It begins at a slow pace before scaling on to a medium tempo and eventually culminating in high, frenzied speed.
[citation needed] Thayambaka, like panchavadyam or most chenda melams, is primarily a temple art, but it is also performed outside shrines—like on proscenium stages, open fields or pageantry grounds.
[citation needed] Thayambaka, like any major percussion art in India, is largely a male domain, though of late it has a handful of women practitioners as well.
The Palakkad school revels in imagination and lays emphasis on an improvisation-filled Kooru besides a prolonged yet patterned irikida.
It is another matter that thayambaka manifests itself with subtle changes in patterns and overall aesthetics in all the places it has developed over the years—from northern Travancore to the erstwhile provinces of Kochi and Kozhikode.
The most prominent and famous among them being Tripunithura Nandini Varma, a young artist who received a prestigious award for the best upcoming talent at a recent event held at Kottakkal.