Tambura

(tamboura, tampura). Long-necked Indian LUTE, played while seated and held vertically. It has a gourd resonator and four strings tuned to the PITCH of the instruments or voice that it accompanies as a DRONE.

The tambura's strings are gently plucked in a slow OSTINATO unrelated to the other players' tempo. It represents a Hindu conception of universal harmony and therefore a perfection that the soloists can never hope to attain. Even the tambura's special role has been lost to the modern era, because it is often replaced by a HARMONIUM (which is also blamed for the loss of small pitch subtleties in Indian music).