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Tablas are hand drums that comes by pair which the 2 skins are (nearly) horizontally oriented with the hand moving from top to down, while mridangam/pakhawaj/dol/dolak are hand drums which the 2 skins are mounted on the opposite side of a single drum and are vertically oriented with the hand moving from left to right (or right to left):

enter image description here enter image description here

Both have a similar way of playing as compared to other hand drums around the world, however there is a 90° hand-rotation difference between the two.

Pakhawaj (vertical skin) are known to be the Tabla's (horizontal skin) ancestor. I am wondering which one is the most suitable ergonomically speaking for such percussive movements?

What are the consequences of these two configurations in the playing? Does one facilitate specific movements for which it would be more difficult/tiring with the other one?

The two extreme positions are pronation (hand palm facing down) and supination (hand palm facing up), then the vertical position seems to be the rest position. enter image description here. Then horizontal playing is a priori not the "natural position" for the human body because it requires a 90° rotation of the arm ("pronation"). Does it mean that tabla players have more health issues related to their playing than pakhawaj/mridangam players?

Noil
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  • Interesting. I don't have data, but I can *guess* that both playing postures can have "right" and "wrong" ways, and can make injury either likely or unlikely, probably mostly about tension vs relaxation, and things like wrist angle. I'm not sure "*Horizontal playing is a priori not the 'natural position' for the human body because it requires a 90° rotation of the wrist*" is a strongly defensible argument... – Andy Bonner May 09 '22 at 16:28
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    Your hands actually naturally rest at approx 45° so both require a fairly similar out of default tilt. This is mitigated in so much as your inward flex is only about another 90° whereas your outward is in the order of 130° [but this requires over-flex in the ulna/radius too.] I'm pretty sure most humans are flexible enough that neither will be significantly 'easier' than the other. Personally, the downside of any horizontal drum is that it moves across a bit every time you hit it. No matter how little this is, it does end up being something that distracts. – Tetsujin May 09 '22 at 17:54
  • Thanks for the comments. From what I understand (but I miss a good reference!), the two extreme positions are pronation (hand palm facing down) and supination (hand palm facing up), then the vertical position seems to be the rest position. I added a diagram from wikipedia to illustrate this in the question. @Tetsujin, would you have a reference to say that 45° is the default tilt? – Noil May 10 '22 at 10:14
  • I held my arms in front of me & relaxed;) The rest was a mere 60 years of idle observation, interspersed with actual drumming. The image you added almost seems to suggest that having the radius & ulna parallel is somehow 'better' or even equal than having them crossed. It isn't, it requires a lot more effort to maintain - this is why weight lifters use an 'EZ Bar' rather than straight bar for arm curls, to avoid that extra stretch, which can cause injury if using heavy weights. I still maintain there is no notable 'health' difference between horizontal & vertical. – Tetsujin May 10 '22 at 10:26
  • Additionally… If you hunt out really expensive 'healthy' computer mice, you'll find they are at 45° too. – Tetsujin May 10 '22 at 10:26
  • I'm interested if you have some good literature on this. About the computer mice or the EZ bar comparisons, I find them limited. A 90°-tilt computer mice would not meet the design expectations, which is to move over an horizontal table. At the contrary, I find that a 45° computer mice is a balance between the 90° hand ergonomy and the constraint of the table (0°). – Noil May 10 '22 at 11:32
  • For the EZ bar (45°), you could not have a 90° bar because it would be impossible to push the bar. As for the mice, I find it as a balance between the bar requirement (weight to move up against gravity) and a more confortable position. At the contrary, the drums does not have such constraints, you can beat the skin whatever the direction. – Noil May 10 '22 at 11:38
  • You're now just trying to find more & more convenient arguments to support a theory which is unlikely to have an answer - certainly not one you will find acceptable. Why not look instead into medical research on the two cases you present & see what has been discovered by non-musicians. I'm pretty certain anything anyone here says is going to be dismissed as 'not providing the answer you actually want'. You have already decided what you want to hear & are arguing anyone who says different. I'm done. Enjoy your research. – Tetsujin May 10 '22 at 11:50
  • I was just discussing your comment with you, which makes me think about the question. Thanks for this and sorry if I sounded narrow-minded. I'm totally opened to any answers. – Noil May 10 '22 at 12:11
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    A true answer to this *could* exist (is the one more ergonomically accommodating than the other), but the issue is broader. My understanding is the worst thing for the body is simply stasis. That is, the fact that drummers sit might be of greater threat than anything they're doing with their (moving) arms. That said, tabla and mridangam players that I've watched allow themselves plenty of relaxed full-body movement, and are probably being much healthier than I am now, sitting to type and moving only my fingers. Another point is that, in general, the evolution of instruments has a way of... – Andy Bonner May 10 '22 at 13:39
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    ... "self-selecting" away from ergonomically ruinous practices because, well, they don't work well. This isn't always true (someone leaning forward over a heavy electric guitar hung from their shoulders probably isn't doing their spine favors), but an instrumental practice that has been in place for centuries and that people sustain for hours at a time probably has its own ways of staying healthy. There may be an answer to whether one is *better*, physiologically, than the other, but if the question were "is either inherently injurious," the answer is probably "only if you're doing it wrong." – Andy Bonner May 10 '22 at 13:44

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If you're worried about injury, the issue that outweighs all questions of supination or pronation is the repeated percussion to the hands. Both the mridangam and the tabla are played with the palm and fingers. The palm transmits moderate force to the wrist and elbow, but finger strikes transmit a great deal of kinetic energy to the finger joints. Proper technique can alleviate this, but repeated finger strikes will, over a career, frequently cause arthritis in the fingers. I would suspect that the tabla would result in less injury to the fingers because of the technique, but I could be wrong about this. Repeated mouse-clicking in my career has resulted in arthritis in my index finger, and I think that mouse-clicking requires much less force than tabla strikes.

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