A term for long-necked plucked drone lutes of South Asia, found in both art and traditional musics. Although the name and basic construction of these instruments indicate a Middle Eastern origin, their development and use as drones are characteristic of South Asia.
Drone lutes of local traditions, such as the tambūrī of Karnataka and the tambūrā of Andhra, not only provide a drone (with tonics and 5ths predominating) but also, being plucked in a regular ostinato pattern, give a rhythmic accompaniment. The Andhra and Karnataka instruments are of similar construction, though the former (about 97 cm long) is larger than the latter (about 84 cm). Both are entirely of wood, and their structure indicates an influence from the long-necked rabāb (as does that of the southern vīnā). The hemispherical wooden bowl and straight heavy neck are sometimes of one piece of wood, but are more often joined; the bowl is covered by a wooden soundtable and the neck with a fingerboard. The neck terminates in a heavy, open pegbox, with two pegs on each side, surmounted by varying large animal shapes which, though here of Hindu mythological significance (the divine bird garuda, the hood of the cosmic serpent śesa, or a dragon, yāli), recall those of the rabāb. The four metal strings, often tuned, like the classical tambūrā, to a 5th, two upper tonics and a lower tonic (the first three of steel, the last of brass), pass over a low nut and a deep bridge (of uncommon type, with upper and lower downward-sloping areas divided by a notched upright blade, the lower area being deeper). They are secured at the bottom through holes in a projecting inferior wooden string holder.
The tambūrā of the northern and southern art musics, though differing from each other in detail, relate more closely than the above to the tanbūr family of long-necked lutes widespread in West, Central and South Asia: both have joined resonator and neck, and no pegbox, the pegs being simply inserted frontally and laterally in the top of the neck. The northern or Hindustani tambūr is closely related in body structure to the sitār. Its resonator or ‘shell’ (khol) is also made of three pieces: a two-thirds segment of gourd joined to a heavy wooden shoulder-piece, both covered by a wooden soundtable (the latter is more markedly convex than on the sitār). This shows a connection with the carvel-built shoulder-and-ribs construction of the Central Asian and Mughal long lutes. The neck is more massive than that of the sitār, and is square-sectioned, but with rounded sides. Tambūrā come in many sizes, chosen by singers to suit their voice-range: those used by male singers are often over 130 cm long, with a gourd diameter of almost 40 cm (even larger ones can be found today, their gourds imported from Zanzibar); those used by female singers are smaller. A famous centre of production is Miraj, in southern Maharashtra.
The vocal tambūrā has four strings, tuned traditionally to an open chord of dominant or subdominant (according to rāga), two upper tonics and a lower tonic; today, there is increasing use of the leading-note in place of the dominant. The first three strings are of steel and the last is of copper, phosphor bronze or brass. Models with five, six or more strings, however, are not infrequent nowadays, with many tunings varying with the rāga to be sung. The four-string tambūrā has two frontal pegs and one at each side of the top of the neck. From here the strings pass through holes in an upright bone or ivory blade, the string-guider, set in the neck, and are directed over notches in a second blade, the nut. A deep bench-shaped bridge is set in the centre of the table; it is similar to that of the sitār and consists of an antler or bone plate filed in a parabola (the slope being more gradual on the upper side) and glued over a wooden trestle. This is called javārī (probably from the Hindi javār: ‘flood-tide’), indicating the full and long-lasting tone this device allows. An extra feature here, however, are the silk threads (jīva: ‘life’) inserted under the strings at the nodes before playing. These further increase the resonance, give a rich harmonic spectrum, and also reduce the sound of attack as the strings are plucked (or rather brushed) by the ball of the second and first fingers to give a repeated spread chord which, though in regular rhythm (often with a one-beat rest, e.g. the four strings to a count of five, which accelerates along with the music), does not provide a stress or metrical accompaniment as do the traditional drone lutes. Before being secured to an inferior string holder, each string passes through a fine-tuning bead lying on the table below the bridge.
The southern classical tambūrā or tambūrī (tampūrī in Tamil orthography) is similar in principle. The proportions, however, especially of the neck, are here more slender, and the bowl of the resonator is carved from a single piece of jakwood. The latter, like the southern vīnā, has incised on its back an ornamental vestige of the original rib-and-shoulder caivel-building. The wooden soundtable is flat. Tambūrā of the Thanjavur style have the unique feature of a sliding nut which can be adjusted to different notes.
The tambūrā is held vertically, resting on the shoulder, or horizontally on the floor, either by the singer or his assistants; sometimes two are used together. The use of small tambūrā, alone or with a large one, to accompany instrumental music appears to be a 20th-century development. Recent innovations are the various electronic or bellows-pumped substitutes such as the Śruti-box. The free-reed, bellows-pumped reed organ may, to some extent, provide a drone for vocal music, but its function is primarily textural.
N.A. Willard: Treatise on the Music of Hindustan [1834]; repr. in Tagore: Hindu Music from Various Authors (Calcutta, 1875, 2/1882/R)
S.M. Tagore: Yantra-koś (Calcutta, 1875/R) [in Bengali]
C.R. Day: The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan (Delhi, 1891/R)
K.S. Kothari: Indian Folk Musical Instruments (New Delhi, 1968)
B.C. Deva: Musical Instruments of India (Calcutta, 1978, 2/1987)
ALASTAIR DICK