First steps with TaalWizard bases

Here are some guidelines which will help you start SwarShala the right way:

SwarShala comes with 5 TaalWizard Strings bases (.rwb files) and their associated sound samples (.wav files). Each base contains different sequences and features a specific instrument. Currently these instruments are: sarod, sitar, guitar and 3 tanpuras (2 in Black One, 1 in Black 4). These bases and samples sets can be downloaded separately at the Swar Café upon registration.

To try out the provided sequences, you must first open the required base by the File | Open option. For each base you open, you will see a window splitted in three parts. The left panel shows a tree control which describes the way the sequences are organized within folders. The right panel is further divided in an upper part displaying the name of the currently selected item as well as its description, while the lower part displays the contents of any selected sequence.

To select a specific sequence, you must double-click on it within the browser tree. To locate a sequence within a folder, you must double-click the folder so that it opens. A short description of the provided folders can be helpful for people foreign to tabla instruction:

Thekas are fixed rhythmic cycles which are used to accompany a melodic instrument. They can be compared to our Bossa-Nova, Slow-Rock or Hip-Hop rhythms. Generally, thekas above 8 beats tend to be used in Classical music, and those of 8 beats and below more in folk music.
Kaydas are structured exercises which are generally played by increasing their tempo; first one time in a given time span, then 2, then 4 and so on. Uneven multiples are of course also used (1.5, 3, 5 ...). Progression on tempo is called Laykari (Lay=tempo). Kaydas are used in tabla solos as well.
Peshkars are sequences which introduce a solo or even accompaniment. They are quite unfixed and generally improvised on a small theme by the artist.
Mukhras are small rhythmic patterns which are used as a transition between sequences.
Tukhras are similar to Mukhras, but they are generally longer and very musical. They are mostly derived from Pakhawaj patterns.
Relas are fast compositions played at the end of a solo. It is said the name Rela comes from "rail", due to the similarity of their sound with that of a running train.

Once you double-click on a a sequence, it appears on the right-hand panes. You can then press the Play button to hear it playing. To Play it in a loop, press the Play Continuously button.

To change the default pitch, volume and pan of a given base, just click on the Tuning command (hammer button). The tuning values can be set separately for right and left hand, as in real life.

The Stroke to Play field contains the stroke that will be played whenever you change any setting, to give you an idea of how the new setting will sound. Normally, the tuning is done with the stroke Na for the right hand and Ge for the left hand, but you can select another stroke if you prefer. The changes are automatically applied to all strokes of the same hand.

Pitch

The pitch slider bar lets you change the default tonality of your drum. Just drag it right for a higher pitch, left for a lower one.

Volume

The volume slider bar lets you change the default amplitude of sound. Drag it right to increase volume, left to decrease it. Avoid setting the volume to the maximum, as you won't be able to hear strokes that are emphasized (Currently DirectX supports no amplification, therefore the default volume is set to 90%).

Pan

The pan slider bar lets you specify how your sound will be distributed in space. By dragging the slider bar on one side, the sound will be progressively dimmed in the other loud-speaker. You can thus create a real stereo effect by setting the right and left drum pan accordingly.

SwarShala displays each stroke as a cell. It also provides a large number of operations you can do on these cells, such as merging them, changing their width, splitting them, copying and moving them and so on. Each cell has a duration expressed as a fraction of the global pattern. When you alter this duration, it is reflected as a change in the size of the cell.

Patterns are a succession of strokes and are therefore represented as an array of cells. These patterns are also considered by SwarShala as rhythmic components, and you can thus reuse them in other compositions, as described in this simplified model:

This diagram shows how you can progressively build on the sequences you created. The first sequence built, Tirekite, is a succession of simple strokes, each lasting a quarter of the global time. The strokes are Te, Te, Ke and Te. If you play Tirekite in 1 second, each stroke will last 250 milliseconds (1/4 of a second).

The following pattern, DhaTrktTkTrkt, reuses Tirekite while adding new simple strokes. Now, the time allotted to this complex stroke is one third of the global time, which means that if DhaTrktTkTrkt is played in 1 second, Tirekite will have 333 milliseconds to complete, and thus each of its strokes 83 ms only.

The Rela item takes further advantage of the created items by reusing the sequence DhaTrktTkTrkt which will have to run in 3/8 of the allotted time. And so on (like including the Rela into a Solo composition)

The strokes (Dha, Te, Ta and Ke) can be linked with a right and a left hand sound. Thus, when Dha is played, both Na and Ge sounds are started simultaneously. If it is a single hand stroke, only one sound is executed. The Silence item is a mute stroke.

This is a simplification of the real model, where additional considerations need to be handled, such as changing the stroke properties within a sequence only or including part of a pattern. It however gives a good idea of the architecture on which the software is built.

Joined strokes should be considered as templates to be used within patterns. They provide a default roman and devanagari alias, as well as a default right and left hand component (which can be a silence as well). You can enter these strokes freely in your patterns, and for most of them you might not need any overriding.

However, tabla is not an exact science;-) and you can have a whole lot of ways of playing a given stroke. The stroke Ta, for instance can be played on the edge of the skin, in between, and even in the middle part. To avoid creating all the possibilities beforehand (like Ta (kinar), Ta (sur), Ta (syahi)), you can then make use of the overriding mechanism.

Stroke overriding allows you to change the way the stroke is displayed and played within a given pattern and all patterns that include it. To do so, click on the cell to be overriden and press the Properties button. A dialog will then show the current settings of the stroke, which you can change at your own wish. If you change the roman alias (name displayed in the normal View), make sure you give a devanagari equivalent, or it will be displayed as blank in Vernacular view.

Apart from changing the default rendering of a stroke, overriding can be very useful to emphasize certain beats by increasing the Emphasis value. Note that you can edit the Properties of many cells at a time by selecting more than one of them. Also the Edit | Select | Beat command can be of great use to emphasize all strokes falling on the beat.

All strokes that have been overriden are shown with an asterisk (*) in the Tooltip displayed when you rest the mouse over it. Currently, all common strokes are available in the posted TaalWizard bases. You can of course add new ones according to your needs. You should consider it as a trade-off, though. If you are using a different stroke very often and don't want to change the settings all the time, then I would suggest you create such a stroke under a new name (please keep the original strokes as they are). On the other hand, you should avoid creating strokes which will rarely be used, so as to keep the clarity of the tree view.

If you want to create your own sequences, you can do so by opening the base for the required instrument and clicking on the Insert | Pattern menu. If you wish to create a theka (see above), you can use the Insert | Cycle option. By doing so, you will be prompted a Pattern Properties dialog where you must enter the characteristics of the pattern you want to create.

Enter the name, any description of your pattern, and set the beats as required. The number of beats corresponds to the number of impulsions of the pattern. It does not refer to the actual strokes that will be played, as you can have any number of strokes within one beat. For example, Tintal has 16 beats, but in a slow tempo, you have 3 or more strokes per beat.

The Wrap At field lets you display your sequence in more than one line. If your pattern is big, you will gain clarity by wrapping it at a given number of beats.

The Number Of Rows field lets you create more than one row for your pattern. Typically, if you create a Tukhra which completes in 2 cycles of 16 beats, you should set the Nr Of Beats at 16 and the Nr Of Rows at 2.

To complete the creation of your pattern, you should set the classification fields gharana, composer, style, reporter and cycle. These fields are not mandatory, but they help providing interesting information about the pattern.

These fields can be set through predefined values contained in the combo-box controls, or by entering new values manually.

Gharana indicates the specific tabla tradition from which the pattern comes. Composer stands for the known author of the pattern. Style refers to the type of the composition (Theka, peshkar, mukhra, ...). The Reporter is the person who has entered the composition in the software, that is You! Finally, Cycle refers to the Theka on which the composition is based. Generally, a rhythmic composition is meant for a specific cycle, even though it can sometimes be applied to other ones.

Once you have completed this input, you can press the OK button, and SwarShala will create a sequence of the specified number of beats, all set to Silence.

Each cell of your newly created sequence is set to a Silence item, that is no hand is playing. You should now enter the items (strokes and/or patterns) which correspond to the composition. To do so, you have different possibilities, which can be combined:

Copy / Paste

You can copy/paste a whole item, or just a range of cells. In the first case, you click on the item to copy in the tree view, press the Copy button (or Ctrl+C), select one or many contiguous cells in which the item is to be inserted and then press the Paste button (or Ctrl+V).

To copy a range of cells, double-click on the source sequence, select the cells to be copied by clicking on the first and dragging the mouse with the left button still pressed till the last cell, press the Copy button, double-click on the target sequence, select one or many contiguous cells in which the range is to be inserted, and then press the Paste button. If source and target patterns are not the same item, you will be asked if you wish to retain the link to the source pattern. If you do so, all changes applied to that pattern within the pasted range (from beat - to beat) will be automatically propagated in the target sequence. This can be interesting when trying Tihais out of a simple compositions.

Drag and drop

The drag and drop method makes it easy to insert a whole item within a pattern. All you have to do is select the range of cells in which the item will be inserted (if only one cell is concerned, you do not need to select it) and then drag the item from the tree view within that range.

You can also copy ranges of cells, but only within the same pattern. Just select the source cells, the target cells and drag the first to the latter.

A third application of drag and drop is to move cells within a pattern. Select the cells to be moved and drag them until the line separating the cells between which you want to insert them. When the cursor changes into a vertical line, just release the left mouse button and the selected cells will be moved there.

Manual input

To use the manual input method, you should double-click the first cell to enter edit mode, type in the identifier of the item to insert and press Enter. The identifier is the unique path to the item. As Main String strokes are stored in the Raag root folder, only their name is sufficient (d-, s, ...). However, items which are stored in separate folders such as String #2, #3, ... need that you specify the whole path to them (String #2\n-, ...).

You can immediately go to the next/previous cell in edit mode, by pressing Tab/Shift+Tab instead of Enter.

If you enter more than one item reference (separated by a space), the cell will be splitted evenly in as many items as were introduced. If a word cannot be matched to any existing item, that cell is set to Silence.

Which method to use?

Depending on the situation, you may choose to use one method or the other. For example, for patterns with regular rendering of the strokes like an Alankar, you should use manual input. Once you have created your empty pattern, merge all the cells into one, double-click it and type-in "s s g- g- m m d- d- n- n- s. s."; you are done.

On the other hand, that method won't be that efficient for patterns with uneven beats, as you would have to add unexpressed Silences, or enter strokes in different steps.

If you need to use items contained in folders, you should drag or copy them to avoid the trouble of entering their whole path. Also, if you have the possibility of copying a whole range of cells, you should do it through drag or copy commands.

The best way to understand the method to use is by trying them all; once you have entered some patterns, you will quickly gain experience and will automatically choose the right way.

When a new pattern is created, each cell corresponds to exactly one beat. Few sequences however follow this simple layout. If you need to create strokes which are off-beat or distributed in a different way within the pattern, you will need to use commands which change the layout of the cells and therefore of the underlying strokes.

We have already seen how when you enter a sequence within a cell, the latter is splitted according to the structure of the former. You can also split a cell or group of cells beforehand through the Cells | Split command. Once you have selected the cells to split, just click on this command and specify the number of times it should be split.

All the cells selected will be splitted accordingly. The new cells will contain the original stroke, that is if you divide a cell containing Sa say 10 times, you will have 10 cells containing Sa. If a pattern is included within the selection, the program will consider it as a single cell. Thus, if you are working on a whole performance and you split any of the cells of the Bandishes Asthayi or Antara line, the program will create as many loops of this line as specified, within the length of the original cycle.

Another useful command is Cells | Merge. Select a range of contiguous cells, click on this command and all your cells will become one, containing the stroke of the first cell of the range. If this cell happens to be within a pattern, the new cell will contain the whole pattern.

If your strokes are set properly, but you just want to change their duration, you should use the Cells | Width command. Select a first cell, click on this menu, and the current duration is displayed in a fraction of a beat. To change this setting, enter a new duration. Once you click OK, the remainder of the pattern will be shifted to the right or to the left depending on whether you have increased or decreased the duration.

Be aware that a pattern should always be delimited by its number of beats. Operations like Cells | Width, Cells | Delete or Cells | Insert create an imbalance in the structure of the pattern. This imbalance is corrected once you edit the Properties of the pattern and press the OK button. However, this will rarely give you the result you expect. For example if you delete a cell of say Sa X X X, once this pattern is restored, it will have 3 cells of 1/3 of the global duration.

The rule is therefore that when you remove a duration somewhere, you should add it elsewhere to avoid the software compensating the difference in each of your cells.

Coming back to the Cells Width command, you can jump to the next or previous cell through the appropriate buttons.

The 2 commands, Cells | Delete and Cells | Insert, which I just mentioned before help you remove a cell or group of cells somewhere and insert it elsewhere. These commands can generally be replaced by the cells moving facility (see Drag and Drop).

Finally, Append Row is a very useful command which lets you insert a new row to your composition in a neat way (no imbalance). To remove one or more rows, you should use the Delete Cells command, and then edit the Properties for the pattern, set the Nr of Rows to the new value and press OK.