ABSTRACT
Tintal and cartal dominate Gurudev’s work because they were and are still important metric frameworks for accompaniment as well as the primary tals in which solo compositions for tabla and pakhavaj are set. The thekas notated by Gurudev are, for the most part, familiar to modern players of the pakhavaj and tabla. The majority of the tali-khali clapping patterns are also the ones now associated with the various tals. It is clear, though, that for Gurudev the khali was simply a wave whose function was identical in the metric structures of both pakhavaj and tabla; this is still true for players and indeed most theorists today. Tagore was really a theorist; and although Usman Khan Sultan Khan was the drummer who provided the repertoire – rudimentary when compared to Gurudev’s – it was actually Maula Bakhsh’s rhythmic theory and notation system that made Tal Paddhati possible.
