Brilliant descriptions of what a Tambura is and does

[Rsachi]

My erudite and reclusive musicologist friend referred me to this delightful piece of writing, reading which gave me as much pleasure as my afternoon coffee

http://www.warrensenders.com/journal/?p ... ent-174340
some quotes which are priceless for me:

“All the sounds we hear are imperfect. For a sound to be totally free of onset distortion, it would have to have been initiated before our lifetime. If it were also continued after our death so that we knew no interruption in it, then we could comprehend it as being perfect. But a sound initiated before our birth, continued unabated and unchanging throughout our lifetime and extended beyond our death, would be perceived by us as — silence.”

the tamboura is in a way an instrument (perhaps the only such in world music) whose mandate is the creation and sustenance of a special kind of silence. Silence is essential for listening and concentration, and thus for memory, and the social function of the tamboura is to enforce the first two elements, thereby triggering the third for performer and listener alike...There is another aspect of the tamboura’s sonority that repays attention: a commonly recognized phenomenon known as the “phantom fundamental”...The absence of initial attack in the tamboura’s string-plucks renders its sound as close as we can get in the corporeal world to the ideal of anahata nada, the ‘unstruck sound’ so often cited as something to be heard “only by yogis and mystics”

[kvchellappa]

Nice to read, difficult to understand.

[Nick H]

I met Warren in London, maybe 15 years ago, and spent an afternoon hearing about his journey in Hindustani music.

By the way, apparently (I'm told by people who understand these things)... the phantom fundamental is resposible for us feeling that the we can hear notes far too low for devices such pocket radios to actually play.

A very interesting article. What a pity that the tambura has become (except perhaps for the artist into whose ear it is payed) little more than decoration on the carnatic stage. Instead of putting energy and money into iphones, tablets and speakers, it could be put into properly micing the thing itself.

[Rsachi]

You know Nick, I want to start a "Tambura listening and playing session" with like-minded and resourceful people. Just sit in a quiet ambience, soak up the tambura sound. Far better than hookah parties and booze sit downs.

[Nick H]

I think I discovered the tambura before I discovered Indian music. There was one in the corner of a friend's room. She had been to India, and learned some music. I put my head against it and plucked a string, and could immediately understand why she used it for meditation. Amazing!

[music1]

It is said that Sri Mali used to lock himself in his room and strum the Tampura or the Sruti box and get mesmerized to its serene sound at the expense of cancelling his concerts

It is not surprising after reading this !

[sanjaysubfan]

Sanjay sir is one artiste who regularly uses only a manual tambura without any electronic additions on stage.

[Rsachi]

is that so? shame I didn't notice it before. Hats off to Sanjay!

[vasanthakokilam]

Uday has talked about how subtle tuning changes on the tampura changes the overall tonality of the sound along the lines Warren talks about. While I relate to the descriptions of the tambura on its sound and musical aspects, and the underlying physics, I can only relate to the rest of the superlatives as a poetic ways of exclaiming how good the sound is ( like comparing it to the anahata ). But I will take it, it is quite inspiring to read Warren's sheer enthusiasm for Tambura.

The missing fundamental phenomenon is real enough that there are devices that take advantage of it. If I recall correctly, there are Laptops that use that technique to create better bass sounds.

[cacm]

Uday has talked about how subtle tuning changes on the tampura changes the overall tonality of the sound along the lines Warren talks about. While I relate to the descriptions of the tambura on its sound and musical aspects, and the underlying physics, I can only relate to the rest of the superlatives as a poetic ways of exclaiming how good the sound is ( like comparing it to the anahata ). But I will take it, it is quite inspiring to read Warren's sheer enthusiasm for Tambura.
The missing fundamental phenomenon is real enough that there are devices that take advantage of it. If I recall correctly, there are Laptops that use that technique to create better bass sounds.

I am searching for just the Thmbura Sound recording of M.S.S., MMI, KVN TO ANALYZE IT. ESP AT HOME, BEFORE CONCERT, WHEN IT WAS TUNED FOR MMI BY VEMBU IYER. In my mind there is NO DOUBT THAT THE SOUND WAS TRULY MESMERIZING. RAVI SHANKAR using the sympathetic strings had similar effects. I was NOT SCIENTIFICALLY MATURE ENOUGH AT THAT TIME! All the spectral & power spectrum analysis was done on poor "OTTAI" Recordings! WITH PMI, PSP, & V.R. I unfortuanately concentrated on timing! STILL LEARNING...
I can relate to Warren's exstacy! ESP when mmi &kvn tuned Thanmbura (with pmi,psp, v.r., c.s.muruga bhoopathy & msg ONE COULD SENSE& FEEL PERFECTION WHICH I am unable to define scientifically. My only theory is it has to do with RERSONANCES. In Physics CHEW'S WORK AS WELl AS WORK ON STRING THEORY DOES SUPPORT this SOMEWHAT.... VKV

[arunk]

I don't know if this is the same as phantom fundamental being talked about, but natural sounds and sounds from instruments obviously have the fundamental pitch + many many harmonics. The harmonics are spaced in frequency spectrum by an amount equal to the fundamental and this is what is used by our auditory system to perceive the pitch. This enables it to sense the fundamental pitch even if that exact frequency component is missing in the sound signal.

So say a natural sound has a pitch of 100Hz. This usually means it is made of components at frequencies 100, 200, 300, .......... on wards. Now if you filter out say all frequencies below 1000Hz, then you have 1000, 1100, 1200 etc. left out (well ideally you cannot cut of like that but for practically have this). Our auditory system will still perceive the pitch as 100Hz even though that component is completely missing (missing fundamental). If you plot the frequency spectrum, you will see "peaks" in the graph at 1000, 1100, 1200 etc. - i.e. spaced 100Hz apart - and that spacing is what we perceive as pitch.

There is also the case of sub-harmonics, where we supposedly can perceive components *lower* than fundamental. I am not clear on how that works.

Arun

[cacm]

In terms of PHYSICS the easiest way to think of it is in terms of STANDING WAVES; Say the sub-harmonic-These are all produced (& acc.to latest EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS ALMOST 5-25000 HZ (CYCLES)- A sub harmonic can travel the room twice & be in phase FROM ONE WALL TO THE OTHER)etc & can be heard by the human ear as it is within the range. As a matter of fact the great success of LASER AMPILIFICATION can be looked upon as HIGHLY SELECTIVE AMPLIFCATION OF ONE FREQUENCY ETC. VKV

[thenpaanan]

Just a quick observation that our ear is a psycho-acoustic listening device (not just an acoustic device) meaning that it is capable of perceiving tones that are not actually there in the signal. That is the brain filling in what it expects to be there but isn't. It is fairly well-known that it is easier for the ear to detect a note that has been added to a background than a note that is deleted because of this phenomenon. Besides, there are more ways to hear than the ear. Because sound is nothing more than vibration (longitudinal waves) our body can perceive "sound" beyond what the ear can, which adds to the experience of a closely-held tanpura. Indeed, I learned how to better tune a tanpura from Warren.

-Thenpaanan

[Rsachi]

Thank you for your comments, Thenappan!