Jivari In Indian classical music culture and thought, this term refers to the special overtone-rich "buzzing" sound characteristic of classical Indian string instruments such as the tanpura, sitar, veena, and others. Jivari can refer to the acoustic phenomenon itself and to the meticulously curved bone or ivory bridges that support the strings on the sounding board and produce this particular effect. When cotton threads are used to shift the angle of the string over the bridge, this is called "adjusting the jivari." After a substantial time of playing, the surface directly under the string will wear out through the eroding impact of the strings. The sound will become thin and sharp and tuning also becomes a problem.Then a skilled, experienced craftsman needs to redress and polish the surface, which is called "doing the jivari". The tambura is a musical instrument used in various places around the world. ... Premla Shahane playing a sitar, 1927 The sitar is a Hindustani classical stringed instrument which utilizes sympathetic strings along with regular strings and a gourd resonating chamber to produce a very distinctive sound. ... Woman playing the vina, by Raja Ravi Varma Veena (also spelled vina) is a stringed instrument used in Carnatic music. ...

Interesting parallellism in language: 'Jiva' translates as soul, or live-giving essence. The 'jivari' then 'animates' the sound of each string. The rich and very much 'alive' resonant sound requires great sensitivity and experience in the tuning process. In the actual tuning, the fundamentals are of no interest as attention is drawn to the sustained harmonics. The actual tuning is done on three levels: firstly by means of the large pegs, secondly, with tuning-beads for micro-tuning and thirdly, with the cotton threads that pass between the strings and the bridge, somewhat just before the zenith of its curve. For a practical, first-hand description see:[1] which discusses several issues of tuning and the important function of the tanpura in Art music.

Typical of jivari is a bridge-string setup with a very flat parabolic curve supporting the strings and sloping away from under them. When a string is plucked, it will make a periodic and regular grazing contact with the bridge's surface, which will gradually shift up the sloping surface to zero as the amplitude decreases. The desired effect is that of a rainbow of sound in a single tone. In this sense, it is similar to the refraction of light through a prism. The making of a perfectly sounding jivari requires a very high degree of skill and expertise. Traditionally, the 'jivari-makers' got payed best, as theirs was the crowning touch to the instrument. Today few artisans remain who are capable of making real good jivari, beit making new bridges or redressing ones already in use. Amplitude is a nonnegative scalar measure of a waves magnitude of oscillation, that is, magnitude of the maximum disturbance in the medium during one wave cycle. ... The straw seems to be broken, due to refraction of light as it emerges into the air. ... See: Prism (geometry) Prism (optics) Prism (band) PRISM is an abbreviation for Probabilistic Symbolic Model Checker PRISM was an aborted RISC processor effort at DEC, see DEC PRISM This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

To simply state that the tanpura supplies the drone in the tonic key of the performers is accurate in sofar that it is an understatement: the tanpura-accompaniment is the alpha et omega of melody, or rather, ragas. In the hands of masters the tanpura will reveal the precise tonal shade perfectly suited for the raga he wants to play or sing. This is why it was usage to say under musicians "having good tanpura (players) is half the concert won" or "let him tune the tanpura and show his worth". Today, which if anything is the heightday of using electronic gadgets, we have come to the situation in which most of the otherwise 'live' concerts of Indian Classical Music are held with an insipid synthesizer droning on incessantly which surprisingly enough fails to evoke public uproar at being cheated. This then is what is usually called "electronic tanpura". Initially intended for private practice support for instrumentalists, the thing got way out of hand and now you hardly get to hear natural sound of real tapuras in concerts nowadays. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

{will post some photo's of tanpura bridge}