The sitar (by E. Powell)

The sitar is perhaps the most well-known musical instrument of India. It's sound tends to immediately trigger thoughts and feelings of the sub-continent. It's exact origin in unknown but it is believed to have evolved into it's present form in the 1700's, as a marriage between the Persian Setar, the South-Indian Vina, and with the characteristically resonant bridge of the Tanpura.

The Sitar's neck and face are made of Indian mahogany and it's round back/base is of a dried pumpkin. Although the Sitar has a minimum of eighteen strings, it generally has just one main playing string. The remaining strings provide it's ethereal resonance and/or resonance plus rhythmic accompaniment. The Sitar has two separate bridges; one upper, and one lower. The upper contains the playing string(s) and the "chickary" strings (used for rhythmic and "drone" accompaniment). The lower bridge usually has about twelve "tarif" (sympathetic) strings which are very fine and are tuned to the notes of the "raga" (scale) being played. These strings, when tuned accurately, will resonate without being touched when a corresponding note is played on the upper main string, thus giving the sitar it's "natural reverb" effect. This effect is enhanced by the structure of the bridge. Copied from the ancient "tampura" (a background drone instrument used primarily to accompany vocal music) the Sitar's bridge is made of soft deer-horn and is flat on top and is shaped in such a way as to allow the strings to gently "buzz" against the flat bridge surface. This effect is called "jawari".

The Sitar is a fretted instrument but it's frets (metal bars) are "tied" on, loosely enough to be slightly moved or "tuned". The tuning of the frets is another feature which sets the sitar apart from Western instruments because this allows the Sitar to be played in the "natural" or "untempered" tuning system. (Many Western instruments such as the guitar and the piano are designed to be played in the "equal-tempered' tuning system which is a modern invention without which the Harmony of Western music would be impossible to achieve from a single instrument. The disadvantage of the "tempered" system is that it is microscopically "out-of-tune".) The ancient, natural, or "untempered" tuning system retains the "perfect" or "natural" tuning of each interval. It is believed that music played in the natural tuning system has a subconsciously harmonizing effect on it's listeners.

The most striking feature of the Sitar's playing technique is it's main string's capacity for being "pulled" or "bent". On one fret the main string can be pulled downward at least five notes (from C to G). From this we can see that the Sitar has in fact evolved much in the last fifty years since it has only been that long since steel strings have been made with enough strength to withstand such tension without breaking. This "pulling" (meend) capacity allows the instrument to accurately emulate the gliding effect of vocal music. Therefore the generation past has seen tremendous corresponding sylistic advancements, whereas in previous times instrumental music relied much more heavily on the rhythmic element, lacking the technical capacity for sustain and legato. It is clearly these advancements which are largely responsible for the Sitar's rapid rise in popularity and it's current status as perhaps the most widely known and appreciated of Indian instruments, at home and around the world.

In today's world there exists fundamentally two types of Sitar, with corrosponding playing styles and sound. The first is known as the "Vilayat Khan style" Sitar, and the second is known as the "Ravi Shankar style" Sitar. The "V.K. style" Sitar is slightly smaller than the "R.S. style" Sitar and has far less wood carving decoration. The "R.S. style" Sitar often has a second small pumpkin attached near the top of the neck. The "R.S. style" Sitar also has two extra "bass" playing playing strings which allow very low melody notes to be rendered. "V.K. style" Sitars do not have these bass strings but instead have one extra "chickari" (rhythmic accompaniment strings) string which allows for a fuller, more "chordal" chickary effect to be produced. Sitarists in the "Vilayat Khan gharana (school/style)", in compensation for 'missing' the bass strings, often also play "the Surbahar" which is in fact a "Bass Sitar".

Modern sitarists can be divided into three categories; 1- INDIAN SITARISTS OF THE OLDER GENERATION: Vilayat Khan, Nikhil Banerjee, Ravi Shankar, Balram Patak, Imrat Khan, Rais Khan... 2- INDIAN SITARISTS OF THE YOUNGER GENERATION: Budhaditya Mukherjee, Sujhat Khan, Nishat Khan, Irshad khan, Shahid Parvez... 3- WESTERN SITARISTS: Colin Walcott, Patrick Montal, Gianni Ricchizzi, Mark Ditcowski, Brigitte Menon, Edward Powell...

The Sitar today is still primarily used in the context of North Indian Classical Music, but it's usage is steadily expanding to include various types of fusion with Western classical, jazz, rock, folk, pop, and many other types of music. The Sitar was first brought to attention of the Western world when George Harrison took it up, under Ravi Shankar, and began experimenting with it in his work with the Beatles. Subsequently, pioneering musicians such as John Mclaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Colin Walcott, and others first experimented with "fusing" Eastern and Western forms of improvisation, thereby laying the groundwork for entirely new "world fusion" idioms.

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