Beyond the 35 talas

○ Confidence: low (needs checking)

The 35 suladi talas and the chapu talas cover what you will mostly hear, but the tala system is described in larger ways too. This page gives the overview and says plainly what this site has and has not been able to check.

175 possible talas

The 35 talas are 7 families times 5 jatis. Each beat can also be divided in 5 ways (the nadai or gati: 3, 4, 5, 7 or 9 parts). Wikipedia's article on the mridangam says that combining the talas, jatis and gatis gives 175 possible talas, which is 35 times 5.

A worked example from Online Bharatanatyam: chatusra-gati khanda-jati Rupaka has 7 aksharas, each 4 parts (matras) long, so one cycle is 4 x 7 = 28 parts. In misra gati the same tala has 7 x 7 = 49 parts.

The tala generator shows this arithmetic for any family and jati.

Six angas, not three

The 35 talas use only laghu, drutam and anudrutam. Wikipedia lists six main angas:

Only the first three are used in the 35 talas on this site. Wikipedia's wording on guru, plutam and kakapadam is its own and its Carnatic section carries a "needs more citations" banner, so treat these hand actions as a description to check with a teacher.

108 talas, and other systems

Wikipedia lists several classification systems used in Carnatic music: the chapu talas, a system of 108 talas, a system of 72 "melakarta" talas, and the 35-tala suladi scheme. It adds that for the 108 and 72 talas the jati is mostly chatusra.

Talas you may meet by name

• Adi tala is chatusra-jati Triputa, by far the most used.
• Rupakam, Ata, Jhampa and the others are among the 35: see the table.
• The chapu talas are counted in groups, and sources differ on how.
• Desadi and Madhyadi appear as the tala of many songs listed on karnatik.com. The sources checked do not explain them, so they have no page here yet.