TablaLab Riyaz :1 app for iPhone and iPad

This is a phrase (or bol) trainer for assisting practice of these famous classical indian drums.

“As a tabla-player myself, it became apparent to me that it would be useful to have an app which could throw out phrases for me to repeat, focussing on timing and clarity. I became aware that my practice generally focusses on one composition at a time and rarely do I try to mix up phrases. This app aims to give the player a challenge in developing a theme by repeating or improvising on a sequence of phrases as the app calls them out, in a call and return style.”

Features include:

- Realistic instrument sound from extremely good quality samples (using over one minute of 320kbps stereo audio recorded from live tabla)
- Pitch control of instrument sounds
- Tempo control
- Over 100 pages of phrases
- Repeat control for each page which can be set to 2,3,4,8 or 99 loops
- A 2 pitch metronome synchronised to the cycle
- There’s a wide variety of phrases for most levels and abilities.

This is a tool using the language of ‘bols’

‘Bols’ are the sounds of the instrument represented as words. This language is standardised to the point where almost any new comer can hear or see a phrase and understand it as a series of sounds on the drums. Familiarity with some bols is a prerequisite to using this tool.

Tablalab Riyaz will play a phrase to you and then leave a space of the same duration for you to play the phrase back. Your performance is not marked or scored – you can judge for yourself whether you are happy with your interpretation or not.

Each activity focuses on a set of ‘bols’ or a particular phrase or theme but each one centres on an important aspect of a phrase or rhythm structure in general. For instance, one activity might focus on division of a single time duration into different subdivisions.

The tool aims to improve the player’s flexibility, fluidity and clarity through repeated uses of phrases in many combinations and permutations, most of which are commonly known as everyday repertoire.

This is the first release in a series of Riyaz applications.

An initial review of a pre-release version by Pascal Bercker follows:

1) Whether intended or not, the pedagogical idea behind it I think is quite sound, namely that especially for beginners, the best route is to practice (repeatedly) a wide variety of very common phrases (there are almost 150 different phrases grouped in 10 different categories). (Indeed this is the new thinking behind what is called “varied practice”. I highly recommend the following article for the theoretical underpinnings of this idea at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varied_practice).

The varied practice approach focuses on the distribution of practice in time, the organization of activities to be practiced (blocked vs. random), and the interleaving of information or content to highlight distinctions that facilitate learning. For example, a varied practice approach to learning to shoot a basketball might involve a sequence of ten mid-range jump shots, followed by ten lay-ups, followed by ten free-throws, followed by ten three-pointers, with the entire cycle repeating ten times. This contrasts with traditional approaches in which the learner is encouraged to focus on mastering a particular aspect or subset of the relevant information before moving on to new problems (e.g., focusing on free-throws before moving to three pointers). With varied practice, the learner is exposed to multiple versions of the problem even early in training.

2) The interface is excellent. You can control the number of repetitions (2,4,8 and 99). You can control the pitch and, of course, the tempo. And it’s easy to repeat phrases or to skip ahead to other preferred phrases. Once everything is set, the phrases repeat for the chosen cycle, and then automatically moves on to the next phrase.