Module 5: Tala fundamentals · Lesson 4

Chapu and other talas

◐ Confidence: medium Last verified: 12 Oct 2026

Talas outside the seven

The 35 talas of the previous lesson are one family. Carnatic music also uses talas that are counted in a different way. The best known are the chapu talas .

Chapu talas

A chapu tala is counted as a simple pulse grouped into short sections (clapping or tapping the pulses of each group), rather than with the laghu, drutam and anudrutam units. They tend to have a lilting, walking feel. Two independent sources, karnatik.com and a CBSE exam answer key, give the same groupings, shown as units in each group:

• Tisra chapu: 1 + 2 (3 units);
• Khanda chapu: 2 + 3 (5 units);
• Misra chapu: 3 + 4 (7 units);
• Sankirna chapu: 4 + 5 (9 units).

The CBSE key also lists a fifth, Viloma chapu, as 4 + 3 (7 units), and the NIOS Carnatic music book says Syama Sastri introduced that viloma pattern. Karnatik.com adds that “the chapu is a beat and a wave”.

Other talas

The theory describes many more talas than anyone uses. Besides the 35 and the chapu talas there are further talas that appear in particular pieces or in older treatises. The tala module treats them at overview level. What to remember:

• Most pieces you will hear are in a small handful of talas, with Adi tala far ahead of the rest.
• A tala has a name, a size, and a structure you can look up; there is no need to memorise them all.
• Whatever the tala, the principles are the same: a cycle, a first beat, and sections.

A word on hand actions

Chapu talas use their own way of showing the beats with the hands. This site only gives hand actions where the sources agree, and the description will be on each tala’s page.