no replacement. After the syahi dries, the syahi actually cracks into very little mosaic pieces. This is normal. Many of my students have a worried look when they receive their first tabla set. This mosaic cracks on the syahi is important as it helps in the resonance of the drum head. But sometimes a piece of the syahi comes loose and created an obnoxious buzz in the tone. The reasons for this are varied. If the tabla set is new it could that the head is too old and the syahi has dried out. There is a way to fix this problem and I'll talk about this in another article.
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