Lec-Dem MA Dec 16, 2024: RK Shriramkumar on 'The Raga adhara – Tambura'

[vainika]

Summary of this morning's lec-dem

Vidvan RK Shriramkumar, along with the tambura maker Sri Dakshinamurti's son (the father, originally listed, was unable to be present) started this season's Academic Session series at the Music Academy with an insightful overview of the tambura. Some key points: requesting others to add -

i. RKSK pointed to likely origins of the instrument in central Asia, with instruments named tanbur, tunbūr, tamboura, etc. and to its occurrence in miniature paintings depicting Tansen [1500s] and Akbar.

ii. Richness of overtones in the tambura, not found in electronic tamburas: RKSK urged practitioners and organizers to bring the tambura back to the classroom and concert stage.

iii. Tanjavur, Trivandrum, Mysuru, Miruj and Calcutta tamburas were discussed and differences among them were pointed out - most notably the use of gourds as resonators in the Miruj tambura, which also dictates this instrument's placement on the floor rather on the lap.

iv. Importance of jiva - silk/cotton strings placed between the bridge plate and the metal strings to produce the buzzing tone.

v. Interesting anecdotes involving MS Subbulakshmi, KV Narayaswami and Kumar Gandharva who paid utmost attention to tuning/fine-tuning of the tambura and spent considerable time ensuring alignment of their voices to the tambura.

vi. The tambura maker (I apologize for missing his name) spoke about gauges used for tamburas tuned to lower ('male') and higher '(female') pitches.

Experts' Committee members added their reflections on wood seasoning practices, storage (velvet-lined box was mentioned), and an innovation of a second bridge inserted between the nut and the first bridge to reduce the length of the vibrating string and raise the pitch for female singers. TM Krishna, SK designate, wondered aloud if the concept of a rAga, which presupposes an AdhAra note, could have existed prior to the the advent of the tambura.

Some questions I would have liked to see addressed - maybe Uday and others on this forum nay be able to respond:

- the importance of the resonator upper surface being convex, and whether the surface flattens over time as it does in the Veena

- the tuning of tambura in panchama-varjya rAgas: given the time it takes to re-tune, does one omit strumming the panchama string while rendering tambura accompaniment to rAgas without panchama, , or re-tune Pa to Ma or Sa>

- diferences and similarities between the resonator of the tambura and veena in terms of the surface plank and thickness.

L Ramakrishnan (vainika)

[MV]

Vainika,
Great synopsis of the lecdem as a record as well.
I was thinking a convex surface on Veena would have been hard to play since everyone won’t have the handspan to play comfortably.

I have a Tambura of Vid TN Krishnan given to my friend in NZ who in turn gave it to me when I left NZ. That badly needs a service.
Plus I have seen small tamburas used in overseas concerts. They look cute but I wonder what RKSk would say about their tonal value.

[arasi]

SuSrutiyODu tuvangum Lec-dems!

Vainika (Ramakrishnan),
Good to read your learned post about it.

Years ago, you played so well in one of the Rasikas gatherings!

Malathi,
You are both a vINa player and a vocalist. Thanks for your input.

[vainika]

@MV, sorry if I wasn't clear. it appears that many veenas actually do have slightly convex surface boards (palagai) on the resonator, not as much as a tambura, but nevertheless convex. The surface also tends to flatten over time.

[thenpaanan]

Many thanks for the posting. There is a fundamental question regarding tamburas that never gets addressed. Did the vidwans have an opinion as to why the tambura was attractive to Indian music given that it is not found in any other musical system in the world? TMK may be hinting at the reason for this. We know of the "grAma" system that existed in Indian music in ancient (medieval?) times evolved to the current system of mapping the raga to one fixed octave (hence AdhAra shadja). Is it possible that the tambura and the AdhAra shadja evolved together at around the same time? I don't know if the dates match up.

Which brings me to a somewhat irrelevant question -- if the tambura came to us from overseas in the 15th century or thereabouts why is Sage Narada depicted in the popular imagery holding a tambura? Or is he supposed to be holding an ek-tArA (one-stringed lute found even today among some folk musicians)?

-T

[shankarank]

A researcher who studied the rig veda ( studied in modern sense - all the western literature written on it) has blogged about this:

But as already pointed out by Alain Danielou, quoted earlier: "Under Muslim rule, age-old stories were retold as if they had happened at the court of Akbar, so as to make them acceptable to new rulers and win the practice and honors bestowed on the creative artistes of the day. Such transfer of legends is frequent everywhere. We should therefore not be surprised to find ancient musical forms and musical instruments being given Persian-sounding names and starting a new career as the innovations of the Mughal courts".

Full article here:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/02/m ... ii_88.html

The key point of contention with one of the scholars quoted:

And here is what Sachs has to say about the 7-tone-22-shruti system of notes described in Bharata's text: "We know that two basic principles have shaped scales all over the world: the cyclic principle with its equal whole tones of 204 and semitones of 90 Cents, and the divisive
principle with major whole tones of 204, minor whole tones of 182, and large semitones of 112 Cents.

Bharata’s system derives from the divisive principle, and this, in turn, stems from stopped strings. But the earlier part of Indian antiquity had no stringed instrument except the open-stringed harp; no lute, no zither provided a fingerboard. India must have had the up-and-down principle, and it cannot but be hiding somewhere." (SACHS169)

In short: the system described in Bharata's text is a musical system going back far into the pre-Buddhist past and representing a scale system which, at least as per Sachs' own admission, could only have been derived from experiments with stopped strings. This has been sought to be explained by some musicologists in various unconvincing ways, but the only logical explanation is that ancient India, long before Bharata's Natya-Shastra, long before the Buddha, had a fully developed system of octaves based on an analysis of notes which were based on musical instruments with stopped strings, so obviously very-ancient India (in the early 1st millennium BCE and much earlier) had indigenous musical instruments with stopped strings (lutes, lute-zithers, stick-zithers).

[shankarank]

https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/ ... 0.ece/amp/

Now the reporting says " West Asia" not "Central".

https://x.com/GemsOfINDOLOGY/status/1747310280286298260 - this is claimed to depict a Lute from 6th - 7th century in Kashmir.

Lutes have been depicted in Uzbekistan as early as 1 CE :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airtam_Frieze

Hellenistic Gandhara, Hadda - Greco Buddhist site relief - 1 CE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lute

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lute#/med ... anquet.JPG

Amaravati - Southern India - Buddhist - 2 CE

https://x.com/GemsOfINDOLOGY/status/1678040362491813888


Gupta Period:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbat_(lute)

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OqdqzzyaWj4/ ... aya-25.JPG

A Short video collection traces back reliefs to 500 BCE:

https://x.com/GemsOfINDOLOGY/status/1609452234391289856

[thenpaanan]

A only somewhat related question. I learned recently that the tambura that Tyagaraja used is still preserved in a museum. From that tambura could we guess the pitch Tyagaraja himself must have sung at?

We know that male performers of the 19th and very early 20th century sang at a relatively high pitch (in the region of E to G) compared to 20th century performers (in the region of B to D). The jump is considerable. But we don't seem to talk about how it was before that -- what pitch did male performers sing at during the 18th to mid 19th century ie Tyagaraja's time?

-T

[Carnaticworldmusic]

Which brings me to a somewhat irrelevant question -- if the tambura came to us from overseas in the 15th century or thereabouts why is Sage Narada depicted in the popular imagery holding a tambura? Or is he supposed to be holding an ek-tArA (one-stringed lute found even today among some folk musicians)?
-T

Purandara dasa has mentioned tamburi meetidava in his composition around that time (15thcentury) -because he has mentioned it I feel that tambura must have existed much prior to his time and its not possible that he has mentioned it because the tambura came from overseas around that time. also are there any compositions mentioning thambura or equivalent words prior to Purandara dasa? Its possible that Tamburi could have been ektaara type instrument as well and Purandara dasa may not have refered to our current day thambura at all

[thenpaanan]

Adding to Vainika's list,

RKSK at one point says that the most important component of the tambura is the jIvA. This is only partially true. What makes the jIVA even relevant is the particular design of the bridge. Even though the curvature of the bridge was mentioned in passing, the design of the bridge should have been discussed at length. Why does the tambura sound different from other plucked string instruments like veena and sitar? It is the unique curvature of the tambura bridge design (but that never came up). This is the reason for the unique sound as well as the fact that jIvA is not used in other stringed instruments.

The other issue that I would have loved to have heard a solution for is this: the biridai (the knobs that control the turning) often unwind completely and abruptly while tuning, making it challenging for children to tune the instrument. The knobs are normally held in place by the wood friction but with age the sides presumably smoothen down. In the old days we used to add chalk dust (from a blackboard). But we cannot find chalk lying around anymore. I once even saw a vidwan dipping the end of the knob in water (presumably to make it swell slightly and increase friction). But these are clumsy solutions for such an elegant instrument. We should ask Uday to solve this problem!

-T

[thenpaanan]

Adding more to Vainika's list:

One mysterious (at least to me) phenomenon is the appearance of the gAndhrara sound in the tambura when it is played. Even though no string is actually tuned to that note, it can be heard very distinctly and loudly in some tamburas (but not all). I have had people claim quite vehemently that it is a sign of a good tambura when you hear the gAndhAram, I am not so sure. Similarly in some tunings you hear the nishAdam but it is much rarer than the gAndhAram.

So the questions to answer: where does this gAndhAram come from - is it a characteristic of the construction of the particular tambura at hand or is it a feature of the tuning precision? Some people even claim that they can make the note appear or disappear by fiddling with the jivA. I do not have that skill to verify it but does the claim have any merit? More importantly, should one actually try to get the gAndhAram sound while tuning or should one try to eliminate it by better tuning? Note that the itAnpura app does not seem to emanate the note whereas some Radels do.

Perhaps the learned folk on this forum can answer this here without this having to go all the way to the top to RKSK.

-T