Track 19 from Saydisc "Percussion Around the World" - notes from Maureen Hanke.

'Rag Megh' is an example of North Indian music featuring the tabla. Tabla are an asymetrical pair of small tuned hand played drums. The smaller treble drum is placed on the right of the two drums and the bass drum is placed on the left.
Listening to traditional performances of North Indian classical music, the tabla mainly keep time in cycles of steady beats and creates increasing elaborate rhythmic patterns around time.

Three main elements of Indian music can be identified in this piece. The drone ( a repeated sound throughout), the tune and the rhythm. The rhythm is played on the tabla, the only skin instrument in the piece. The tune is based on a rag or group of notes and treated with very strict musical rules to create an improvisation that evokes a particular mood. The first part of the improvised melody is without the tabla. The extract starts just before the tabla join in and fades before the piece is completed.