I met

Laren Loveless

a very dynamic musician and percussionist, at the Bonfire event organized by the St.Louis Beacon. I decided to send him a video featuring Indian percussion instruments.

Featured are some of the percussion instruments of classical south Indian, and one of classical north Indian music.

It starts with

the Tabla

the north Indian drum-set. Then, we come to the south Indian classical instruments, played in concert regularly. (Click on the name of each instrument for the Wiki entry on it)

the Kanjira

the Morsing

the Konnakol

or oral rendition of the rhythm patterns, called “bol” in north Indian music and “jathi” in south Indian music.

the Mridangam

the Ghatam

the Thavil

I’m sorry, the recording is not of very high quality, but I chose it because one north Indian and all the south Indian percussion instruments (which are used today on concert platforms) are featured.

We have a complex (and highly rule-bound and structured) patterns of rhythms, which are called “taala”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tala_(music)

The north and south Indian systems of classical music are quite different, but share a lot of features, too.

All our instruments are tuned to a particular pitch before being played, except, perhaps, the morsing.

Western drums (we are especially fond of the bongos!) are extensively used in our movie and light music. One of our very talented contemporary music drummers is

Sivamani .