A tanpura is tuned to a person
Every other instrument on this site is tuned to a reference. A tanpura is tuned to whoever it is accompanying. Sa — the tonic, the note the whole drone is built on — is the singer’s Sa, and it moves from performer to performer: the same instrument sits near C♯ for one vocalist and near G for another, and moving it is the ordinary way to prepare for a different singer rather than a compromise anyone apologises for.
That is why there are no target chips under the dial on this page. There is nothing to put in them. Choose Sa below, and the other three strings follow from it.
The four strings, in the order they are plucked:
- String 1 — Pa, the fifth, sitting a fourth below the middle Sa.
- Strings 2 and 3 — Sa, the tonic, both the same pitch.
- String 4 — Sa an octave below, the deepest string and the one that carries the cycle.
Pick the Sa your singer sits on. Every first string here is a PURE ratio, not an equal-tempered one — that is deliberate, and the next section explains why.
The Pa string wants a pure fifth, and your tuner will argue
This is the one place where following a chromatic dial to the centre makes a tanpura sound worse.
A pure fifth is the ratio 3/2, which is 701.96 cents. The equal-tempered fifth this dial measures is exactly 700. The difference is about two cents — trivial on a guitar, where it disappears into the fretting, and not trivial at all on an instrument whose entire job is to sustain a still, unmoving cloud of sound.
Two cents between two sustained tones produces an audible beat: the drone pulses instead of sitting. On a tanpura, whose overtone content is enormous by design, the beating is between upper partials as well as fundamentals and the effect is that the drone never settles. Players describe a correctly tuned tanpura as locking, and that is what locking means.
Ma and Ni: when the first string moves
The first string is the only one that changes, because it is the only one that is not a Sa. Which interval it takes is decided by the raga:
| Tuning | String 1 | Ratio | Cents | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pa-Sa-Sa-Sa | Pa | 3/2 | 701.96¢ | The default. Used for the large majority of ragas. |
| Ma-Sa-Sa-Sa | Ma | 4/3 | 498.04¢ | For ragas that omit Pa — Malkauns and Marwa among them. |
| Ni-Sa-Sa-Sa | Ni | 15/8 | 1088.27¢ | A small group, including some treatments of Raga Bhairav and Hindol. |
The logic is straightforward once stated: a drone insisting on a note the raga does not contain fights the melody instead of supporting it. Malkauns and Marwa have no Pa, so the drone takes Ma — the pure fourth — instead.
The jawari does what no peg can
A tanpura can be exactly on pitch and sound completely dead, and when that happens the pegs are not the answer.
The strings pass over the jawari, a wide bridge with a gently curved top surface, and a fine cotton thread is worked under each string to sit it at the precise point on that curve where the vibrating string grazes the surface rather than clearing it. That grazing contact is what generates the dense, shimmering overtone cloud the instrument exists to produce. Move the thread a fraction of a millimetre and the same string at the same pitch goes from ringing to toneless.
So there are two independent adjustments on a tanpura — pitch, set at the peg and the bead, and tone, set at the thread — and this dial can only see one of them. If the instrument reads correct and sounds wrong, stop turning pegs.
Why the drone is the part a tuner can help with
Indian classical music is often described through the 22 shrutis, an ancient 22-part division of the octave, and it is easy to come away thinking a performer tunes to a 22-note grid. Nobody does. No instrument is fretted to it, and a performer places each note of the raga by ear against the drone — which is why the same swara sits differently in different ragas.
What is tuned precisely, and audibly, is the tanpura. That makes this page the one place in the tradition where a dial is straightforwardly the right tool — provided it is used at pure ratios rather than tempered ones. Our tuning-systems page covers where the 22 shrutis come from, why the ratio tables in circulation disagree with each other, and what the Natyashastra actually says.
Frequently asked questions
What notes is a tanpura tuned to?
Relative to Sa, and Sa is whoever you are accompanying. The four strings are Pa, Sa, Sa and the Sa an octave below — so strings two and three are the tonic, string four is that tonic an octave down, and string one is the fifth sitting between them, a fourth below the middle Sa. There is no standard concert pitch for a tanpura: the same instrument sits near C♯ for one vocalist and near G for another, and moving it is the normal way to prepare for a different singer rather than a compromise.
My tuner says the Pa string is two cents sharp. Should I correct it?
No — that reading is the instrument being right and the tuner being twelve-tone. Pa is a pure 3/2 fifth, which is 701.96 cents, and the equal-tempered fifth is 700. A tanpura tuned to the tempered fifth beats against its own overtones and the drone never settles into the still, humming cloud that is the whole purpose of the instrument. The reference tones on this page are computed at pure ratios for exactly this reason. If you tune by dial, aim the Pa string two cents sharp of where the needle centres and leave it there.
When do I use Ma instead of Pa?
When the raga has no Pa in it. Malkauns and Marwa are the usual examples: the fifth is absent from the raga, so a drone insisting on it fights the melody rather than supporting it, and the first string is tuned to Ma, the pure fourth, instead. A smaller group of ragas takes Ni, the seventh, on that string. Strings two, three and four do not change — only the first one moves, because only the first one is not a Sa.
The tanpura is exactly on pitch and still sounds dead.
Then the problem is the jawari and no amount of tuning will touch it. The jawari is the curved bridge the strings pass over, and a fine cotton thread is worked under each string to sit it at the exact point on that curve where the string grazes the surface as it vibrates. That grazing is what produces the dense cloud of overtones a tanpura is for. Move the thread a fraction and the note goes from shimmering to flat and toneless — at the same pitch. Pitch and tone are separate adjustments on this instrument, and the dial can only see one of them.
Can I tune a tanpura with a phone microphone?
Yes, with one caveat: a tanpura is deliberately overtone-rich, so a pitch detector is being handed a very dense spectrum and can land on a partial rather than the fundamental — usually reporting an octave up. Check the octave number the dial gives you, not just the letter, and pluck cleanly and let the string settle for a second before reading. Tuning the lower Sa is where this bites most, because it is the string with the most audible upper partials.