Worlds Largest Tamboori!

ramakriya · Post by **ramakriya** » 11 Oct 2008, 09:08

Nataraj & Vinod (of Shiva Musicals, Malleshvara, Bengalooru) have made the worlds largest Tamboori.

This stands 11 feet tall, and weighs about 150 Kgs!

Take a look at the tamboori here:

http://neelanjana.wordpress.com/2008/10 ... -tamboori/

or here (if you can read Kannada):

http://thatskannada.oneindia.in/literat ... ml#cmntTop

- Ramakriya

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 11 Oct 2008, 10:37

Looks great and beautiful. I was looking for an audio link to hear how it sounds. It will be great to hear it being played.

Similar to some huge bells where they use an electrically operated pully to ring the bell, may be this one needs a small electric motor to change the sruthi!!

Thanks ramakriya for sharing the info.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 11 Oct 2008, 20:40

ramakriya,
A grand instrument it is! When it comes to portability, I suppose it is as difficult to transport as a church organ! They must have trucked it to the
park and back.
VK,
The sound would be ideal for group singing outdoors...

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 11 Oct 2008, 21:55

Wow! Where is this kept?

ramakriya · Post by **ramakriya** » 12 Oct 2008, 00:07

The article does not give the details about where it is kept ; and it is almost 6-month old article. But I got to the article yesterday when I was looking at something else It says that Vinod and Nagaraj have spent more than Rs 1 lakh to make this tamboori.

It looks very beautiful to look at, and I think the sound would be great too. The father-son duo have made a 10 feet long Rudraveena sometime back (for Sringeri Sarada Peetha)

-Ramakriya

thenpaanan · Post by **thenpaanan** » 12 Oct 2008, 03:55

arasi wrote:ramakriya,
A grand instrument it is! When it comes to portability, I suppose it is as difficult to transport as a church organ! They must have trucked it to the
park and back.
VK,
The sound would be ideal for group singing outdoors...

Usually the size of the gourd affects the resonance and the length of the stem affects the natural pitch. With this long a stem, it must be a very low-pitched instrument and if it has the resonance that such a big gourd can give, then it is likely to be very loud as well. Unless you have a group of very bass-voiced men, I suspect that the instrument probably cannot be used as accompaniment for singing.

-Then Paanan

martin · Post by **martin** » 12 Oct 2008, 03:59

Since I can not read outside these letters as you see here, I wonder if there's any information to be had on the stringing scale, pitch and relative diameters? Another interesting question is how this 'tanpuronissimo' is to be played to get it 'humming' . I once met an artist who had built very large scale bowed string-instruments while I lived in Tuscany, It. while I had my sarangi with selfmade bows with me. He tried to get his 3 mtr. at least string going with a meagre violin bow. Then I told him politely to step aside and put my heavy, contrabass-players-love-it sarangi bow to it and then you could feel the fundaments rumble.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 12 Oct 2008, 04:27

Very interesting, thenpaanan. Wouldn't it be nice if someone can lead us to a video where they show how a tamura is assembled!

Ramakriya,
I do not know in how many instances this particular tambUra can be used. My guess is that the vIINA was commissioned for display. Perhaps the brothers made the tambUra for asimilar purpose too, with a musical institution in mind...

gobilalitha · Post by **gobilalitha** » 12 Oct 2008, 08:17

The world's largest tambura is awesome. Full credirs to the inventor,Now a joke about a tambura..Iin those days , it was a status symbol to arrange a katcheri by the topmost artist in marriage functions once a Zamindar arranged such a performance, though he was a gnanasoonyam about carnatic music. . he was seated in the front row along with other dignitaries .After sometime, he shouted at the tambura player,'I have been watching you from the beginning, you have been making the same sound from your instrument hours together . I am paying you also. why don't you play some songs on your instrument' GOBILALITHA

PUNARVASU · Post by **PUNARVASU** » 12 Oct 2008, 09:03

All credit to the makers of the Thambura. It really looks beautiful.

thenpaanan · Post by **thenpaanan** » 20 Oct 2008, 17:35

Mahalakshmi wrote:
ramakriya wrote:Nataraj & Vinod (of Shiva Musicals, Malleshvara, Bengalooru) have made the worlds largest Tamboori.

This stands 11 feet tall, and weighs about 150 Kgs!

Take a look at the tamboori here:

http://neelanjana.wordpress.com/2008/10 ... -tamboori/

or here (if you can read Kannada):

http://thatskannada.oneindia.in/literat ... ml#cmntTop

- Ramakriya
This Tamboor is now on display at Purandara bhavan, Indra nagar sangeeta sabha, Banglore.
I'm pasting my picasa link of some photos I took during the international music conference held at this place in July 2008.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Shyamrid/Wo ... stTamboor#

On a slightly related note, is there consensus on who produces the best _sounding_ tamburas in the South? Is there a place analogous to Miraj for Hindustani musicians or a tamboora-maker who is legendary in Carnatic circles?

-Then Paanan

srkris · Post by **srkris** » 20 Oct 2008, 22:01

It is variously called tamboori, tumburu, tanpura, tambura etc. Which of these is standard?

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 20 Oct 2008, 22:24

tambUra--mainly by tamizh, telugu and malayALm speaking folks,
tAnpura by those from the north and tambUri by kannaDigAs??
tambUru by??

martin · Post by **martin** » 21 Oct 2008, 00:16

As far as I know, the HM variant 'tanpura', a contraction of 'tana' and 'puura' at least has a musically significant meaning: completing a musical phrase.
I don't know about tambura, but one of those beauties coming from Tanjore is just somehow called 'tambura' and I follow along with this usage.
Coming back to the tamburone (cf. violin-violone), can't anybody anywhere say a thing about to what pitch it is tuned?
I won't even ask about string thickness. Just give me the pitch, someone?

srkris · Post by **srkris** » 21 Oct 2008, 00:30

martin wrote:can't anybody anywhere say a thing about to what pitch it is tuned?
I won't even ask about string thickness. Just give me to pitch, someone?

Could you please rephrase? Not sure what you're asking.

As far as I know the pitch of the tambura is set to adhara shadja.

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 21 Oct 2008, 08:29

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 21 Oct 2008, 09:06

Cool,
Reminds me of an incident.
A veteran singer, organizers and the audience await the arrival of the violinist. No signs of her. The singer says, wish I had a real tambUra . Someone in the audience (a music freak) jumps up and says, I will get one in ten minutes and play it too! More excitement. Minutes later, the violinist arrives (she was under the impression the concert was to take place two hours later, and got there in a tizzy after an organizer had phoned her). She bolts on to the stage, the vocalist and mrudangist follow. They are into the second song when the woman with the tambUra arrives.
So, she places the instrument quietly on one side of the stage and returns to her seat. The tambura idles there silently all through the concert and we keep looking at it, wishing it had found its place in the concert...

How many volunteers do you need to hoist this giant at every' Sruti bhEdam moment! I bet it can be a work out

vs_manjunath · Post by **vs_manjunath** » 21 Oct 2008, 11:19

During Kanchi ParamAcharya's Centenary Celebrations- I have seen Naiveli Santhanagopalan's Concert in which he himself was putting the Tambura and singing at Kanchi!

keerthi · Post by **keerthi** » 21 Oct 2008, 13:00

The habit of using a 'real' tambura has almost disappeared from the concert circuit. Old vidvans like Voleti would always play it themselves while they sang. I have seen pictures of GNB doing the same. Bangalore Nagaratnammal was famous for her dismantleable tambura, which she kept horizontally, and strummed when she sang. Of the current artists, I have only seen the Malladi brothers(one or the other) play the instrument while they sing.

As for the variants of the name, north indian musicians swear by the Taan-poora explanation. Purandaradasa has used the word Tamboori - 'Tamboori meetidava'
Thyagaraja says Mudduga Tamboora batti, and some books refer to a 'Tumburu veena' - the instrument of the celestial bard Tumburu, Narada's colleague and occassional rival.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 22 Oct 2008, 01:54

Manjunath,
I did not mean that either the volunteer or the vocalist were reluctant to play the tambUri. The concert started way too late, and there was another scheduled concert after hers, and to stop at that point and fuss with the tuning of the tambUri would have meant delaying the concert even further...

martin · Post by **martin** » 22 Oct 2008, 02:05

srkris wrote:
martin wrote:can't anybody anywhere say a thing about to what pitch it is tuned?
I won't even ask about string thickness. Just give me to pitch, someone?
Could you please rephrase? Not sure what you're asking.

As far as I know the pitch of the tambura is set to adhara shadja.

What I mean is to what exact tone is Sa tuned, what kattai, or what note? Since its long stringing scale it is probably tuned in the lowest octave, but to what tone?

martin · Post by **martin** » 22 Oct 2008, 02:08

arasi wrote:Manjunath,
I did not mean that either the volunteer or the vocalist were reluctant to play the tambUri. The concert started way too late, and there was another scheduled concert after hers, and to stop at that point and fuss with the tuning of the tambUri would have meant delaying the concert even further...

the person who was intent to introduce the tambura should have tuned it off-stage and bring it in playing, which is probably the only way to convince the musicians on stage that no disruption is to be feared.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 22 Oct 2008, 02:59

Good suggestion! Even if such an instant does not repeat itself, this may come in handy when something akin to this situation arises...

vs_manjunath · Post by **vs_manjunath** » 03 Nov 2008, 21:57

This largest tambura is now kept for display @ Golden Mahalakshmi Temple, Sripuram near Vellore.