Online Tanpura with Tabla

How to practise (riyaz) with a tanpura

1. Choose your Sa. Pick the scale you sing or play in. If you don't know it, play the tanpura, sing a relaxed "aa" and try scales until Sa sits easily in your voice. As a rough guide, many men sing between C and D♯ and many women between G and A♯, but your own voice decides.
2. Listen first. Let the tanpura play through a few rounds before you sing. Then hum Sa softly. When your note matches, the sound becomes smooth; when it is a little off, you hear a slow wobble.
3. Hold long notes. Sing Sa, then Pa, then the other notes, each for a full breath, and listen for the moment the note settles into the drone. This is the heart of riyaz: it trains your ear as much as your voice.
4. Add the tabla when your notes are steady. Start slow, for example Teentaal at 60 to 80 BPM. Clap on the beats marked X, 2 and 3, wave your hand on 0 (the khali, the "empty" beat), and say the bols along with the drum.
5. A little every day works better than a long session once a week. Fifteen to thirty minutes is a good start.

Which first string? Pa suits most ragas. Ragas without Pa use Ma, such as Malkauns, or Ni, such as Marwa and Puriya. Choose what your teacher or the raga asks for.

The four strings and the plucking cycle

Most tanpuras have four strings, plucked one after another in a steady cycle that never stops: the 1st string (Pa, Ma or Ni of the lower octave), then the two middle strings on Sa, then the 4th string, kharaj Sa, an octave below. A short rest follows, and the cycle starts again. The drone isn't tied to the taal, so it never pushes you into a rhythm.

Each string here is modelled on how a tanpura string buzzes on its curved bridge, the jawari: after each pluck the sound blooms and its colour slides slowly from bright to round. Under "Fine tuning and pluck speed" you can make the cycle slower or faster.

The 12 scales

Sa can be any of the 12 notes. Singers often name their scale by the harmonium key Sa sits on: Safed (white) 1 to 7 and Kali (black) 1 to 5, counted from C. ♯ is read "sharp" and ♭ "flat", and keyboards often write ♯ as #: G♯ is G sharp (G#), and A♯ is the same key as B♭, B flat. Frequencies are for A4 = 440 Hz.

The taals and their thekas

A theka is the basic pattern of drum syllables (bols) that marks out a taal. The beats are called matras, grouped into sections called vibhags. X marks sam, the first beat (in Rupak the first beat is itself khali, so it is marked 0). 0 marks khali, "empty": a section you count with a wave of the hand instead of a clap. In Teentaal you can hear it, because the bass drum drops out for Tin Tin Ta. The other numbers are the claps (tali). Tempo is in matras per minute, from 10 to 720 BPM.

Not sure of the tempo? Press Tap tempo in time with a song or with your teacher's count, and the tabla follows.

What it can and can't do

• The tanpura is synthesized, not recorded. Each string is our own model of a string buzzing on the jawari, built from its harmonics. It aims to sound and behave like a tanpura, and every string is tuned within 1 cent of its note (our tests measure all 12 scales with Pa, Ma and Ni, both tunings, and A4 from 415 to 466 Hz). It isn't a recording of a real instrument, and a trained ear will hear the difference.
• The tabla is recorded, stroke by stroke, and the right-hand drum is retuned to your Sa: one octave above it for C to G, on Sa itself for G♯ to B (at A4 = 440 Hz). The further it moves from the pitch it was recorded at, the bigger or smaller the drum sounds.
• It plays the theka only: no fill-ins, tihais or solo. At very slow tempos a tabla player would add strokes inside each beat; here you hear the bare bols, so slow vilambit practice sounds sparse.
• Locking your phone. Your browser makes the sound, so it keeps playing only while the browser keeps web audio running. On computers it plays on in a background tab. Chrome on Android should keep it going with the screen off. Safari on iPhone and iPad may pause it when the screen locks or you switch apps: turn on "Keep screen on while playing" and leave the page open.
• Offline: once the page has loaded, it keeps a copy of itself and the tabla sounds on your device, so it opens and plays without a connection. Safari may remove that copy if you don't open the page for a week or so.

Questions

Is this online tanpura free?

Yes. It runs in your browser with no sign-up, no ads and nothing to install.

Why can't I hear anything?

Browsers only allow sound after you tap or click on the page, so press Play. Check your volume. On recent iOS versions it should play even in silent mode (and pause music from other apps while it plays); if it stays silent, turn silent mode off.

What do Pure and "Like a harmonium" mean?

Tanpura players tune by ear until the strings sound calm together, which gives pure intervals: Pa a 3:2 fifth, Ma a 4:3 fourth and Ni a 15:8 seventh above the lower Sa. A harmonium divides the octave into 12 equal steps, so its Pa is 2 cents lower than a pure Pa, its Ma 2 cents higher and its Ni 12 cents higher. Pure is the usual choice; pick "Like a harmonium" if you practise along with a harmonium or keyboard.

How do I match my harmonium or another instrument?

Choose the same scale, then open "Fine tuning and pluck speed". Move Fine tune up or down in cents until Sa on your instrument and the tanpura stop wobbling against each other. If your instrument is tuned to another A, such as 442 Hz or 432 Hz, set the A4 reference instead.

Does it keep playing when my phone locks?

Where your browser keeps web audio running, yes: the tanpura and the tabla each play as a loop inside the browser's audio system, with nothing on the page that has to keep running. Chrome on Android should; Safari on iPhone and iPad may stop it. If it stops, turn on "Keep screen on while playing", which stops the screen from locking while the page is open and the sound is on.

Does it work offline?

Yes, after it has loaded once with a connection: the page saves a copy of itself and the tabla sounds in your browser. Clearing this site's data in your browser removes them, and Safari may remove them if you don't open the page for a week or so.

Can it replace an electronic tanpura or tabla machine?

For daily riyaz it covers the basics of both: a four-string drone in your scale with Pa, Ma or Ni, and a theka at any tempo, in your browser with no app to install. The differences: the tanpura here is synthesized, not recorded (the tabla plays recorded strokes), it needs your phone or computer with this page open, and it has six taals.

Is anything uploaded or tracked?

No. There are no accounts, cookies, analytics or ads. Your settings are kept in your browser for next time, and "Link to these settings" puts them in the part of the link after the # sign, which browsers don't send to our server.

Where do the sounds come from?

The tanpura is synthesized in your browser by our own code; there are no tanpura recordings in it. The tabla strokes are recordings released into the public domain (CC0) by Freesound user mmiron in the pack "tabla bols". Our dholak and tabla page uses the same strokes.