# Madal — Laya > **From theory** — [Eastern theory · Laya](/theory/eastern/#laya). Speed, and how a beat fills with strokes. Laya (लय) is the speed of the beat. It is the steady pulse every stroke is counted against. It is not how hard or how fast you hit. Come here once the strokes on [Basics](basics.html) are clean and you can alternate **Ghin** and **Taang** without tension. Laya adds speed to a stroke that has to be relaxed already. The beat stays where it is, and you decide how many strokes to fit into each one. ### Try it 1. Press **Set the tempo to 60 BPM** in the grid below, or type 60 in the practice bar. 2. Turn the practice-bar metronome on. Each click is one beat. 3. Play **Ghin** with the left hand on every click for a minute, saying it out loud. Keep it even: same height, same weight, same tone. ## Three speeds Teachers name three speeds of laya, and they are relative: *vilambit* is slow for the piece you are playing, *drut* is fast for it. | Laya | Feel | For practice, about | |---|---|---| | **Vilambit** (विलंबित) | slow | 40–60 BPM | | **Madhya** (मध्य) | medium | 70–100 BPM | | **Drut** (द्रुत) | fast | 110–160 BPM | > On a madal, slow does not mean long. A drum cannot hold a note, so at 50 BPM each stroke has faded well before the next click, and the gap between them is silence you have to keep. The hand has to stay loose through that gap and arrive on the click without hurrying. At 120 BPM it is the reverse: the hand has almost no time in the air, so it has to rebound off the head instead of being lifted for every stroke. The numbers are a practice guide, not a rule. The Khyali taal on [Beats](beats.html#nepali-taals) is suggested at 60 to 100 BPM. ### Try it 1. Set 50 BPM. Play Ghin on every click with the left hand. Listen to it ring out and stop before the next one. 2. Set 80 BPM. Same again. The hand rebounds lighter, and the gap is shorter. 3. Set 120 BPM. Same again. If the hand tightens or the tone changes, you have gone too fast. Drop 10 BPM. ## One beat, more strokes You can make a rhythm sound faster without moving the beat at all. Play the same phrase, but fit two strokes into each beat instead of one, then four. The old Indian names for these are **thah** (one to a beat), **dugun** (two), **tigun** (three) and **chaugun** (four). Practising a phrase this way is called *layakari*. Below, the phrase is **Ghin Taang Ghin Taang**, left hand then right, with the hand marked under each stroke. Every row lasts the same four beats, and the hands go L R L R in all of them. Only the speed of the bounce changes. Phrase **Ghin Taang Ghin Taang**, over 4 beats: - Thah: 1 stroke to a beat - Dugun: 2 strokes to a beat - Chaugun: 4 strokes to a beat ### Try it 1. Press ▶ on **Thah**. Play along: left on Ghin, right on Taang, one stroke to each click. 2. Press ▶ on **Dugun**. The click has not changed. Two strokes now share it, one from each hand. 3. Press ▶ on **Chaugun**. Four strokes to a click, L R L R inside every beat. The hands never change order. They just get quicker. 4. Now play each row yourself, with the click and without the sound, saying the bols out loud. > The Rhythm room draws the same idea as notation: **dugun** is eighth notes and **chaugun** is sixteenth notes. See [Dividing the beat](/rhythm/dividing.html). ## Three to a beat Tigun fits three strokes into a beat. On a drum it does something two and four do not. Two and four are even, so every beat starts with the same hand. Three is odd, so the hand that starts the beat **changes** every time: left, right, left on the first beat, then right, left, right on the second. Phrase **Ghin Taang Ghin Taang**, over 4 beats: - Thah: 1 stroke to a beat - Tigun: 3 strokes to a beat ### Try it 1. Play **Thah** and play along: left on beat 1, right on beat 2, left on 3, right on 4. 2. Press ▶ on **Tigun** and watch the hand row. The first stroke of beat 2 is a right-hand Taang, not a Ghin. 3. Say it before you play it: Ghin-Taang-Ghin, Taang-Ghin-Taang. Then play it slowly, with the click. 4. Count it as “1-tri-pe-let, 2-tri-pe-let” while you play. The stress falls on the number, whichever hand is there. > The Rhythm room calls this a triplet. See [Threes](/rhythm/threes.html) for how it is written and counted. ## On the madal 1. **Bounce, do not lift.** Sound comes from relaxed fingers rebounding off the head (see [Basics](basics.html)). To go faster, let the finger rebound sooner. Do not lift it higher and do not hit harder. If your hand hurts, you are hitting too hard. 2. **Open strokes ring, closed ones stop.** Taang and Ghin are open and ring on. At speed the ring of one runs into the next. That is part of the sound, but if chaugun turns to mush, slow down before you change anything else. Taak and Kha are damped and stay clear. 3. **Leave Dha out at first.** Dha is two strokes at once, and the two hands have to land together. A flam is the commonest beginner mistake, and chaugun leaves no time to fix one. Learn the rows on single strokes, then add Dha at thah and dugun. 4. **Say the bols.** The tradition teaches by speaking them while you play. In chaugun your mouth is the check: if you cannot say it clearly at the speed you are playing, you are not playing it clearly. > The strokes are the five from [Basics](basics.html): Ghin and Kha on the left (pothi), Taang and Taak on the right (bhale), and Dha with both together. ## Laya and taal A taal is the cycle of beats. Laya is how fast you go round it. The same taal is played slowly for a song and fast for a dance, and on the madal the laya usually comes from the song or the dance, with the drum carrying it. The Khyali theka on [Beats](beats.html#nepali-taals) is already layakari. It reads *Ghin. Kha-Taang. Taak-Ghin. Ghin-Taang.*: one stroke on beat 1, then two strokes to each of the next three beats. It is thah for one beat and dugun for three. Whatever the taal, a speed only fits if the phrase divides the cycle. Four beats divide Khyali's four, but Dadra and Sangini have six counts, and a four-beat phrase will not come back to count 1 with them. A three-beat phrase will. ## Ten minutes 1. **2 min.** Ghin on every click with the left hand at 50, then 80, then 120 BPM, half a minute each. Say it. 2. **3 min.** Ghin Taang Ghin Taang at 60 BPM: thah four times, dugun four times, chaugun four times. 3. **3 min.** The same phrase in tigun, slowly, until the hand that starts each beat changes without a stumble. 4. **2 min.** The Khyali theka from [Beats](beats.html#nepali-taals), first at 60 BPM, then at a tempo you can play cleanly. Add 5 BPM only when three passes in a row are clean and relaxed. If a row falls apart, go back one tempo, not one row.