Mridangam

The mridangam is a percussion instrument from South India. It is the primary rhythmic accompaniment in a Carnatic music ensemble.

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The mridangam is a double-sided drum whose body is made using a hollowed piece of jackfruit wood about an inch thick. The two mouths or ends of the drum are covered with a goat skin leather and laced to each other around the circumference of drum. The two apertures are dissimilar in widths. The smaller aperture, when struck, produces higher pitched sounds. The wider aperture produces lower pitched sounds. The leather skin covering the high pitch aperture, is anointed in the center with a black disk made of flour, ferric oxid powder and starch. This enables the emission of harmonics. The leather covering the bass aperture is coated in its middle with plain flour paste to give it a perfect tune.

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The mridangam is played resting it parallel to the floor. The musician sits cross-legged with the left foot below and the right foot over and slightly extended. The mridangam rests upon the right foot and ankle. The head with the smaller aperture is to the right.

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Percussion instrument: Percussion instruments are music instruments played by being struck, shaken, rubbed or scraped, hence the "percussive" name. They are perhaps the oldest form of musical instruments, rivaled only by vocal. Percussion instruments play not only rhythm, but also melody and harmony, and percussion could...

South India: South India is a geographic and linguistic-cultural region of India. Geographically, South India traditionally includes the entire Indian Peninsula south of the Satpura and Vindhya ranges and Narmada River, encompassing the Deccan plateau (from the Sanskrit word dakshina, meaning south), the Eastern...

Carnatic music: Carnatic music or Karnatak music (Sanskrit कर्णाटक सङ्गीतं, Telugu కర్నాటక సంగీతం) is the classical music of South India, as opposed to th...