Taal Refresher

I seem to have lost ability to connect taals with their names. It's been quite a few years since I gave exams in which I effortlessly mugged up n taals, complete with their bol. Anyway, it's past time that those days are back, so I'm writing this refresher that I hope will clear things up for good.

When I got back to music, the first composition I learnt was in tivraa tal which has a cycle of 7 beats. To my mind, 7 is a really odd number. How can you possibly cycle repetitively in rounds of 7 without yielding to the temptation of adding just one beat!

तिवरा ताल
धा धिं ता तिट कत गदि गन
ताली दो तीन ताली दो ताली दो

It didn't simplify matters to realise that the taal with seven beats that I was previously familiar was called roopak.

रूपक ताल

तिं तिं ना धिं ना धिं ना

खाली दो तीन ताली दो ताली दो

The second source of immense confusion has been the fact that ek taal and chau taal have the same number of beats in a cycle - 12. The number 12 is not really a problem, except that I can never which is which.

एक ताल

धिं धिं धागे तिरकट तू ना कत ता धागे तिरकट धिं न

ताली दो खाली दो ताली दो खाली दो ताली दो ताली दो

चौ ताल

धा धा दिं ता किट धा दिं ता तिट कत गदि गन

ताली दो तीन चार ताली दो तीन चार ताली दो ताली

It turns out that if you surgically remove the second dhin taa from chau taal, you actually get sool taal which has 10 beats. Like so ...

सूल ताल

धा धा दिं ता किट धा तिट कट गदि गन

ताली दो तीन चार ताली दो खाली दो तीन

Btw, jhaptal is also 10 beats, but it is very easy to identify and pretty common too.

And then, there is dhamaar with its 14 beats. The compositions/the style with which this taal is played are also known as dhamaar. The lyrics of these compositions usually descrive the charm and beauty involved in the raas. I do keep practicing keeping these odd beats in my head - but it is never enough somehow.

धमार

क धि ट धि ट धा - ग दिं के दी न ता -

ताली दो तीन चार पाँच ताली दो खाली दो तीन ताली दो तीन चार

Just for the sake of completeness (?), two simple taals are daadra with 6 beats and teen tal with 16. You could look these up at http://www.swarganga.org/taalabase.php or http://www.chandrakantha.com/tala_taal.