The thavil or tavil is a barrel shaped drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

 from South India

South India

South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...

. It is used in temple, folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 and Carnatic music

Carnatic music

Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...

, often accompanying the nadaswaram

Nadaswaram

The nadaswaram, also spelt nadhaswaram, and also called nagaswaram , is one of the most popular classical musical instruments in the South Indian culture and the world's loudest non-brass acoustic instrument...

. The thavil and the nadaswaram are essential ingredients of traditional festivals and ceremonies in South India.

The thavil consists of a cylindrical shell hollowed out of a solid block of jackfruit

Jackfruit

The jackfruit is a species of tree in the Artocarpus genus of the mulberry family . It is native to parts of Southern and Southeast Asia. It is the national fruit of Bangladesh, . The jackfruit tree is believed to be indigenous to the southwestern rain forests of India...

 wood. Layers of animal skin (water buffalo on the right, goat on the left) are stretched across the two sides of the shell using hemp

Hemp

Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...

 hoops attached to the shell. The right face of the instrument has a larger diameter than the left side, and the right drum head is stretched very tightly, while the left drum head is kept loose to allow pitch bending. The larger face is higher in pitch than the smaller face. The larger face projects this size because the rim is wide.

The instrument is either played while sitting, or hung by a cloth strap (called nadai) from the shoulder of the player. The right head is played with the right hand, wrist and fingers. The player usually wears thumb caps on all the fingers of the right hand, made of hardened glue from maida flour

Maida flour

Maida is a finely milled and refined flour of wheat, closely resembling cake flour, and used extensively in making Indian fast food and Indian bakery products such as pastries and breadand sometimes in making traditional Indian breads such as paratha and naan. It is made from the endosperm of the...

. The left head is played with a short, thick stick made from the wood of the portia tree

Portia tree

Thespesia populnea, commonly known as the Portia Tree , is species of flowering plant in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It is a small tree or arborescent shrub that has a pantropical distribution, found on coasts around the world. However, the Portia Tree is probably native only to the Old World,...

. It is not uncommon for left-handed players to use the opposite hands, and some nadaswaram groups feature both a right- and a left-handed thavil player.

In folk music contexts, a pair of wider, slimmer sticks is sometimes used. Thanjavur is famous for thavil, so called Thanjavur Thavil. In kollywood

Kollywood

Kollywood is a word referring two different movie industries in India and Nepal, derived from the word Hollywood and their local movie centers.* Tamil cinema, the Tamil language film industry based on Kodambakkam, Chennai, Tamil Nadu,...

 Filmi

Filmi

Filmi is Indian popular music as written and performed for Indian cinema. Music directors make up the main body of composers; the songs are performed by playback singers and it makes up 72% of the music sales in India....

 songs thavils are mostly used, Notable movies: "Thillana mohanambal", "Paruthiveeran

Paruthiveeran

Paruthiveeran is a 2007 Indian Tamil film written and directed by Ameer Sultan. The film stars Karthi in his feature film debut as the titular character, with Priyamani as the female lead and Ponvannan, Saravanan and Ganja Karuppu and Sujatha essaying supporting roles...

", "Karagattakaran

Karagattakaran

Karagattakaran was a 1989 Tamil movie directed by Gangai Amaran and produced by Karumari Kandasamy and J. Durai. It is considered to be one of the most successful Tamil films ever. The cast included Ramarajan, Goundamani, Senthil, Kanaka, Junior Balaiya, Kanthimathi and Kovai...

".

Strokes

• Ta: Sharp sound played with either the capped index finger or the capped middle-ring-small fingers unit on the border of the larger face.
• Di: Similar as the previous, but played near the center of the larger face.
• Tak: Sharp sound played with the stick on the opposite face, that is the side of the fingers.
• Tom: Bass open sound played with the stick on the smaller face.
• Nam: Bass closed sound played with the fist of the stick hand on the smaller face.

Thavilists

Some master thavil players:

Valangaiman A. Shanmugasundaram Pillai ; Valayapatti A.R. Subramaniam ; Haridwaramangalam A. K. Palanivel ; Thedchanamoorthy ; Needamangalam Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai ;Bhusurapalli Adiseshaiah ; Iluppur Panchami ; Kumbakonam Thangavel Pillai ; Natchiarkoil Raghava Pillai ; Needamangalam Shanmugavadivel ; Valangaiman Shanmugasundaram Pillai.