Lesson 14: The Lay

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Lesson 14: The Lay

Currently, our khol knowledge consists of only how to play talas, without much regard to tempo. If have good accompanying experience, then you might have adjusted your khol playing to the tempo of the main singer, artist, or musician. However, not everything is fixed in the generally medium speed. Sometimes things have to be played slowly, or something things have to be played quickly. Here, we will discuss the concept of the tempo in Indian music in a theoretical aspect.

The word for tempo in rhythms is lay (pronounced as it looks. In Bengali pronounced “lawy”). To understand lay, we can make a theoretical model to make couple of important points in allowing us to rhythms which are either faster or slower than medium tempo.

This examples uses tintal, the sixteen matra cycle we learned in lesson 7.

Think of these concentric circles as a racetrack used for a running competition. Runners running on the outer ring will take a longer time to finish one circle. The runners toward the center can easily finish one circle without much effort or time. It is not that the rate is different. The rate of each runner is the same. In the most ideal conditions, the runner on the blue circle is not running the slowest; likewise, the runner running the center circle is not the running the quickest. The rate of speed is the same, but it is perceived that the center circle runner is faster than the blue circle runner, due to the lane or circle the runner is at.

On an interesting side note, this is the reason why running competitions with more than one lane have a certain limit on how many lanes can fit. In addition, such tracks have each lane with their own starting and finishing lines, without affecting distance of each lane. This way, the lane farthest from the center starts further up, while the lane closest to the center starts farther back.

Let’s take the above sentence and fill it with terms relevant to tala and lay.

Think of these concentric circles as a comparison of tempos of the same tala. Tempos playing on the outer ring will take a longer time to finish one cycle of tintal. The tempos toward the center can easily finish one cycle without much effort. The rate, or the number of matras per cycle, remains constant! It is just the cycle is perceived to be playing faster due to the effect of lay.

There are seven recognized tempo speeds, however they are categorized into three general tempo speeds. These tempo speeds or lays are called vilambit, madhya, and drut.

Vilambit Laya is the slow tempo. This will take more time to finish one cycle. This is the outer ring in blue of this diagram. The tala usually falls in the range of 30 to 80 beats per minute. Since the distance between each matra is greatly increased, more bols are introduced in the cycle. You will not be responsible for vilambit talas on this tutorial, but just to get an appreciation of what a vilambit cycle looks like, here is the vilambit cycle of tintal from the KKSongs Tabla Guide. You’ll see how the madhya lay tempo has slowed down in speed and added more bols to prevent off-tempo of silence.

dhā

dhin

dhā

dhin

dhā

tin

tā

nā

ṭa

dhin

dhā

kre

dhā

Madhya Laya is the medium tempo. It does not take too much time to finish one cycle. Rates may vary. This is green, yellow rings on the diagram. The range of madhya lay can fall from 90 to roughly 150 or 200 beats per minute. As madhya lay properties have been discussed throughout the previous unit, they are not going to be revisited here.

Drut Laya is the fast tempo. This will take less time to finish one cycle. This is the orange and red rings in the diagram. They usually range from 200 to 350 or 400 beats per minute. Since the tempo is faster, playing all of the bols of the theka or prakar in faster tempo may not practical, as there are too many bols in too little time. Therefore, some bols are replaced with more convenient ones, or many bols are taken out to allow ease in playing. We have not learned anything in drut lay yet, but we will look at drut lay kirtan thekas based off of kaherva tala.

You are not responsible for the tintal drut lay, but here it is, just so you get an idea of what it looks like.

X				2				0				3
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
dhā	dhi	dhir	dhā	dhā	dhi	dhir	dhā	dhā	ra	ti	tā	tā	dhi	dhir	dhā

PROPERTIES OF DIFFERENT LAYS:

Vilambit Laya:

Slow tempo

More time to finish one cycle

Uses more bols to help keep time without loosing place

Madhya Laya:

Medium tempo

Time to complete a cycle will vary

Uses a decent number of bols depending on the expertise of the player and the tala

Drut Laya:

Fast tempo

Less time to finish one cycle

Uses the least amount of bols, or uses easier way to play the same sounds using different bols, to allow ease in keep rhythm.

UPDATED: June 11, 2009