Indian drumming has evolved over many centuries, and is generally considered to be unrivalled in its sophistication and intricacy. Tabla is the name given to the pair of hand-drums played across the Indian sub-continent.

Over the last two hundred years, tabla has come to the forefront of North Indian classical music, but is also used to accompany devotional and popular music. Its characteristic sounds are also familiar in much western music: Björk, Supergrass, Courtney Pine, Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh and John McLaughlin, to name a few.

Tabla is probably best thought of as a hybridised instrument, most likely derived from the ancient mrdangm and puskara drums, which are known to have existed at least 1500 years ago. Its name comes from the generic Arabic word for drum (tabl), and possibly the Turkish word dawal. There are also evocative legends around their creation, often involving tempestuous and sword-wielding court musicians, and the subsequent halving of horizontal drums - such as the ancient pakhawaj - resulting in the precursor of these celebrated and vertical drums.

These days, the bass drum, or bhaya, is, at about 30 cm high, the larger of the two, and generally made from copper or brass. The smaller drum - singly, also called tabla - is wooden (often made from sheesham or mango), and is tuneable to a precise pitch. The heads are goatskin with unique permanent black patches (syahi), and give a wide range of sounds and pitches when played with a well developed technique.