Sitar

Sitar is a well known Indian classical music string instrument primarily performed solo. It is made with wood, metal and has a processed hollowed pumpkin base for sound resonance. The current day Sitar has seven strings and is played by plucking the strings that rest on a bridge and a tuning peg. Various adjustable metal frets are placed in between the bridge and the peg to enable producing notes in a melody. A plectrum is worn on the right hand finger to pluck the string while the left hand fingers are used to rest on the frets. The notes can also be produced by pulling and sliding the string on a fret after it is struck. Primarily, the first couple of strings (baaj and jod) are used to produce musical notes while the back strings (chikari) are simply plucked intermittently to accentuate the melody. The Sitar also has sympathetic strings that are not explicitly played, but, resonate with the main strings. The sympathetic strings are meant to be tuned for the notes of a raag and provide another dimension to the melody. It is important to note that the bridge has a slight curvature and it is very important to construct it correctly (jawaari) for the minutia of the notes. Tuning of Sitar follows two main styles - Gandhar-Pancham style, developed by Ustad Vilayat Khan of Etawah Gharana and Kharaj-Pancham style used by various leading artists. Notably, the Gandhar-Pancham style was explicitly developed to play the Sitar in Khayal style mimicking the vocal. The word ‘Sitar' originated from the Persian word “Sehtar”. Sitar was created by Amir Khusro based on the traditional Indian music instrument, the Veena.