Temporal and spectral characteristics of Tambura tones
Adrian J. M. Houtsma, Edward McN. Burns · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1982
The tambura is a stringed instrument of the lute type that is used as a drone accompaniment in Indian concert music [V. L. Janakiram and B. Yegnanarayana, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 62, S43 (1977)]. A distinctive feature of this instrument is its bridge, which terminates the four strings on a slightly rounded surface rather than on a sharp edge. The instrument is typically played with a silken thread (“Jivali” or “life giver”) wedged between strings and bridge surface, so that the strings “buzz” against the bridge. If the instrument is played without this thread, the curved bridge creates a nonlinear modulation effect by periodically changing the effective string length. Partials up to order 30 are found to be very nearly harmonic. Temporal, short-term spectral and perceptual characteristics of tambura tones played with and without the “jivali” are discussed.