Percussion Music Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Umayalpuram Sivaraman is a popular mridangam player.

Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman is one of the most eminent mridangam artists of Karnatak music and has accompanied leading vocalists for decades.

Ambadas Pant Agle was a Hindustani pakhawaj player, Tyagaraja was a composer, and Chitti Babu was a veena player, so none of them is a mridangam player.

The mridangam is the two-headed barrel drum that accompanies Karnatak vocal and instrumental music. Ambadas Pant Agle was a pakhawaj player of the Gwalior tradition, and Chitti Babu was a well-known veena player, so each of them belongs to a different instrument.

Answer: C

The tabla is derived from the pushkar, according to the key.

The ancient Indian drums of the avanaddha class, described in the Natyashastra, include the pushkaras (the tripushkara, a set of three drums), and the key takes the tabla as the later descendant of these two-headed and paired drums.

The dholak and the nakkara are different drums, and the khanjari is a small tambourine-like frame drum, so the key does not give any of them as the origin of the tabla.

Answer: B

Lakshmi taal has 18 matras.

Lakshmi taal is a taal of eighteen matras, and it is one of the rarer talas of the tabla repertoire.

The numbers 20, 16 and 14 are the matras of other talas: Jhoomra and Dhamar have 14, Teental has 16 and Jhaptal has 10, so only 18 fits Lakshmi.

Answer: A

A laghu is worth one matra.

In the Hindustani system of talas, the laghu is the basic unit of one matra, with the guru of two matras and the pluta of three. In the Karnatak system the value of laghu depends on the jati of the tala, which is a different usage.

Four and five matras are the values of the laghu in the chatusra and khanda jatis of the Karnatak system, and two matras is the value of the guru, so they are not the Hindustani value.

In a notation such as the Bhatkhande system the laghu, the guru and the pluta are the basic units of time, and a tala is written as a series of such units, so the laghu is the shortest of the three.

Answer: D

Layakari of 1 3/4 is called Paunedogun.

Layakari is the rhythmic multiplication of the basic tempo. A pace of 1 3/4 times the basic speed is called pauney do (two minus a quarter), that is, paunedogun.

Paungun is three-quarters of the basic pace, sawagun is 1 1/4 times, and dedhgun is 1 1/2 times, so none of them is 1 3/4.

Layakari is classed by its multiples, such as dugun (twice), tigun (three times), chaugun (four times) and aadi (1 1/3), and the part-multiples sawagun, dedhgun and paunedogun are played in between them.

Answer: D

Tihai is not a vistarsheel bandish, according to the key.

The vistarsheel (expandable) compositions of the tabla repertoire are those built up by improvisation, namely the quaida and the peshkar, with their variations. The tihai is a cadential formula that is played three times to close a phrase, and so it is not a composition that is expanded.

Note that the theka, the basic skeleton of a tala, is also not elaborated, but the key names the tihai as the item that is not a vistarsheel bandish.

Answer: B

Pancham Sawari taal has four vibhagas.

Pancham Sawari is a taal of fifteen matras, divided into four sections (vibhagas), with the sam on the first beat.

The numbers five, seven and fifteen do not match the number of its sections; fifteen is its number of matras.

Answer: A

Bharata mentions five marg taalas.

The Natyashastra describes five marga talas: Chachatputa, Chachaputa (Chaupatputa), Shatpitaputraka, Sampakveshtaka and Udghatta.

Seven is the number of the main talas of the Karnatak system, 120 is the number of the deshi talas of Sangeet Ratnakar, and twelve is not the number given for marga talas.

Sarngadeva later added the deshi talas to Bharata's marga talas, so that the Ratnakara contains both groups.

Answer: C

Nana Panse is related with the pakhawaj.

Nana Saheb Panse, of Pune, was a great pakhawaj player who was a leading exponent of the instrument, which is why the key links him with it.

He is not known for the dholak, tabla or mridangam.

In pakhawaj playing the strokes are heavy and the tone is deep, and the pakhawaj is the main accompaniment of dhrupad, which is what the school of Nana Panse is known for.

Answer: B

Rudra taal has 11 matras.

Rudra taal is an eleven-matra taal of the pakhawaj repertoire.

Nine, thirteen and fourteen are the matras of other talas; for instance Dhamar has 14 matras.