Instruments › Tampura
The tampura drone
The tampura is the four-stringed drone that anchors every Carnatic concert. It sounds a perfect fifth (Pa) and the tonic (Sa) at the octave. Pick your Sa and start the drone — it’ll keep ringing for as long as you let it.
Tampura drone
Sa = C4 (261.63 Hz)
Four-string tampura — Pa / Ṡa / Sa / Sa (octave below). The audio is server-rendered then looped seamlessly in your browser.
How to use
- Press Start to begin the drone. The audio loops seamlessly.
- Pick a different Sa (semitone-quantized, A2 to G4) to match your voice or instrument.
- Toggle Pa and Ma to adjust the drone’s harmonic content.
- The drone keeps playing when you navigate to other pages — useful for full concert practice.
The tampura in practice
A real tanpura’s strings graze the bridge (jawari), creating the characteristic jivari shimmer that helps singers find their pitch. The Karunattu drone emulates this with a rich harmonic series. For a deeper dive into the harmonics, see the calibration reports under Instruments.