Overview

Sitar is perhaps the most well known of the In¬dian in-stru¬ments. Artists such as Ravi Shankar have pop-ularised this instrument around the world. Sitar is used in a variety of genre. It is played in north In¬dian classical music (Hindustani Sangeet), film music, and western fusion music. It is not com¬monly found in south In¬dian classical performances or folk music. Sitar is a long necked instrument with an inter¬est¬ing construction. It has a varying num¬ber of strings but 17 is usual. It has three to four play¬ing strings and three to four drone strings. The approach to tuning is somewhat si¬mi¬lar to other In¬dian stringed in¬stru¬ments. These strings are plucked with a wire finger plectrum called mizrab. There are also a series of sympathetic strings lying under the frets. These strings are al¬most never played but they vibrate whenever the corresponding note is sounded. The frets are metal rods which have been bent into crescents. The main resonator is us¬ually made of a gourd and there is some-times an additional resonator at¬ta¬ched to the neck. The sitar developed du¬ring the col¬lapse of the Moghul em¬pire (circa 1700). It ref-lected the cul¬ture of the times in that it showed both In¬dian and Persian char¬acter-is¬tics. (go to "Origin of the Sitar" for a better description.) The sitar is of a comp¬lex construction. It is crafted of natu¬ral materials by ext-remely talented and well trained craftsmen. There are a num¬ber of op¬tions in tuning the sitar. Even the same instrument will be tuned dif¬fer¬ently from piece to piece, ac¬cor¬ding to the requirements of the rag.

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