learn tabla

Do you have a daily meditation practice? What about a musical meditation practice? By learning tabla you can develop a daily practice that will help you to learn about yourself and learn about music at the same time.

rakkatak_teaching

Anita began her teaching career at the Toronto Tabla Ensemble studios over a decade ago in downtown Toronto and has continued to teach out of community centres in Markham and Scarborough as well as in her downtown Toronto studio. She has presented Introduction to Tabla workshops at Long and McQuade, Girls Rock Camp Toronto and Small World Music. In Sept 2017 – Dec 2017, Anita conducted weekly workshops for children at Malvern Library in Scarborough through Girls Rock Camp Toronto. She has developed a set curriculum and handbook for each of her courses. Anita has a limited number of tabla sets for sale and can also make suggestions on where to rent or buy tabla. For details on tabla workshops, classes and advanced classes read below. Email anita@rakkatak.com or call 416 827 7181 to register.

Session Dates

Session	Dates	Holidays
Spring	April 21 – May 12	n/a
Summer	June 9 – July 28	June 30
Fall	Sept 8 – Nov 17	Oct 13, Nov 10

Introduction To Tabla

Some of the strokes students will learn include: “na, te te, ghe, ke, dha, thun, dhin, dhenegene”. Each participant will receive specialized attention to correctly position their hands as they learn tabla strokes. Students will be introduced to the tabla compositions: kayda, rela, tukra and chakradaar. Moreover, they will become familiar with the North Indian tala system through knowledge of its history, language, keeping theka (clapping patterns) and playing taal.

Note: Though tabla may be provided for class time, students must have their own drums. Anita can make suggestions on where to rent or buy tabla.

Intermediate Tabla

Prerequisite: Introduction to Tabla

Each student will build on their existing knowledge of tabla and be introduced to new tabla strokes and compositions such as: gaat, paran and chalan. Students will be introduced to new time cycles including ek taal, keherwa and jhap taal. A study of jhap taal (the time cycle of 10 beats) will begin with learning kayda, tukra and chakradaar compositions in this time cycle. Students will become comfortable playing with lehera, a cyclical melody representing the time cycle.

Introduction To Tabla – Workshop

Did you know that everything we play we say? Within an introductory workshop, Anita covers concepts such as: the language of tabla, the history of Indian classical music, the construction of a set of tabla, the concept of taal (North Indian rhythmic system) as well as important tabla terminology and concepts. Each participant will get hands on experience playing tabla with drums provided in the workshop. In addition Anita will talk about the benefits of a daily practice.