The mridangam is a
barrel-shaped, double headed
Indian drum with a
jackwood body. Its complex, multilayered
leather heads can produce up to twenty different
sounds when struck in various ways with different parts of the
hand in different places. The mridangam is
not the two
tabla units stuck end to end. It has a documented
history stretching back at least two thousand years; one of the earliest mentions of it is found in in the
Natyashastra (
Treatise on
Drama), which was written between 200B.C. and 200A.D. The mridangam is used almost exclusively in
Carnatic music; this fact speaks volumes of its lineage, as this is the music of
South India, and by extension
Dravidian culture. The mridangam is the chief accompanying
percussion instrument in in Carnatic music; others include the
kanjira, the
ghatam, and the
morsing. The mridangam player signals to any other percussion instruments when to start, stop, what speed to play at, what sort of
pattern to play, and so on.
Stretched over both sides of the mridangam is a layer of goatskin. On the left side, which is not tuned to a specific pitch, there are two layers of buffalo hide stretched over this with the center cut out. The drummer, before a performance, makes a thick paste out of flour and presses it onto this head. There are two basic sounds that can be made from this head: one, a flat banging sound, and the other a rich booming bass. On the other side also is a goatskin base. Around the rim of this side is a layer of calfskin; over this is a layer of cowhide with a circle cut out of the center. Within this circle is a black spot made of boiled rice flour and fine iron slag. This side is musical and when hit in certain ways produces a tone and its fifth; consequently, this side must be tuned to the tonal center of the main artist.
Running the length of the drum are leather straps attached to the drumheads; they stretch out the skin over the head and keep it in place. Increasing or decreasing the tension in these straps changes the tuning of the mridangam, and so small cylindrical pieces of wood are placed under each strap that can be moved in various directions to change the center of tension. The other way to tune the mridangam (based on the same principle of changing the tension) is to hammer on the calfskin rim.
Famous mridangam players include: