Customer Reviews

Advanced Theory of Tabla, Vol. 2 (The Complete Reference for Tabla)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A fantastic resource for anyone who wishes to learn the complexities and joys of tabla. The book neatly links into his first (Fundamentals of Tabla), although it stands on its own as a tuition book. A very wide range of topics is covered and Mr.Courtney has the knack of providing detail that will be relevent to tabla players of all levels. It is incredible that such a resource is now available when for so long it has been almost impossible to get a balanced overview of the art of playing tabla. If you are interested in learning tabla or already play, buy this book.

Since health problems began to affect to my beloved tabla guru, i had been forced to continue my tabla training by myself...
By now i have not found another guru (Spain is a country with no tradition in this kind of instruments so...) and this book has become my best ally to go on playing this beautiful instrument.

It includes all the basic theory for an amateur tabla player to make his own compositions (and understand the professional ones), mainly focused into every cadential and cyclical form (Tihai, Gat, Rela, Mukhada, Peshkar, Mohara, Kaida...). But the content does not go very deep in each kind of compositional form.

The other part of the book are loose chapters with additional and varied content about tempo, bol dymanics, improvistion, acoustic physics of the tabla timbre, stagecraft recommendations to live perform and more.

Like the first volume of this series, this book also "travels" in my tabla bag anywhere i am going to play, specially if i am going to compose or perform with other musicians.

I feel that this is a good source of reference for someone who is doing extensive research into the instrument and its acoustics but as a tabla player, I was expecting to see some difficult compositions, some in-depth analysis of lahariya, more into differences in playing styles of various gharanas etc. but folks, this is as good as it can get with this instrument. You can only do so much justice to it in writing after all .. not a substitute for a teacher. And the respected author has very eloquently brought out several useful pointers for tabla players of all levels.

The book covers stage arrangement, some physics etc. Would have been better if it had more Advanced Tabla instructions, e.g., Bol, finger positions based on different Gharana's etc. Not worth the money.