Guruvayur Dorai has carved a unique style for himself as a senior mridangist. Hailing from the Pudukottai school of mridangam, Dorai has been highly influenced by its soft, subtle, and highly rhythmic technique.

Dorai's embellishments during songs are quite simply exquisite. He has the capability of literally presenting the song on the mridangam. Every phrase and sangathi is matched by bold strokes on his mridangam. Due to his vast experience on the concert platform, Dorai's anticipation is uncannily superb.

Dorai's use of the thoppi is what is most striking and distinct: he is capable of playing seperate and continuous passages on the thoppi alone. He has a special "thoppi nadam," or tone to his bass side. Furthermore, Dorai collaborated with mridangam maestro T.K.Murthy several year back and created a novel type of gumki technique; it is elongated and similar to the tabla gumki. This is a technique that requires rigorous practice to master, but is highly pleasing and adds immensely to a mridangam performance.

The thani avarthanams (solos) of Dorai are highly structured and generally contain at least one nadai variation. His solos not only incoporate patterns he abosorbed from past masters but also his own novel ideas. His style is the perfect blend between the old and new traditions.