Denise Nuttallnormal speed so that when I doubled it I increased the speed to what I
thought was far too fast a tempo to control. However, to my surprise,
my hands took off at lightning speed. Were these my hands? I could
feel the rest of my body being pulled to the left of the tabla while my
hands proceeded to perform without the rest of me. I wasn’t thinking
or reciting but simply observing my hands playing faster and faster.
Time went by very slowly. In fact, what seemed like hours was only
minutes. Time had slowed down; my breathing slowed down but my
hands were playing faster than they had ever played before. Usually,
my heartbeat increases when I double a composition, but this time
my body fell into a kind of stasis, a kind of pause. It was an interest-
ing experience and is one I have never felt since.
After we finished playing the composition, Zakirji showed us how
to take it apart, phrase by phrase, to make smaller types of exercises
for our riaz. The beauty of the structure lay in its simplicity. We could
easily section off bol sequences to practice tin ne or dhin ne using dhin
ne na ge. I realized that although Zakirji covered a number of bols by
teaching certain compositions in the advanced classes, in the first two
groups he consistently stressed ne and ti. Ti is played on the top of the
tabla gab using the first bony section of the middle finger. It should be
played strong, and sound crisp or tight. Essentially, the finger should
just drop and hug the top part of the gab. The key in ti is to keep the
finger near the top and not to move it down into the center spot.
One of the main elements of tabla playing that Zakirji continuously
stressed was the use of space. He emphasized that the hand on the
tabla should move within a specific range. Indeed, there is no need to
come down from this central position unless a bol requires this (for
example,dheri dheri or di). Many tones and bols can be played from
the top part of the tabla, such as tete, terekete, ti, na, tun, tin, etc.
Always, he showed us the hows of “doing,” so that we could effec-
tively get the job done. Positioning the fingers correctly does allow
for the development of clarity and then, of course, increased speed
in tabla playing.
There were many times Zakirji simply talked about the necessity of
placing the hands correctly. His message to us was always to concen-
trate on the hand posture and positioning first, which comes in part