The tani avartanam is the percussion solo of a Carnatic concert. It usually comes once, inside the main piece, and at first it can sound like an unbroken stream of strokes. It moves through recognizable stages, and knowing them makes it much easier to follow.
Where it comes
In the main composition, usually after the singer and violinist reach the end of their kalpanaswaras, the percussionists take over. The melody stops, but the tala and tempo of the piece continue. The length varies. The mridangam artist Trichy Sankaran, in a 2021 interview with The Hindu, suggested no more than ten minutes in a two-hour concert, and argued that the tani is the right place for a percussionist’s virtuosity.
Who plays
The mridangam is nearly always there. It may be joined by one or more of the ghatam, a clay pot; the kanjira, a small frame drum; and the morsing, a jaw harp. These are known as upa-pakkavadyam, secondary percussion, and they follow the mridangam artist’s lead. At AFA’s Legends in Concert in September 2024, Trichy Sankaran’s mridangam was paired with K. V. Gopalakrishnan’s kanjira.
The shape of the solo
The mridangam usually begins, setting out a rhythmic idea, developing it, and sometimes shifting the subdivision of the beat. A section typically closes with a korvai, a structured closing pattern, often ending with a phrase repeated three times, that lands exactly on a set point in the cycle. The second instrument then takes its own turn, and any others follow.
Next comes the koraippu, in which the players trade phrases that grow shorter each time, often from a full cycle to half and then a quarter, sometimes shorter still. A 2023 study of the tani by Gowriprasad R and colleagues calls this a rhythmic descent. Faster passages build momentum, a mohra signals that the end is near, and all the players join for a final korvai.
Back to the song
When the solo ends, the voice and violin rejoin the percussion to finish the composition.
Listen for the repeated phrase that ends each korvai, and notice how quickly the phrases shrink during the koraippu. For when audiences respond during the solo, see When Do You Applaud? For counting the cycle underneath, see Tala: Hearing Time in Cycles.
For more ways into a performance, see Start Listening.
