Play a tanpura drone
A continuous four-string drone in any key — the traditional bed for chanting and mantra.
Tanpura Drone
A continuous four-string drone in any key — the traditional bed for chanting and mantra.
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A tanpura is not a chord held down. It is four strings plucked in a slow repeating cycle — Pa, Sa, Sa, and the lower Sa — and the overlap between one string still ringing and the next being plucked is what creates the continuous shimmering bed. Pick a key and press start; in G the strings sound at 294, 392, 392 and 196 Hz.
Tempo controls the gap between plucks. Slower means more space and a sparser texture; brisker means more overlap and a denser wall of sound. Traditional practice tends toward the slow end, which is why a tanpura can sit under an hour of chanting without becoming tiring.
Choose the key that sits comfortably under your own voice rather than the one that sounds best on its own. The drone exists to give you a reference pitch, and one you cannot comfortably sing against is not doing its job.
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Acoustic tanpuras are large, expensive and need regular tuning. Most people practising at home use an electronic tanpura box or a good app-and-speaker setup instead.
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