First lesson: greeting and tuning your dholak
Your dholak is and will become a extension of your hands. Consider your dholak as something precious, something you hold dear and always remember to treat it as such.
Greeting
Greeting your dholak is the first step. You can say hello, Namaste or whatever you would like to say in a respectable way. Some people also use a mantra like “Aum Saraswati Namah”. It depends on what you choose to say. I usually say “Jai Saraswati Mata” as a greeting to Saraswati, the goddess of music.
Nevertheless, greet your dholak and respect it.
Different sides
The dholak has two sides, one with a black dot in the middle and one without. The side with the black dot, is the bam side. The black dot is a combination of tar and a lot of ingredients to give it a bass sound, often called masala in Surinam. The other side (without the dot) is the soer side.
Tuning your dholak
Tuning is a skill on its own, also it can make the difference between a good sound and a bad sound. Remember one rule: “your soer has to be the same sound everywhere.” Tuning is something you have to learn to do with your ears and hands.
If you’re playing dholak for a singer, ask in what scale he sings most of the songs. E.g. if the singer sings his majority of the songs in a C major scale, you can tune your soer into the note G5.
In general dholak players tune there dholak into the note G5, G#5 or A5. Because most singers sing in the scales A, B or C.
You can ask the harmonium player or a keyboard player to hold a not so you can tune your soer.
For the bam it’s kind of what sound you like as a dholak player. Some people like a deep sound and some a higher pitched sound. For learning purposes it is better to pull the rings/tight the bolts to a higher pitch. It is much easier to play and learn this way. *don’t overdo it*
If you’re a novice dholak player, I would advice you to play with a deep sound bam. It’s much harder to play if your bam is low pitch tuned, but it gives you a advance in controlling your bam. Also, your hands will become stronger!
Now you’re ready to play!