Specific Discipline

Tappa

टप्पा

"Short Punjabi love songs, sung in fast taans that leap around the words"

Punjabi Origins Rapid Taans

Tappa is a Hindustani vocal form of short Punjabi love songs in fast taans, traced by tradition to camel drivers' songs and to Shori Miyan at the late 18th-century Awadh court.

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Quick Facts

Name Meaning
Leap or jump
Credited To
Shori Miyan, Awadh court
Key Technique
Zamzama and fast taans
Noted Exponents
Malini Rajurkar, Girija Devi

Overview

Tappa (ṭappā, टप्पा) is a Hindustani vocal form that sets a short love song, most often in a Punjabi dialect, to fast taans, the quick melodic runs a singer weaves around the words. Platts' dictionary glosses the word as a leap or jump. Tappa is often called semi-classical or light classical. Banglapedia lists it among the classical vocal forms, and the singer Shanno Khurana rejects the lighter label.

Tradition traces tappa to the songs of camel drivers in Punjab and Sindh. It credits Ghulam Nabi, known as Shori Miyan, with shaping those songs into the present form at the Lucknow court of Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula in the late 18th century. The signature ornament is the zamzama, a tight cluster of notes sung around a landing note.

Tappa avoids the straight runs (sapaat taans) of fast khayal and favours the leaping chhut taan, and a performance seldom passes ten minutes. Ragas heard in tappas include Kafi, Khamaj and Bhairavi. The historian and tabla player Aneesh Pradhan names the Gwalior and Banaras gharanas as the form's main homes. Girija Devi of Banaras, known above all for thumri, sang tappa too.

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Part of Hindustani Classical

Hindustani classical vocal music is the singing tradition of North Indian art music. Singers develop a raga through composition and improvisation in khayal and dhrupad.

Historical Timeline

The usual account traces tappa to songs sung by camel drivers. Sources place them in Punjab, in the wider Punjab and Sindh region, or as far as Rajasthan, and none cites a contemporary record of the songs. Tradition credits Shori Miyan (Ghulam Nabi, 1742 to 1792), a hereditary musician at the Awadh court of Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula, with shaping them into the tappa sung today. Most of the traditional repertoire carries his name: the pen name Shori appears inside the song texts.

The scholar Katherine Schofield is reported to argue from 17th-century texts that tappa was sung in Delhi about a century before it took hold in Lucknow. On that reading Shori Miyan refined a form that already existed.

From Lucknow the form travelled. Shori Miyan's disciple Gamun Miyan is said to have taken it to Banaras, and Gwalior singers worked it into hybrids such as tap-khayal and tap-thumri. In Bengal, Ramnidhi Gupta, known as Nidhu Babu, created a Bengali tappa with a slower pace and softer ornament, a style that later fed into the songs of Tagore.

17th century and earlier

Early Accounts

Katherine Butler Schofield cites the Mirzanama and the Tuhfat al-Hind for tappa in 17th-century Delhi, about a century before it became popular in Lucknow. Gokulnath places tappay sung by courtesans in 16th-century Agra.

Late 18th Century

Shori Miyan at the Awadh court

At Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula's court in Lucknow, Shori Miyan is credited with shaping the camel drivers' songs into tappa. William Hamilton Bird notices the style within his lifetime, in his Oriental Miscellany of 1789.

Late 18th to early 20th century

Banaras, Bengal and Gwalior

Gamun Miyan is said to carry tappa to Banaras. Nidhu Babu meets it while working at Chhapra and builds a Bengali tappa. At Gwalior, Nissar Hussain Khan keeps it in his repertoire while living with Shankar Pandit's family from 1886.

20th century to present

Gwalior and Banaras singers

Gwalior singers such as Sharadchandra Arolkar and Malini Rajurkar, and Banaras singers such as Siddheshwari Devi and Girija Devi, sing and record tappas. Shanno Khurana of the Rampur-Sahaswan gharana releases an album of tappas, Sufi Raah, in 2006.

Playing Techniques

Zamzama and Taans

The zamzama gives tappa its sound. ITC Sangeet Research Academy describes it as a cluster of notes around a landing note, sung in changing combinations, and calls it integral to tappa. The khatka is a knot of notes sung fast and with force. Banaras singers add the chhut taan, a wide upward leap and quick fall, and avoid the sapaat taan, a straight scalar run that would make a tappa sound like fast khayal.

Vocal Demands

The singer Shashwati Mandal is reported to say tappa needs its own vocal training and firm breath control. A tappa opens straight into quick phrases inside the tala, and a Banaras singer adds that it allows no resting on any single note. Aneesh Pradhan places the skill in building melodic and rhythmic tension and resolving it fast, and values intelligent use of swift phrases above virtuosity.

Texts and Talas

Tappa texts run to two to four lines on love, separation and the wish to meet again, and in a Banaras account the voice is a woman's, whoever sings. Most use Punjabi dialects. The talas carry uneven accents: Punjabi and Sitarkhani, also called Addha, run to 16 matras (beats), and Pashto to 7.

Journey to Mastery

Follow this structured journey to master this discipline

1

Breath and Speed

Build breath control and speed before learning songs. Practise short, fast runs inside a steady tala cycle, and repeat them until you can hold the pace through a whole tappa. The demands on the voice keep a tappa to about ten minutes, which sets the stamina to aim for.
20%
2

Zamzama and Khatka

Learn tappa's ornaments one at a time, starting with the zamzama. Debapriya Adhikary of the Banaras line describes zamzama taans as short figures of four or five notes cut with faster ones. Build each figure from a small cell of notes, then add the faster notes around it. Add the khatka next, then the chhut taan, and keep every figure inside the tala.
40%
3

Ragas and Talas

Study tappas in Kafi, Khamaj and Bhairavi, then in other ragas found in named compositions, such as Yaman, Jhinjhoti, Tilang, Des and Pahari. Set each song in its tala, whether Punjabi, Sitarkhani or Pashto, and keep the fast phrases anchored to the cycle. Practise with tabla accompaniment until the uneven accents of these talas feel natural.
60%
4

Repertoire

Learn traditional tappas with their short Punjabi texts, most of them attributed to Shori Miyan and signed with his pen name. Sing each text until the words stay clear inside the fast phrases, since the zamzama falls on the words themselves. Note where the signature sits: sources place it in the last line or in the antara, the second section of the song.
80%
5

Listening and Performance

Listen to recorded tappas by Gwalior and Banaras singers, among them Malini Rajurkar, Siddheshwari Devi and Girija Devi. Follow the tabla: it holds a steady, restrained cycle under the voice and leaves little room for flourishes or solo passages. Then sing with a tabla player and judge each run by what it adds to the phrase.
100%

Past Performances

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