Pakhavaj: India muscial instrument

The pakhavaj is also called mridang. The pakhavaj is an Indian barrel-shaped, two-headed musical drum. It is a version and descendant of the mridang.

The pakhavaj is the standard percussion musical instrument in the dhrupad style and the musical instrument is used as an accompaniment musical instrument for different forms of music and dance performances. The musical instrument has a low, mellow tone and the tone is very rich in harmonics. The player of the musical instrument set the instrument horizontally on a cushion in front of his crossed leg, the larger bass-skin is performed with the left hand by the player, and the treble skin is played by the right hand of the player. The bass face is smeared with wet wheat dough that functions as the kiran and is the reason behind the vivid, bass sound that is produced by the musical instrument.

The word pakhāvaja or pakhavāja originated from Prakri. An equivalent musical instrument is pakṣavādya. This musical instrument is often called pakhavaj and not pakshavadya. This name of the instrument is derived from the words paksa, which means and vādya, which means a musical instrument.

source of picture: geoffreymulder.com

As with the tabla the rhythm of the musical instrument are taught by a series of mnemonic syllable that is called ‘bol’. The playing style differs from that of the tabla in many ways: in the bass face, the player of the musical instrument hits with his entire palm instead of the fingertips of his hand that is done in the table. In the treble face, the player of the musical instrument hits his entire palm with the fingers adequately placed on the skin to manufacture various bols.

In the traditional style of the musical instrument, a student would learn a number of various strokes that manufacture a particular sound. These are practiced and remembered with conforming syllables.