Good....as of now, U know about the Instruments being used in a concert and know something about Ragam. Now, the concept of Thalam comes to the picture. Thalam is nothing but "Beat". If U hear any good song automatically U start tapping your foot or clap your hand according to the rhythm, isn't it?

Take for example, the following Tamil film song "Auto Karen Auto Karen Naalum Therinja Routu Karen...". When U hear the song, U may automatically tap your fingers coinciding with the tune. Now count how many times U tap your finger when the first line finishes........ Obviously U might have ended with 8, Right?

In Carnatic Music, this 8 beat is called as a Cycle that consitutes one type of Thalam called "ADI".

There is also another type of Thalam that has only 3 beat which is called as "RUPAKAM". If 9 beats come in one line of a song, U can also make it by putting Rupakam thrice, Followed it? Just a simple mathematical calculation. These two are the common Thalams that come in a same rhythm or same interval of time.

There are also thalams that come in different intervals of time. Consider, for example a Thalam named "KANDA CHAPU" which follows 5 beat (KANDA means 5), with 2 different time intervals. "OneTwo OneTwoThree", "OneTwo OneTwoThree", "OneTwo OneTwoThree". (Here U have said 3 times, ok?) The first "OneTwo" falls in one time interval T1 and the next "OneTwoThree" falls in another interval of time T2. So altogether T = 2T1 + 3T2.

Also there is another type of Thalam called "MISRA CHAPU" which follows 7 beat (MISRA means 7), intervalling as "OneTwoThree OneTwo OneTwo", "OneTwoThree OneTwo OneTwo", "OneTwoThree OneTwo OneTwo" (Here U have said 3 times). The first "OneTwoThreee" falls in in one time interval T1 and the next "OneTwo OneTwo" falls in another interval of time T2. So altogether T = 3T1 + 4T2.

Normally these are the 4 Thalams commonly used in Carnatic world. Apart from these, there are so many Thalams. If I started saying about those things, U will not read this text further, I am sure, so I stop with this common type of Thalams. Now U know ADI, RUPAKAM, KANDACHAPU and MISRACHAPU thalams.