An uncluttered online tanpura for daily riyaz. Set your tonic and listen to a repeating four-string drone—without installing an app.
Tap Start to hear the drone. Choose a comfortable Sa before singing.
Real acoustic recording — playback follows the musician’s natural plucking rhythm (speed is not adjustable).
Warm tone: subtle bass EQ on the real recording.
Your choices are remembered in this browser. Nothing needs to be uploaded.
The four strings are shown for tuning reference. Play the complete acoustic recording on the left.
By default the first string uses Pa, followed by middle Sa, middle Sa and low Sa. Select Ma when your practice calls for a different first string. A Ni recording is not available yet.
Real acoustic Tanpura recordings: Sankalp Gulati’s recordings of full-size Tanpuras, made in Barcelona and Mumbai, shared on Freesound under CC BY 4.0. We crossfade natural human-played drone passages; pitches outside the original recordings are transposed (which also changes tempo and timbre). No synthetic strings or individual-pluck loops. Recording credits.
Keep your Tanpura drone running and add a flowing line of swars. Use the note strings manually or play an ascending-and-descending scale.
These are scale-note templates, not complete raga phrases or prescribed ascending/descending grammar.
Tap a string to sound its swar. The tonic matches the Tanpura above.
Ready
Sound transparency: The playable notes use a CC0 recorded acoustic harp note, pitch-shifted for the scale. It is a practice approximation, not a sampled 15-string Indian Swarmandal. The separate flourish button uses a real recorded Swarmandal.
Sa is your chosen tonic. You can set it to any of the twelve Western pitch classes and select an octave that suits your vocal register.
Traditional tanpuras usually use a fifth (Pa) below the main Sa on their first string. Some ragas use Ma or Ni instead. The other strings continue sounding Sa.
No. A tanpura is a plucked-string drone instrument. A shruti box sustains reed tones. This preview plays scheduled acoustic string recordings; a separate shruti-box sound needs separate implementation.
Background audio varies by browser and phone operating system. Keep the page open and your device awake during practice for more reliable playback.