90 BPM
Drums
Bass
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4/4
Drag rhythmic values into up to 4 beat blocks per line to build a drum groove, or click a tile then click a block to place it — handy on a trackpad.
Teentaal is the most common taal (rhythmic cycle) in Hindustani (North Indian) classical music: 16 beats (matras) split into four groups of four, with the third group traditionally played softer as the "khali" (empty) section — the same alternation of strong and soft heard here. This pattern maps the tabla's own vocabulary of spoken syllables (bols) onto the kit: "Dha," a full bass-and-treble stroke, becomes the kick; the ringing "Dhin" becomes a tom; the closed "Tin"/"Ta" of the khali section becomes a quieter closed hi-hat.
Slot A is the core groove; switch to B, C, and D above for variations on it — a genuine stylistic twist, a busier or sparser take, and a fill or break, the same way a real performance of this rhythm would vary it. Press play to hear it, slow the tempo down to study it, or drag the beat blocks apart to see exactly how it's built.
It is free and needs no login. Nothing you change here is saved, so use it as a reference or as the starting point for a beat of your own — then open the RockBlocks drum machine to build from scratch.