Answer to Question 1
Solo melody by female vocalist
Electronic drone (no performer required)
Note the nasal timbre, a preferred tone color in Indian music.
Rhythm (percussion) by mridangam
Answer to Question 2
Drone (electronically-produced) starts out alone playing the tonal center and a perfect fifth above the tonal center and continues to sustain this musical interval throughout the recording thereby anchoring the tonality of the singer's melody. Against this unchanging background a single melody unfolds.
Singer enters with raga-based solo, a highly decorated melody with many embellishing tones (intense ornamentation).
Playing a drone: You can easily create an interval of a perfect fifth on a piano by playing, for instance, the tone middle C and the tone G which is five white keys above middle C (C D E F G). Try playing this interval with your left hand rocking back and forth between these two tones which creates a drone. At the same time, improvise some melody with your right hand by playing any of the white keys you wish. You will hear how the drone part you are playing with your left hand anchors the tonality of the music regardless of what you are improvising with your right hand.
