Learn to Play > Lesson 13: The Main Fast Off-beat

The foundation of most fast beats

The dayan is the small end of the drum.

The foundation of most fast beats in this course are four simple notes played on the dayan.

Those four notes are:

tiri Ti ta

That's it. Simple enough.

Well, not so simple really, because the timing of that is critical. Up to this point I've told you to keep your hand close to the head when playing tiri. Now, however, I'm going to tell you to play tiri just like normal, but move your hand away from the head before striking the next ti. Let me say that again, move your hand away from the head before striking the second ti. Swing it WAY out there into the ozone, poking the devotee at your side in the kirtan.

In effect, it will be almost like inserting a pause after the tiri like this:

tiri - Ti ta

Almost, but not quite a full pause. We call it an almost pause, because it's not even a half-pause. We write it with an asterisk like this:

tiri *Ti ta

Just an almost pause will do the trick. To get the timing right, you've got to swing your hand way out from the drum after doing the tiri and then come back and slam the Ti ta. That *Ti means a lot. It's a loud ti.

Listen Online. Try to duplicate this sound on your own mrdanga.
Listen Offline.

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