What does the tabla player do in a concert?

In a Hindustani concert, the tabla player keeps the tala, the rhythmic cycle, by playing its theka, the pattern of strokes that marks each cycle. The tabla player and scholar Aneesh Pradhan asks for a clear, balanced theka at a steady pace, shaded in answer to the melody. The tabla stays silent through the opening alap and enters with the composition.

A khayal singer gets the theka with short diversions; an instrumental recital gives the tabla longer solo passages. In a sawal-jawab, a question-and-answer passage, the tabla echoes the soloist's ever shorter phrases. The passage closes with a tihai, a phrase played three times to land on the first beat. The tabla has its own solo repertoire too.