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I have heard few stalwarts in Harikatha putting a thalam which will never coincide with samam. The samam is indicated mischievously and mrudangam Vidwan will cautiously follow and play very carefully. It is known as "Suci ". Interested to know more about this from our hubbers.
Interesting question: I hadn't heard of such a thing.
It does seem to me that different performers have different attitudes to putting thalam. Some will do so crisply, accurately and with clean expression, ie not loosing which finger is being counted in a general wave of the hand. The beat will always be when the hand lands on the thigh. These people are easy to follow.
Some produce all the gestures, but the beat is not where hand meets leg. I can only assume that they use the hand as a way of keeping count of, rather than indicating the beat.
Others just wave the hand around, occasionally producing something that might be a clap, a wave, or a finger count.
As a student playing with students I quickly learnt that some people just do not put talam accurately, and they are very hard to follow, as an effort has to be made to ignore their hand gestures.
But, to a mridangist, all this is of no consequence. The tala, as you put it, the laya gnanam, is in their head (or in whatever part of their body this magical (to me...) ability to keep absolute time lives). And those of us that can't do this will never be more than interested students...
Actually speaking USI is a nadai which is common in Marati-Abhang,
and its very famous in Bajanai Sambradayams.
Usi nadai follows the belowSketch, and It always sits on Adi talam you can be sure that it will come only aadi Talam or chatusra Ekam, as far as i know.
The below Solkattu Explains a Simple USI Nadai and Talam should follow the same pattern..
2 4 (Two claps one with 2 karvai and another with 4)
2 2 4 (3 Claps 2 with 2 karvai and 1 with 4 karvai)
2 2 4 (3 Claps 2 with 2 karvai and 1 with 4 karvai)
4 3 3 (3 Claps 1 with 4 karvai and 2 with 3 karvai) --- Samam
6 + 8 + 8 + 10 = 32
Or the simple method is to play 8 Beats after 2 Mathrais from samam)
..
8
8
8
3 3
2 + 24 + 6 = 32
Regards
Sriram J. Iyer
An excellent, educative and illustrative description. Thanx for the correction [ USI ]
sasibaloo