I was always struck by just how difficult it can be to notate tabla or pakhavaj drumming. When I was first learning I did what most do: wrote down the drumming syllables in words, marking the coincidence of certain words with beats of the tal. The problem is that one syllable can be played in several different ways, and one stroke may be represented by several different syllables, all dependent on context (i.e., the context of the phrase in which it is set, the type of piece, and even the stylistic tradition).

For my Ph.D. dissertation (1985) I used a modified Western staff notation with two lines for left and right hands. Above, on, or below those lines I placed symbols for the strokes. An example is given below:

I found it cumbersome to produce, and many who did not read
Western notation per se found it difficult to read. For my book, therefore, I modified this further to make the words central to the notation, and used tabulation and spacing to infer rhythmic information. The right hand symbols were placed above the words and the left hand ones below. This is an example taken from The Tabla of Lucknow (1988: ):

I found it very easy to solve problems of fingering using these symbols. By simply placing a black circle above a bol "ta", for instance, I knew it was to be played on the sur (centre), not the kinar (rim). Still, I continued to look for ways to improve this (and probably always will).

As part of my ongoing research into pakhavaj I came across the Mrdang-Tabla Vadanpaddhati of Gurudev Patwardhan. The original, written in 1903, was beautifully notated so that not only the rhythm was clear (using the symbol system V.D. Paluskar created for his Sangit Balbodh of 1901-03) but each placement and fingering was also indicated by symbols. In my efforts to transliterate his material I needed to further modify my own symbols, and for analytical purposes I needed to ensure there was an accurate representation of the durations Gurudev notated. Rhythm and duration is taken care of both by the tabulation of elements plus Western durational symbols. I have written a book about the Mrdang-Tabla Vadanpaddhati, soon to be published, and below is a sample of a notation from it. It is a sath for the pakhavaj: a piece usually restricted to one cycle without a tihai, used in accompaniment. Twelve-count cautal is represented by a grid of 12 boxes, read left to right, line by line. In the recording, I play it at double the speed so that it fits twice into one cycle.

The symbols for the notation system for pakhavaj are given below:

The symbols for tabla notation involve more strokes and fingering options:

Below is an old tabla gat (nowadays this would generally be called a qaida) notated by Gurudev Patwardhan in 1903 and transliterated using my system: