Throughout my time as a percussion student and, eventually, percussion and music teacher, I have learned countless ways that one can strike a drum. One can use the tips of the fingers to strike a low pitched membranophone and produce a bass sound, use the hand or finger as a paddle and expel the full resonant sound of the drum itself, or use the tips of the hands or fingers to eliminate the fundamental overtones and only play the upper harmonic frequencies of the drum head (tabla players call this “na”). One could use any number of established techniques with sticks too, such as American, French, German, Traditional. Gyil xylophone players in Ghana use thick rubber mallets held in between the first and middle finger, thereby turning the stick into a direct extension of their arm and increasing control and power, while leaving behind large callouses in between the fingers, affectionately called “gyil certificates” or, the one the kids enjoy more, “monkey butts”. However, there is now a student of percussion in southeast Michigan who plays the drum set with one hand American grip, one hand Gyil grip.

I won’t reveal much of the student, but they are a successful business owner and professional dancer, and has a loving and supportive family. Whilst in the midst of battle with an avocado, she suffered a casualty, and stabbed a small hole through the flesh of her hand. After months of treatment it has healed quite nicely, though she is left with lasting nerve damage that affects movement in her hand. This became an issue during our weekly drum lessons when she began to have to frequently take breaks due to tension, or the stick would fall out of her hand. Frustration soon followed, and I watched as this activity that she enjoyed fiercely was now causing her great pain and began to sympathize with her. 

I have studied the work of Professor Michael Udow of University of Michigan, a multi-award winning multi-percussionist and percussion pedagogue, to learn how to teach percussion. Udow discusses accessibility often in his work, stating that there is not one universal technique that works for everyone 100% of the time; rather it is people becoming familiar with these existent techniques in their own way through experience that marks an aspect of a percussionist. Techniques are allowed to change as one discovers through time and experience what works best for them. Keeping this in mind, I immediately jumped to the Gyil, the instrument I have the most experience on. The grip behind the Gyil allows me to play quite complex material quickly and with full power and control. Plus, my student’s issue with grip mainly came from the first finger, which is more locked in place than actually utilized. 

When I started lessons with her after thinking of this concept, I pulled out a larger pair of marching sticks and taught her the gyil grip. She picked it up quite easily, and we used it in her left hand. With only about 5 minutes of practice she was able to play a double stroke roll in the new grip. She could play full, down, tap, and up strokes with the stick in between the first and middle fingers. It’s as if she simply regained control of the stick again!

This has transformed lessons with us. She now looks forward to jumping back into lessons with me and working through snare drumming material with the new grip, which she calls “The Wil Grip”. I’m not actually sure what to call the grip, but I’ve been considering “African Traditional” or just keeping my student’s “Wil Grip”. If anyone ends up reading this, let me know which one you would rather see or use with your students if any of them have similar nerve issues in the hands or want to experiment with alternative grips. Fair warning, extended use of this grip results in monkey butts between the fingers, and they hurt and take weeks to develop. If you seriously pursue this grip, please contact me for more tips and advice on how to treat it and effectively build the callous. Mine are quite pronounced right now, maybe I'll post a picture if I get a request, but otherwise I think I'll keep them to myself. 

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An interesting experience happened to me the other day while I was teaching music lessons. I was called into the studio owner's office when I arrived and I was asked if I'd checked the schedule yet. I have, and I noticed earlier that day that there was an unfamiliar name on the bottom of my attendance sheet. I was told that this student has already been taking music lessons for about a year now, but for some reason the past month or so they haven't been showing up to lessons, and a no-call-no-show is quite a big deal. They were told by their instructor they couldn't perform in the upcoming studio recital because they weren't ready for it, even though this student has performed in the recital last year. 
Immediately something didn't sit quite right with me, and I asked a few more questions about the student and I told them I would hold an hour lesson with him tonight to assess what's really going on. He now has six lessons with me to come up with anything at all on drum set to perform for the showcase concert.
When it comes time for his lesson, in walks a student about teenage age who seems genuinely excited to play drums or music. I handed him a pair of drumsticks and asked him if there were any warm-ups that he does with his instructor before they get to the lesson, and he points to the large Joel Rothman Big Book of Basic Drumming (no disrespect for Joel Rothman, his works are very helpful for teaching) and told me they play a new line or phrase out of that book every day for a warm up. I introduced him to the warm ups I give my students, usually 7 or 8 depending on the level of the student, and he seemed somewhat concerned we weren't reading sheet music. I found that interesting, and I told him that my students will memorize these warm-ups over time, with no reading necessary.
When we move to the drum set, I now have the opportunity to see where he's at with his playing and we can move from there. When I asked what he was working on with his instructor, he told me bass drum permutations and showed me a couple. He gave me a clean backbeat, and played variations on the backbeat with the kick. When he was done, we discussed a lot about how to listen to and hear the backbeat, what a subdivision was, and how to chain a couple grooves together. 
I also showed him the concept of "if you can say it you can play it", which I use very often with my students. I showed him a basic soca beat on the drumset, and I did this to show that vocalizing it and learning how to say it will transfer over into playing. After showing him and having him beat-box a soca beat, I had him play it on the drumset. Something really interesting I noticed is that, in the beginning, he only played the groove correctly (or put the first snare hit on the & of 2 and the second one on 4) either while or right after he spoke it. I think this makes perfect sense: you need to embody the feeling of the music, whether its a groove or melody or harmonic progression, in order to understand how to correctly play it on your instrument. Embodied cognition is how we play music, or type, or drive, or perform these complex actions that we don't need to focus our entire thought process into, all while not even thinking about it at all. 
We even used this to come up with a new groove. His previous method for thinking of and playing grooves is, admittedly, tried and true, but I feel is somewhat more statistical in its approach: permutations of the bass on different eighth notes in the measure. I had him use this same method, beat-boxing something out, to come up with a new groove, and he did successfully, even moving the snare to different places other  than 2 and 4 which he wasnt doing prior. 
I gave him homework too: beat-box 3 different rhythms and notate them. If you have a hard time notating them, record them and bring them in next lesson and we'll write them together. He seemed really happy with his homework and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of his work. 

I teach music depending on the wants and needs of the student. The parent of course has a say but if the student is disinterested, they won't practice or pursue music and they'll begin to detest it in some instances, seeing it as a waste of time. I ask every student why they want to learn drums, because many students have a different answer. I have students who only wanted to learn to play one song and that's all, I have students in school bands, students auditioning for scholarships and music camps, parents who want their child to learn an instrument so they can form a band/jam together, students who learn drumset in order to know how to compose with it, and students that just think it's cool and and want to have a productive way to get energy out. If a student shows up to lessons wanting to do something and they're regularly told they can't, they'll feel discouraged. When I asked this student why they were taking drum lessons they told me it was because they wanted to learn to play drum set. But when I was asking him about what lessons looked like, they told me it was full of practice pad lessons and reading music. Both of these things are important; I use the practice pad with every student every day, it is a necessity for developing good technique. But if the student is there to learn drum set, and you're not giving at least an equal amount of time or more on the drum set than the practice pad, the student is going to lose interest and feel discouraged. 

I've noticed the way I've been teaching music is quite different from how most teach music, and it's also quite different from how I initially learned music. Throughout my time studying and playing, I've learned that a lot of people have their pre-conceived beliefs and notions about music, and strong ones at that, that are somewhat akin to religion in terms of power that they hold over our mental superstructure, or interpretation of the world. Because of the wide variation in belief of what music is, wide variation in pedagogical practices from around the world exist as well. I was never taught to write anything, or make up a melody, or improvise. I was never taught how to vocalize something musically, or what makes a rhythm or melody sound good. I was never taught about groove or feel. I was never taught how important it was to look away from the music. All until I joined university Big Band, Jazz Combos, African Music Ensembles, and a Steel Pan band. I was taught about how these groups of people learned music, and how they played music in an inherently different fashion than us, where masters of these art forms have never read a page of sheet music in their life yet are master musicians, composers, and improvisors. I learned there was so much more to what it meant to make and play music, and how powerful improvising music is as a deep form of expression. But not everyone has this awakening to what the world shows us is music. Many musicians never have the opportunity to fundamentally conceive of music as something different than how they were raised, much like studying the linguistics of one's native language, becoming an expert at it, and then calling one's self an expert in linguistics and teaching linguistics exclusively from the framework of your native language. I believe music has a labeling issue as well, where two people teaching music, even music that comes from the same nation (like Rock and Jazz, for example), can be teaching conceptually different things but both say they're studying music, or American music. The world of music education and academia is somewhat fuzzy in terms of categorization.

Without sounding too spiritual, music literally exists inside you, as a part of you, that you understand and comprehend the patterns of surprisingly well. Musical training is only a tool to allow the music that you already have and feel in you to not only be expressed, but developed over time. A great, recently-passed jazz legend and mentor Marvin 'Doc' Holladay, said this famous line that I will never forget: "You only choose the first two notes of your improv. You are a vessel for the music to flow through you, you do not control the music." I believe approaching music education with the belief that one is already musical and needs a way of expressing it is a much better, and faster-progressing method than believing that musicality is something that needs to be taught and that develops, because in reality it is both of these circumstances. There is evidence of the inherently musical nature of humans; every society in humanity has a form of music, instruments have existed for as long as we could carve lithophones (stone instruments) and bone flutes, and experiments done by linguists on schoolchildren show that if you repeat a phrase often enough, the brain recognizes the inherent rhythmic quality built-in and naturally applies a melody, thus turning it into a little song. This is also seen in African societies quite often, this repetitive cyclical nature of the music based on a singular phrase or concept, and represent some of the most raw, human forms of music-making in the world. 

I love being able to link African musicology and global music pedagogy to my lessons and teaching methods. These global pedagogical methods exist because they're naturally human ways of representing music because humans are musical creatures, and thus these methods are natural for students to pick up, like vocalization and improvisation. Through this recognition of the naturally musical human, we can then begin to expand and develop our musicality and become better musicians.

​I'm looking forward to seeing what my student brings in for their next lesson.

The Tabla is an international symbol of music making and rhythm. Its imagery is iconic: two small hand drums angled ergonomically, usually one wooden and one metal, spotting a captivating black dot, a syahi, on the heads. The sound is even more recognizable, emanating a pure, resonant sound from the dayan (the high drum) and a low, pitch-bending bass from the bayan (the low drum). The tabla dates back over 400 years, originating from the older pakhawaj drum, which is known for a stronger, rougher sound compared to the tabla's more pure and exact articulation.

The Tabla is learned through a tradition called Guru-Shishya Parampara, a student-teacher relationship where a student ideally spends many years studying under a single guru. When the guru decides the shishya is ready, they give them permission to teach and perform that particular gharana, or school of tabla playing. Today, six main gharanas exist: Dilli, Lucknow, Ajrara, Farrukhabad, Benares, and Punjab (DigiTabla, n.d.).

At the heart of this tradition are bols, the different named sounds one can achieve by striking the tabla. For instance, a dead stroke in the middle of the dayan is called te, while a sharp stroke on the rim produces a sound called na. Using these bols, one can both play and speak compositions. In fact, one cannot call themselves a tabla player unless they are able to speak the compositions they are playing, as that is primarily how they are learned.

There is a phrase in music pedagogy: “if you can say it, you can play it.” It describes the remarkable ability we have to perform a musical phrase if we can vocalize it first. I use vocalizations when teaching percussion, encouraging students to beat-box beats or find ways to say complex rhythms. Many musical aspects are hidden in our speech, such as inflection, tone, and rhythm. The scholar Kofi Agawu believes that music and language are not two separate things, but different ends of a spectrum with the value criteria being aesthetics versus semantics (Agawu 2003, 74). Tabla bols are a perfect example of this, an art form branching between language and music. Bols serve functions at multiple levels: as technical notation, as a pedagogical tool, and as a stand-alone form of musical, non-semantic poetry.

I have been learning music for over half my life, starting in middle school band and now working towards a PhD. I have always been fascinated with organology and the vast expanse of music traditions that exist from around the globe. After being exposed to tabla by my teachers, Professor Shawn Mativetsky (McGill University) and Professor Patrick Fitzgibbon (Oakland University), I decided to take lessons in January of ‘23. That is when I discovered that the world of tabla is so vast, one could study something new every day and still never call themselves a master. Learning tabla has led me to many opportunities, from incorporating it into multi-percussion setups for dance classes to performing and recording with it. The rhythmic practice I have absorbed has transferred to many other parts of my musicianship.

The bols that will be analyzed in this study are as follows: Dha, Dhin, Dhet, Ta, Na, Tin, Ne, Nu, Te, Ti, Tirakita, Kra, Kre, Ge, Trekke, and Diri. These sounds are produced using a number of different techniques and can be separated into categories based on their articulation. The recitation of these bols is called padhant. I have made a table of the categorization of sounds here: 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AfuXmZ2j1hUmCx2_FCBPcnoHck5HRLtvNgUkyQrssqU/edit?usp=sharing

Bols are not an exact one-to-one correspondence with the sounds produced on the drums; they can change for a few different reasons, namely in reference to speed and history. Reciting tetekete is far too articulatorily cumbersome for pronunciation at high speeds. Therefore, manipulating sounds to accurately represent these compositions is crucial. Tirakita is an example of a bol that has evolved for this reason, demonstrating the playing of the tabla directly affecting the spoken bols. This is also done for the bol Dhin, which, at high speeds, will be pronounced as Dhee, in the instance of Dhee Ge Dhin Na Tirakita Dhin Na Dha Ge Dha Dhee Ge Tin Na Na, as opposed to Dhin Ge Dhin Na Tirakita Dhin Na Dha Ge Dha Dhin Ge Tin Na Na.  
As for the historic aspect, the origins of Hindustani classical percussion are tied to the musical recitation of the Vedas. Compositions exist that come directly from ancient poetry. Phrases like tarajukata or tabitatarara are direct remnants of ancient prayers that have been translated to the tabla. These would be articulated as Ta Tin Ta Ta Te Ta Te on the tabla. This shows the cyclical nature of the art form, where the bols can influence the articulation of the tabla from the other way around.

The bol system is a complete version of a tabla composition, unifying the comprehension of the music, the articulation of the music through physical embodiment, and the vocal expression of the composition. The bols and the tabla serve each other to fully represent the complexity of Hindustani classical percussion. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to fluently recite the bols as well as you perform them to claim full understanding.

This proves that tabla playing is an art form and tradition that is alive and well, constantly evolving. Bols are a stand-alone art form that complements the tabla and reveals the complexity of Hindustani music. Future study could be done into a comparison of bols from different gharanas, how bols relate to one’s native language, and how they have evolved over time. 

I personally love tabla, and this is one of the aspects I appreciate the most, so I thought a short written excerpt of my experiences would be a great way of connecting my experiences with other students, and maybe encouraging some of you to pick up the tabla because after all, you don't even need the drums to learn how to play. If you can say it, you can play it!