Ravi Shankar was single-handedly responsible for making the sitar a popular instrument in the West. He toured extensively, and composed music with violin legend Yehudi Menuhin and other musicians. The huge success of these songs contributed immensely to the popularity of the sitar around the world. Other artists innovated by using the guitar to play sitar sounds.
Some used a modified electric sitar for easier performance but ensured the primary tone colour was preserved. The sitar holds its own even today and many Western musicians continue to use this sublime instrument in their creations. She was nominated for a Grammy in in the World Music category.
Anoushka has played sitar in recordings by famous musicians including Sting, Lenny Kravitz and Herbie Hancock. This instrument has five strings and can be played with an electronic pick to create authentic guitar rock sounds. Niladri can be credited with evolving a new genre of fusion music by combining electric tones with percussion thereby blurring the lines between modern and classical music.
These strings are also used for keeping the rhythm. Between the two types of sitar, the sada contains only seven strings, which is the basic requirement. The tarabdar , on the other hand, features between nine and 13 sympathetic strings. Made of thick steel or brass wire, it is worn on the tip of the index finger of the right hand, and the sound is produced by striking the main string of the instrument.
Sit over folded feet with the joints resting on the ground. Sit with folded feet parallel to the body. Sit with the left foot folded on the ground and resting the right foot folded on the ground and resting the right foot against the sitar, keeping it away from the ground. Sit resting the right foot towards the left direction on the ground and keeping the left foot folded. Sit keeping the folded left foot towards the right and the right foot in a cross-legged position, and rest the gourd or tumba on the heel of the left foot.
Regardless of the sitting positions, the musician is to hold the sitar tightly, with the right forearm pressed on the side of the tumba quite firmly. Female players can sit in other positions to suit their individual preference.
In addition, the sitar player can also make adjustment to the timbre. The modern sitar is an improved and modified form of the tri-tantri veena of ancient India. During the 17th century, three additional strings were included, and later, another string was added.
Today, there are seven playing strings and 11 or 13 sympathetic strings on this instrument. Contemporary sitar musicians included Ravi Shankar, whom both the West and the subcontinent have hailed as the sitar maestro. It is believed that music played in the Natural tuning system has a profoundly harmonizing effect on listeners. On one fret the main string can be pulled downward at least a fourth; for example from C to G.
This particular feature has only been available during the last fifty years — since steel strings have been made with enough strength to withstand such tension. This pulling capacity allows the instrument to accurately emulate the gliding effect of vocal music.
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Georgetown Art Centre. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Among them Kanhailal and Hiren Roy of Calcutta, deserve special mention for their unparalleled skill and craftsmenship. Nodu Malick known as Nodu Babu did much research and experimentation and was insrtumental in standardising the various parts of the sitar.
Many artists of the twentieth century have contributed to the popularisation of the sitar, but two names merit special mention. One of them is Ravi Shankar, the world renowned sitarist and the worthy disciple of Allauddin Khan, and the other one is the descendant of Sahabdad Khan and Imdad Khan and the most melodious sitarist of modern times, Vilayat Khan.
These two artists took sitar baj to new heights. Nikhil Banerjee is another artist who needs special mention as he modified his sitar further with the help of Hiren Roy, taking it to an unimaginable level of depth and tonal quality. Jaya Bisbas, Manju Mehta, Kalyani Roy and Krishna Chakravorty are among the women sitar players, who earned a name for themselves in this field. Among the younger generation of artists, Shahid Parvez, Buddhaditya Mukherjee and Shujaat Khan have already made a name for themselves.
A number of budding artists such as Shubhendra Rao, Niladri Kumar, Gourav Majumdar, Prateek Chaudhuri and many others, assure a bright future for this instrument. The sitar can be divided into two parts: the fingerboard and the resonator. The total length of the sitar is approximately four or four-and-a-quarter feet. The fingerboard is about three feet long, about three-and-a- quarter to three-and-a-half inches wide, and three-and-a- half inch in diameter.
The fingerboard, called dand, is made preferably of tun wood, and is hollow from inside. However dand made of teak wood is also common. Pegs are fixed for the main strings on one end of the dand and the other end is fixed to the tumba or the resonator by means of a joint called gulu.
The resonator made of gourd is hollow from inside and is covered with a wooden plate called tabli. The gourd, the wooden plank and the joint gulu are the most important parts of the instrument forming the main resonating chamber. The tabli acts as the soundboard upon which the two bridges, one for the main playing strings and the other, a smaller one, for sympathetic strings, are fixed. There are seven main playing strings and eleven to thirteen sympathetic strings.
These strings are tied with a nail-shaped string holder called langot at the lower end and that pass through the fingerboard. The five main strings go through another bridge called meru or aad at the upper end before being finally tied up to their respective pegs, whereas the sympathetic strings pass through the little holes drilled into the covering of the fingerboard to their respective pegs fixed on the right side of the sitar.
The two chikari strings have their pegs fixed on the side portion of the fingerboard below the peg box and just before the sympathetic string pegs; these strings rest on two small pins made of bone or stag horn which act as the bridge for these chikari strings.
The main bridge of the sitar called ghurach is one of its vital parts. It is flat in shape, and its length, width and height are about eight centimetre, three and two centimetres respectively. The bridge used for sympathetic strings is rather small in size and fixed just before the main bridge. Both of these and the upper bridges meru are made of stag horn or camel bone. The point where the strings touch the main bridge is actually responsible for the tonal quality of the sitar, and thus, special care is taken to ensure that the surface does not get a mark or a groove because of the continuous pressure of the main playing strings.
If this point gets abrased, the surface is filed. This filing is called javari setting, and it is a very skilled and technical task which can be performed only by an experienced person.
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