Uncommon Drones by Rudi Seitz

In music, a drone is a sustained sound that often functions as the background for a vocal or instrumental performance. This album consists of drone recordings that I have made for use in my own singing practice – I have decided to make these recordings available in the hope that they may be of value to other musicians. The album focuses on the Indian drone instrument, the tanpura, and the recordings are intended for use in Dhrupad vocal music, though they need not be limited to that context – you could use them for any kind of improvisation, or for meditation. At some point I may expand the album to include recordings of other drone instruments.

When I started this project in 2015 I was surprised that I couldn't find many good recordings of the acoustic tanpura. Electronic tanpura boxes and tanpura apps are convenient, but they don't capture the beauty of a live tanpura performance. Among the available recordings, I was happy to come across an album “Tanpura Sounds” by Friedrich Glorian; I would recommend it to anyone looking for tanpura in one of the standard tunings, Pa-Sa or ma-Sa. Still, I found no recordings of tanpura in any of the less common tunings such as shuddha-Ni-Sa, shuddha-Dha-Sa, and komal-dha-Sa, so I decided to record them myself.

I play a tanpura (shown on the album cover) by the late Hemen Sen. I purchased it in 2012 through what was then the Ali Akbar College of Music Store in San Rafael, CA. It arrived at my home in Boston in a box the size of a refrigerator and fortified like a tank; what I found inside the box transformed my musical life. It is truly one of the grandest instruments of any kind that I have ever heard or touched. For some time, I thought I couldn't do the instrument justice with the modest recording equipment I own, but after countless hours of experimentation I have been able to capture something of the instrument's brilliant character. I may create some higher-quality studio recordings as a second phase of the project, but for now the album consists of my careful home recordings.

Let me say a bit about the nonstandard tunings presented here. In exploring the universe of ragas, one can go very far using only the common Pa-Sa and ma-Sa tanpura tunings, but I feel that the less common tunings are just as valuable and revealing. I sometimes think that the sound of the tanpura is like a “light” that illuminates the notes one sings. Considering the objects in a room, we know that the quality of light shining on each object can greatly change its appearance, revealing different colors and textures, even making an object look like something else altogether; and similarly, when one changes the tuning of a musical drone, all of the notes one sings may take on a different character, because they now bear a different relationship with the background sound that “illuminates” them. To put this in concrete terms, consider the experience of singing komal re. Against a Pa-Sa tanpura, the re forms what a Western musician might call a tritone with the tanpura's Pa. And yet when you use shuddha-Dha-Sa tuning, the re can be heard as a major third above the tanpura's Dha and the distinctive experience of striking a major third becomes part of how it feels and sounds to sing re. Exploring a different tuning is almost like stepping into a different universe of sound where the notes that had became so familiar over a Pa-Sa drone now have completely different personalities.

Of the tunings provided here, komal-dha-Sa is appropriate for Rag Todi; shuddha-Dha-Sa is appropriate for Rag Marwa; and shuddha-Ni-Sa (and shuddha-Ga-shuddha-Ni-Sa) are appropriate for Rag Puriya. I will also provide some experimental tunings that are not associated with any particular rag -- the first of these explores the harmonic or overtone seventh.

A skilled musician might be able to get a tanpura “in tune” in a few minutes, first adjusting the tuning pegs, and then adjusting the beads (or swans) below the bridge, as well as the threads between the strings and bridge that create the characteristic buzzing sound. However, there is a difference between the instrument being acceptably in tune and it being radiantly in tune. Even within the range of what might be considered a “correct” tuning, there are many subtleties to be explored; the fine adjustments that one makes at the end of the tuning process, as well as the stroke angle and speed that one plays with, can affect the prominence of different overtones, and the subtle relations between overtones produced by each string, imparting a different acoustic “personality” to what is basically the same tuning. When making a recording, of course the microphone placement and other factors affect what aspects of the tanpura's glorious and complex sound are actually preserved. Also, when tuning a note like Dha or Ni, there are various srutis, various “shades” of the note (corresponding to what a Western musician might call different just-intonation ratios) that one might pursue. For these reasons, I feel there can be no “definitive” recording of the tanpura in any particular tuning; rather, a sensitive musician or listener might like to choose between many recordings in the same basic tuning depending on what mood or “rasa” is desired. As mentioned, the tanpura can be tuned acceptably in a matter of minutes, but achieving a truly radiant tuning can take hours of searching, and on some days one must simply give up: the instrument, responding to changes in humidity and temperature, might not cooperate, or one's ear and mindset might not be sufficiently receptive at that time. Tuning the tanpura is a test of perseverance and passion.

Some tracks in this album are based on source material roughly two to five minutes in length, extended through seamless looping and cross-fading to play for twenty minutes, a convenient duration for alap practice; other tracks are based on a longer initial performance. Some reverb has been applied in post-processing in a way that I feel is compatible with the instrument's natural sound. The track names indicate the rough pitch that the low Sa string is tuned to (like C or B-flat) but this is only to give an idea of where the tuning sits -- the pitch standard of A=440hz is not faithfully adhered to here, and you may find that some of the tracks "in C" don't actually match the piano's C.

Although the album is “just” a set of drones, it is the product of countless hours of tuning practice, experimentation with recording setups, playing and recording the instrument on different days and at different times to collect the best that "chance" has to offer, and editing and preparing all the gathered material. Purchasing these tracks gives you the right to use them in your private practice, but not to remix them into another project. If you would like to incorporate this material into your own work, I'll be happy to hear about it, but please contact me first for permission.

This album is dedicated to Amit Chatterjee, who has taught me all that I know about tuning the tanpura in search of radiance. I would also like to acknowledge helpful conversations with Warren Senders as well as members of the Xenharmonic Alliance group.

How can I connect with the divine, with other people, and with my inner self? How can I heal? I call myself a musician because I am looking for answers to those questions through the pathway of sound. Join me on my sonic journey.

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