The musical tree in India has two basic divisions - Raga and Tala, while raga governs its melodic element, tala helps to maintain the balance.
Raga is generally described as the soul of Indian Music-Hindustani and Carnatic. Tala which is independent of melody. is the very pulse of the system.
Yet tala has not received as much attention on the academic level. It is to fill this lacuna that the Percussive Arts Centre was founded. In a short span of about 10 years, the Centre which is only one of its kind in the country, has done pioneering work in creating awareness on the various aspects of the system as also the characteristics of the different percussion instruments or Talavadyas. In this connection, it has periodically held seminars, workshops, study circles besides conducting research on the subject.
A two-day seminar on Talavadyas held in Bangalore recently was one such activity. The voluminous literature that has resulted in this interesting seminar bears eloquent testimony to the stimulating discussions that were generated in it. The treatment in each paper by well-known scholars in the field is exhaustive and may well form the basic approach for further research and dissemination. To say that a study of this vast subject is a must, for a student of music could be an understatement.
It is worthwhile, nay very desirable that these papers are published and made available to discerning scholars in the field.
It is only in the fitness of things that the State Sangeeta Nrithya Academy has undertaken to publish the papers in a volume. There is no doubt that it will go a long way in creating awareness among students of music.
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