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Dholak

by David Courtney working tools

traditional dholak
Traditional Rope Lacing
turnbuckle dholak
Turnbuckle Tuning

Dholak is a very pop­ular folk drum of nor­thern India.  It is barrel shaped with a simple membrane on the right hand side; ba­si­cally it is just a smaller version of the dhol.  The left hand is also a sin­gle membrane with a special application on the inner surface.  This application is a mix­ture of tar, clay and sand (dholak masala) which lowers the pitch and provides a well de­fined tone.  There are two ways of tigh­ten­ing the dholak.  Sometimes they are laced with rope, in which case, a series of metal rings are pulled to tighten the instrument.  Sometimes metal turnbuckles are employed. 

The position of the dholak in Indian music is complex. It is said that this instrument used to occupy a posi­tion of con­si­der­able prestige.  Today it is merely re­le­ga­ted to filmi and folk music, as well as he allied styles of bhajan, geet, and qawwalli.

Photo Gallery

dholak (rope style)
Dholak (rope style)
right side
Right side
left side
Left side
Knots for tigh­ten­ing
Knots for tigh­ten­ing
Right head closeup
Right head closeup
Dholak (Turnbuckle style)
Dholak (Turnbuckle style)
Right face
Right face
Left face
Left face
Turnbuckles
Turnbuckles

Selected Video

https://youtu.be/kJmdNA4wvTs

Other Sites of Interest

Folk Drums and Tribal Girls: Sounding the Himalayas in Indian Film

The Folk Drums of North - East: A Versatile Medium of Socio - Cultural Communication of Tribal and Non Tribal Communities

Drums of India: A Pictorial Selection

The "Dḩāk", Devi Amba's Hourglass Drum in Tribal Southern Rajasthan, India

The Role of the Phariya in Tribal Acculturation in a Central Indian Market

Bower: Drums Behind the Hill (Book Review)

Sufism - Sufis - Sufi Orders

New Wine from Medina: Aesthetics of pop­ular qawwali lyrics

Poetry in Sufi Practice : Patrons, Poets and Performers in South Asian Sufism from Thirteenth Century to the Present

Experiencing Qawwali: Sound as Spiritual Power in Sufi India

A Multimodal Analysis of Qawwali

Mahfil-i-Sama/Qawwali: Celebrations and Contestations

Rethinking Qawwali: perspectives of Sufism, music, and devotion in north India

Sufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context, and Meaning in Qawwali

Folk Music of Pakistan: Socio-Cultural Influence of Qawwali

Bharatiya Sangeet Vadya (Review)

Catalogue of Indian Musical Instruments

Fractal dimension analysis of audio signals for Indian musical instrument recognition

Natural synthesis of North Indian musical instruments

Recognition of Indian Musical Instruments with Multi-Classifier Fusion

The Tagore collection of Indian musical instruments

Improvement of Audio Feature Extraction Techniques in Traditional Indian Musical Instrument

East Indians musical instruments

Yantra kosha; or, A Treasury of the Musical Instruments of Ancient and of Modern India, and of Various Other Countries