About The Instruments
Tabla (drums)
Tabla usually refers to a pair of drums, one bass drum and one smaller tuned drum. By using wrist pressure they can adjust the pitch of the bass drum. This is only one of many techniques, using fingers, palm and wrist in different ways. This can create a variety of different sounds and rythms. They learn these by using syllables to represent the different sounds and sing while they play. You can see this in the video below.
Ektara
Ektara (means one string) is a one stringed instrument. It has been used for a long time in Baul-tradition is West Bengal. Our teachers and students in Bangladesh preserve the traditional use of this unique instrument. They play it by plucking the string with a finger and squeeze the bamboo that holds the string tight. The harder the squees, the looser the string. When they do this fast the sound is relatively similar to percussion.
Khamak
A khamak is similar to an ektara, but it doesn’t have any bamboo that holds the string tight. Instead the string is attached to a kind of handle that they pull in order to tighten the string. The khamak is usually used as a percussion instrument.
Dotara
Dotara means two strings, but the modern version of the instrument has four strings. It is a plucked instrument, but it has no frets. Which means they have free finger placement on the neck of the instrument, similar to a violin.
Bamboo flute
The Indian bamboo flute have been used in the traditional music for thousands of years. The modern version is tuned to western scales.
Harmonium
The harmonium is an air pump based keyboard instrument. The pump is operated with one hand while they play the keyboard with the other hand. It came to Bengal from the west in the 1800s and have been used a lot in the traditional music ever since.