Pakhawaj

A pakhawaj is a double-headed barrel drum, the main percussion instrument of dhrupad. Craftsmen carve the shell from a single block of jackwood or tun wood, and braided leather lacing holds the two heads. The player sits cross-legged with the drum across the lap: the right hand plays pitched strokes on the treble head, and the left strikes the bass head and presses it to bend the pitch. The drum predates the tabla by several centuries. Aditya Dip plays pakhawaj with KalaSudha.

Begin the pakhawaj with KalaSudha at Foundation level, online or in a workshop. You start with the core bols, the spoken syllables of each stroke, reciting each one aloud before you play it. We teach children as well as adults; ask us about a starting age and about a drum size for a younger learner.

If you are returning after a long break, you start again where you left off. Our courses run in levels, and your teacher first checks where you stand.

When buying a student or professional pakhawaj, compare the shell first, then the two heads. In Musical Instruments of India (1978), B. Chaitanya Deva describes a pakhawaj 60 cm long, with a right head of 16 cm and a left head of 25 cm. The right head carries the permanent syahi, so its skin deserves the closest look. Check, too, that the wedges and a cover come with the drum.

KalaSudha sells student drums from North Indian workshops and concert drums from established craftsmen in Varanasi and Rajasthan. Ours suit the dhrupad student and the concert accompanist: ask us for a quote, or for a pakhawaj made to order.

You can buy a pakhawaj from KalaSudha outside India, by quote or made to order, with delivery worldwide. We pack every drum for international shipping; ask us about cases and insurance.

We service and repair any pakhawaj in any country, wherever you bought it: ask us. Spare parts come from us as well. For help with your drum after it arrives, use the chat on any page or write to [email protected]. If you need gift vouchers, class sets for schools or a flight case for travelling to perform, ask us.

A good gift for someone learning an Indian classical instrument suits the instrument they play and the stage they have reached, so ask their teacher if you are unsure. An instrument of their own, or a better one, also makes a gift: KalaSudha sells every instrument by quote or made to order. For something smaller, ask us for a case, or for strings and spare parts to suit their instrument.

Lessons make a gift as well. KalaSudha teaches online and in workshops, and beginners start at Foundation level: see our courses.

Ask us about gift vouchers.

On a pakhawaj, the left, bass head gets the dough. Before each performance the player presses a paste of wheat flour (atta) and water onto its centre, which lowers and deepens the bass, and strips it off afterwards; applying it well is a skill in itself. The treble head carries its own paste instead: boiled rice with manganese dust or iron filings.

A pakhawaj is tuned much as a tabla is. A hammer knocks the wooden blocks under the leather braces towards or away from a head for coarse changes in pitch. For fine tuning, the player strikes the woven gajra ring at the edge of the treble head; the gajra is an extension of the head skin, framed by a raised leather border.

The core talas of the pakhawaj are chautal of 12 beats, which is the beginner's theka, dhamar of 14, sultal of 10 and tivra of 7. Less common ones include matta of 9 and pancham sawari of 15. These cycles suit its main role as the principal drum of dhrupad and dhamar, accompanying voice, rudra veena and surbahar.

Every pakhawaj stroke has a spoken syllable, or bol. Students recite a composition aloud, a practice called padhant, before they play it, and a composition can be recited without the drum. The Punjab-Sikh lineage names three playing styles: sath, full-handed and the oldest; jat, with a full-handed bass and fingers on the treble; and gat, with fingertips and wrist pressure on the bass.

The pakhawaj is a single two-headed barrel drum, played lying horizontally with both hands. The tabla's bass drum is usually metal and carries a permanent syahi, so it needs no dough, while the pakhawaj bass takes fresh wheat dough before each performance. The tabla largely replaced the pakhawaj in khyal and lighter forms, and its repertoire and syllables, parans included, draw on the pakhawaj.

No: in North India, mridang is a current alternative name for the pakhawaj, and the scholar Aneesh Pradhan warns against confusing it with the Carnatic mridangam. The two drums are close relatives. The mridangam uses a jackwood shell and a semolina (rava) patch on its bass head; the pakhawaj takes wheat dough on its bass.

A paran is a fixed pakhawaj composition built on the full-handed sath technique. It often spans several cycles of the tala and closes with a threefold tihai that lands on sam. Tukras and relas draw on parans, and parans passed from the pakhawaj into the tabla repertoire.

Ask KalaSudha to book a pakhawaj player for a concert, event or recording. The pakhawaj accompanies dhrupad singers and instrumentalists and has its own solo repertoire, so tell us which you need through our page to book Indian classical musicians. KalaSudha's recordings and concert videos let you hear our artists first.