> Gosh....deja vu... i was subjected to the very same thing (I remember > watching some students who had been "learning" for 6 months...and they were > playing the same notes i was playing in every session until the 2nd month....) > My classes ended after I used a diwali firecracker to play a few notes > on the mridangam....
Watch a famous mridangam vidwan practicing if you can. You will find him playing those same 4 notes. Don't, ever, underestimate the importance of those. They're the building blocks for anything and everything you'll ever learn on the mridangam. ____________ wikipedia says - and quite rightly __________ Any beginner in the art learns four basic stokes (also known as "sollus"): Tha, Dhi, Thom, and Nam. These strokes are played with the fingers and palm of the hand. There is also a parallel set of rhythmic solfa passages (known as "solkattu") which is said by mouth to mimic the sounds of the mridangam. Students of this art are required to learn and vigorously practice both the fingering strokes and solfa passages to achieve proficiency and accuracy in this art. Many other strokes are also taught as the training becomes more advanced, which are generally used as aesthetic embellishments while playing. These notes include gumki (or gamakam), and chaapu. The combination of these finger strokes produces complex mathematical patterns that have both aesthetic and theoretical appeal. Complex calculations (kanakku) and metres (nadais) may be employed when the mridangam is played. ____________ There's also this much more scholarly study that compares the strokes in tablas and mridangams - http://www.chandrakantha.com/tablasite/articles/mridanga.htm srs
