Making of Tanpura with All Its Components, Tuning and Playing

Abstract

Tanpura or Tambura is perhaps, the only musical instrument that creates the ambiance in almost every Indian musical concert. The musical world is amazed by its simplicity and at the same time inquisitive about, how just within a few finger touches on Tanpura generates simple buzzing sound that conveys its Indiananess. From early days to contemporary, there were some modification occurred in the procedure of Tanpura making. Gradually, some centres of Tanpura making became prominent and renowned. In this chapter we have discussed about the rudimental and structural parts of Tanpura. From this chapter one can get a clear and in depth picture of Tanpura with nomenclatures. The chapter contains the detail construction of tanpura with its different parts. It also mentions about their measurements, shape and size. Different steps of tanpura making covers the plantation of gourd and its processing, seasoning of wood and the fitting of different parts including the decoration and polishing. Even the process of preparation of the glue for pasting the different parts of tanpura is discussed. The chapter also covers the process of tuning of the instrument and a brief discussion about the musical instrument industry in India. All these have been discussed with proper illustrations in this chapter.