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The Drum and Its Friends
Close your eyes and think of bhangra. Chances are you hear a drum.
The dhol
The dhol is a large, double-headed barrel drum. One side is struck with a heavy curved stick and the other with a thinner, lighter one, which produces the contrast of deep and sharp sounds that gives bhangra its swing. It is played hanging from a strap around the player's neck, and it is loud. It was made to be heard across fields and across crowds.
Published accounts credit the dhol with giving bhangra its syncopated, lilting feel, and the drummer is not an accompanist to the dance but its engine. Dancers follow the dhol and the dhol follows the dancers. In a good circle you can see the conversation between them.
Because the sound is so recognisable, it has become a kind of shorthand. A dhol sample can make any track feel "Punjabi" in two seconds. That is useful to producers and a little dangerous for everybody else, because it reduces a rich tradition to a single sound effect.
The other voices
The dhol is the best-known instrument, but it is not alone. Common companions include:
- The tumbi: a one-stringed, high-pitched plucked instrument with a bright, twanging sound. It is strongly associated with Punjabi folk singing.
- The chimta: a pair of iron tongs with small metal discs attached, played by clacking and shaking. It is a rhythm instrument that gives a jangling texture.
- The algoza: a double flute, played in some folk traditions.
- Clapping, voices and boliyan: the human sounds. A great deal of Punjabi folk music is the singing itself, with the instruments around it.
In modern recordings you will also hear keyboards, drum machines, electric guitars and synthesisers. Nothing is wrong with that. Bhangra as a music has always combined the old and the new. But it helps to know which sounds belong to the village and which to the studio.
Why it matters to a class
If you teach to Punjabi music, you already know that the beat does the teaching. A good instructor learns to hear the dhol pattern, count it, and cue the class from it. Learning even a few terms for the rhythms, from a real dhol player rather than from a video, will improve your classes more than any new choreography.
If you can, invite one into your world. Book a dhol player for a special session. Pay them properly. Let your class see how the sound is made. It changes how people hear the music from then on.
A word about samples
When a producer lifts a dhol loop and builds a track around it, the result may sound wonderful and may also be disrespectful. The question to ask is whether the people the sound comes from are being credited and paid. The same question applies to your playlists. We return to it in the chapter on who gets to teach.