in indian classical music, rhythm is organized into taal or taala-- this is the name. you'll pt this is the name. taala is a rhythmic cycle. in other words, if you think of-- if you visualize or think of a rhythm in the west, you may think of a time signature and some bars. but for indian music, you must envision a circle. it's a cycle or a circle. we start at one part and we go around, and we always come back to that same part. the very first beat of the cycle is called the sum, and it's the most important beat. when we improvise, we start from the sum and we go out in our improvisation, and come back to the sum. [ensemble playing a taal] (man) when i go on my individual rounds of improvisation, i have to keep count, and land back in an interesting manner so that that particular note on my main theme lands back on the first beat of the cycle. if it does not, that is a very disreputable state of affairs. [music continues] the basic beat is called the theka in any taal. teentaal theka-- it has 16 beats. [counting the beats] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,