Tanpura, Surpeti or Electronic: Choosing a Drone

Lessons begin in a great many families this month, and the instrument itself is usually chosen with some care. The drone that goes with it is an afterthought, bought in a hurry a fortnight later when the teacher asks why the student has been practising against nothing.

A vocal student needs a reference pitch from the first week. So does anyone learning sitar, sarod or bansuri. There are three ways to get one, they cost very different amounts, and they are not interchangeable. What follows is what we would say across the counter.

Three ways to get a drone

An electronic tanpura

A box with a speaker, a pitch control and a tempo control. It holds its pitch exactly, it weighs well under a kilogram, it runs for hours and it does not care about the weather. For daily riyaz in a hostel room, for a teacher moving between students, or for a family not yet certain the lessons will stick, it is the sensible purchase. We keep the Raagini and the Sangat, which also carries a tabla part, among the electronic tanpuras.

What it will not do is blend. A real tanpura puts out a shifting cloud of overtones that a singer tunes into and leans against. The electronic version reproduces that cloud very convincingly, and reproduces the same one every time.

A surpeti, or shruti box

A bellows-driven reed box from the same family as the harmonium, giving one continuous drone that does not stop to be plucked. It is steadier than a tanpura, needs no tuning from one day to the next, and carries well in a room with several people in it. For kirtan, for teaching, and for anyone who wants the drone simply to be there, it is usually the right answer.

The surpetis run from small to large, in two and three octave ranges. Most are tuned to A440. We also keep instruments tuned to A432, which some players prefer; the harmonium FAQs set out what that difference actually amounts to.

A tanpura

Four strings over a gourd, plucked in slow rotation, one after another, for as long as the practice lasts. Nothing else does what it does and nothing else asks as much of you. It is large, it is fragile, it wants tuning before every session, and when it loses its shimmer it wants the thread reset rather than the pegs turned.

If the student is serious, and particularly if the student is a vocalist, this is the instrument to aim at. It is also the one most worth delaying until the lessons have taken hold.

Male, female or instrumental

The size is the pitch

These are not sizes for different-sized people, which is the commonest misunderstanding we hear on the phone. They are different pitches, and the pitch comes from the length of the string.

A male tanpura is the largest, with an open string of roughly a metre, and a Miraj instrument can stand between three and five feet overall. Sa commonly sits around D or C sharp, and lower still for a deep voice.

A female tanpura is about three-quarters of that, and is commonly pitched a fifth higher, with sa around F or A.

Those are conventions and not rules. What matters is that the instrument matches the sa the student actually sings. So the first step is not to choose a size at all: it is to ask the teacher what sa the student has been put on, and to tell us the answer.

Instrumental tanpuras

Smaller again and pitched higher, meant to sit under a sitar or a sarod rather than under a voice. They are often strung with five strings rather than four. If the drone is for an instrumentalist rather than a singer, say so when you ask, because a female tanpura is not a substitute for one.

Gourd, flatback or folding

A Miraj tanpura is built on a dried bottle gourd, with a neck of tun or teak and a bridge usually cut from bone. That is the sound most players have in their heads when they say tanpura. Kolkata builds them too, in its own manner, and our guide to makers covers what each centre is known for.

A flatback has no gourd. It is lighter, tougher, less expensive and far less alarming to move, at some cost in resonance and sustain. A folding or two-piece instrument comes apart for travel.

The honest rule is simple. If the tanpura will live in one room and stay there, buy the gourd. If it will travel, in a car, a train or a hostel, buy the flatback and do not feel you have settled for something lesser. You can see what we have in stock among the tanpuras.

Tuning, and the thread that does the real work

For four strings the standard tuning is pa, sa, sa and a low Sa: the fifth, two middle sa, and sa an octave below. For a raga that leaves out pa, the first string comes down to ma. Ragas such as Marwa, which drop both, take dha or ni on that string instead. A five-string instrument usually adds ni.

The shimmer, though, is not in the tuning. It comes from a short length of cotton thread laid between each string and the bridge. Moving that thread by a hair's breadth changes which overtones sound and which fall away. Setting it is called jivari, and it is the whole difference between a tanpura that rings and one that merely thuds. It is not something anyone learns from a page, so when you buy an instrument, ask to be shown.

The pegs will test you

Tanpuras use friction pegs, held in place by the taper of the wood and nothing else. In dry weather they slip, or they seize, and both are ordinary. Our page on shaping a new peg explains how a peg is made to sit properly, and it is better read before the evening you need it than after.

Buying one from Mumbai

We deliver across India in seven to ten days for most products, but a tanpura is not most products. It is large, light and easy to damage, so rather than quote a flat rate we quote carriage to your city. Ask us before you order and we will tell you what the freight comes to. Payment is by UPI, card, cash on delivery or EMI.

We also ship worldwide from Mumbai, insured and braced for the journey. For customers outside India, please note that we cannot accept returns on international orders, because two-way freight on an instrument of this size can cost more than the instrument itself. What we do instead is stay with it: send a photograph or a short video, or ring, and we will work through tuning, the thread or a fault with you on the phone, on WhatsApp or on a video call.

Where to start

If you want a drone this week, take an electronic tanpura. If you want one steady drone for a room, take a surpeti. If the student is a singer who means to continue, buy the tanpura once you know their sa.

If you would rather just ask, send a WhatsApp message or ring 98335 99433. Tell us the student's sa, whether the instrument will stay in one place, and what the teacher has specified. Those three answers settle most of it.