don't let this fool you into thinking that the players count: 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 when playing tintal. they don't. its logically divided into 4 parts: da-dhin-dhin-da da-dhin-dhin-da da-tin-tin-na na-dhin-dhin-da but nobody counts them in 4 sections. actually, nobody really counts them at all! this idea that classical indian music even counts beats its a bit of a misnomer to start with. they conceive of the tala as a cycle, in fact literally a circle in some instructional works. rather than lay out rythmn on a line the way we do in the west, its laid out in a circle, and divided in various ways. however, the musicians do need to keep time, and even though this is done partly by a keen awareness of the underlying structure of the tala, they will also tap. note that its rare to ever hear tintal played exactly as i wrote it out above. the musicians are free to improvise on the "theme" of the tala, which they do by subdividing the beats in various ways. they could take a single "dhin" and play da-tere-kete-da-tere-kete-da-tere-kete-da instead, as one tiny example. in this case, the new "beats" are clearly traditional western subdivisions (1/16ths, 32nds etc). but start from jhaptal, which is based on a 10 count cycle, and subdivide that, and you end up with strange "beat note values" that we never use in the west. finally, although the classical tradition rarely mixes talas within a single piece, the newer breed of indian musicians, blending ideas from many different world traditions with their own skills, do this. thats how people like shankar and zakir hussain end up playing some really odd rythmnic games. its akin to what people like ornette coleman, miles davis and coltrane did when they started linking jazz improvisation with ideas drawn from classical traditions (and actually very close in many ways to the modal jazz of the "kind of blue" era). i studied tabla for 3 months - long enough to know i wasn't any good at it. but dammit, i'm a good computer programmer, and i'm determined to give zakir a run for his money one day :) for that, i need a sequencer that can handle these ideas! this is also probably true of most pieces performed live. tintal is the 4/4 of indian classical music, with ektal or jhaptal playing the role of the waltz :) notice, though, that in indian classical music, the raga and the tala are not inextricably tied together. whereas it would sound plain wrong to try to play the blue danube in 4 (its probably been tried!), its not uncommon to find indian musicians playing a raga with different talas. this is mostly because the raga is more like a scale than a specific melody, and so the player(s) are free to work with the rythmic structure. --p