P. & Brothers Instrumental Tanpura
The instrumental 5-string tanpura of P. & Brothers is a noble brand-named instrument. Its sound is subtle, carrying and rich in overtones.
Material and workmanship are of the highest quality. Its clear shellac surface keeps the natural wood veining beautifully visible. The bridge is sanded for a standard tonic of c - d. At this pitch no threads under the strings are needed. However, if a different pitch or a different sound quality is desired, threads under the strings may well be advisable.
Sound sample played on one of our P. & Brothers instrumental tanpura.
Unstained toonwood, horn bridge, five strings, mirror-finished shellac surfaces, wooden sound box, inlay work made of engraved celluloid.
The string vibration on the bridge (and thus the audible overtones) depends upon the curve of the bridge and the tension, thickness and material of the strings. A thread between the string and the bridge allows subtle manipulations of the contact angle. By moving the thread position the buzz of each string can be adjusted individually.
P. & BROTHERS is a very small, relatively little known family business in its third generation in Calcutta. Originally, the company was founded in Dhaka, in today’s Bangladesh. After India became independent and divided, the three sons of the founder Gopal Karmakar moved to Calcutta. Initially they worked with other musical instrument manufacturers and finally opened up a joint business under the present name in 1953. Among their customers were, e.g. Nikhil Banerjee, Kartik Kumar and Manilal Nag.
Today, Suman Karmakar is running the business, a grandson of Gopal Karmakar. Especially in a small company like this every instrument is made and checked with great individual care. As we have been continually working together with P. & BROTHERS since setting up India Instruments in 1994, they supply us with rather high quality instruments at a relatively favourable price.
P. & BROTHERS is specialised in excellent sitars and tanpuras. Suman Karmakar has been taking advice from Hiren Roy's son Barun Roy, and his sitars come as close to Barun's as one can get. After 2010 P. & BROTHERS has also taken to making wonderful harmoniums, and we carry their harmoniums since 2015.
Measure: length 99 cm, width 27 cm, depth (without bridge) 9 cm, diapason 67 cm, weight: 1.2 kg
Each instrument is individually hand-crafted and might differ from our description.