Melodies for Drums: Creativity and Emotion in South Asian Ṭhekā Drumming

Author(s): Lindsey, Michael | Advisor(s): Neuman, Dard | Abstract: This dissertation is a study of popular, folk, and devotional drumming in South Asia. In specific, my focus is on ṭhekās, drumming patterns played throughout the region as a form of rhythmic accompaniment for music. Referencing multi-site ethnographic fieldwork conducted among professional drummers in northern and western India, Afghanistan, and the San Francisco Bay area from 2014-2020, I work to demonstrate an alternative history of South Asian rhythm that positions the folk drumming practices of the region as an important influencer of later classical and popular rhythmic traditions. I do this through ethnography and musical analysis of ṭhekās across prominent folk music genres of the region, including Sufi qawwālī, Sindhi kāfī, Afghan maḥali (traditional), and Pashtun music. Previous scholarship on the rhythmic practices of South Asia have been singular in their perspectives, often focusing on a single instrument (the tabla), a single genre (predominantly classical) and single lineage and/or site/region. In my project I have sought to expand this conversation by providing a cross-regional and cross-genre analysis of rhythmic performance practices across numerous folk-devotional and instrument traditions. Through this more expansive and inclusive study of ṭhekā and drumming, my arguments speak directly to several key musicological debates regarding the rhythmic structures found in classical Hindustani rhythm. The arguments detailed in my musical analysis contest established histories of Hindustani (North Indian) rhythmic traditions, in particular the Hindustani tabla, a musical instrument whose history has been intimately linked to the musical history of ṭhekā.