Dholak Lessons Online

Dholak is a barrel-shaped, two-headed Asian hand drum made of one piece of wood, usually sheesham wood (dalbergia sissoo), mango or hollowed coconut palm stems. Dholak may either have traditional cotton rope lacing with steel rings used for rope tuning and pegs twisted inside the laces or a modern screw turnbuckle tuning with nuts and bolts helping to produce the tension. Dholak weighs about 4 kilograms and is about 16 inches in length, it has a simple membrane on the smaller right-hand side for high pitch sound, the larger left-hand membrane has a special coating on the inner surface, a mixture of tar, clay and sand which helps to lower the pitch and fine tune, creating a well-defined tone. The Dholak drum is pitched, depending on size, with an interval of perhaps a perfect fourth or perfect fifth between the two drum heads. Dholak is related to the larger Punjabi drum Dhol which is played with sticks and the smaller hand played drum called Dholki.

Learn how to play Dholak : Two primary techniques of playing Dholak include the open hand method suitable for louder playing and the other being controlled fingering method for articulate performance. Dholak is either played placed on the player's lap or, while standing, slung from the player’s shoulder or from the waist or being pressed down with one knee while sitting on the floor. All or select fingers and hand are generally used to play a Dholak but in a few styles of playing Dholak an iron thumb ring is used. Dholak players are often adept at singing, chanting or storytelling as a primary entertainer or as a lead drummist for a dance troupe performance.