Bedum Tihai

Bedum Tihai

We see that the phrase TiTaKaTaGaDiGeNaDhaTiDha is repeated three times without any interval between. We may generalize the character of the bedum tihai in the following formula:

nL+1 = 3P

 

where:
n = number of beats (matra) to resolve
L = layakari (i.e., single time, double time, etc.)
P = number of strokes in pala (phrase).

The application of this formula to figure 7 is interesting. We have to fill one cycle of tintal, therefore n=16; the tempo (layakari) is double-time, so L=2. The constant "1" is due to the fact that a 16 beat cycle actually resolves on the 17th beat (i.e., the first beat of the next cycle). The "3" represents the basic triadic nature of the tihai. This formula shows that it takes 11 strokes to create one pala (phrase) for a bedum tihai in tintal. There are many other values which could be used in this formula, however, contemporary performance practice usually dictates that all values be an even integer, and that common values for L are 1,2,3,4,6,8,12,&16.

The dumdar tihai has surprisingly different characteristics. Dum literally means "breath", but has the secondary meaning of a very small unit of time (Kapoor -no date). Figure 8 shows a dumdar tihai in a ten beat cycle known as jhaptal (Vashisht 1977:143).