Sitar | Indian music instruments used by Ravi Shankar | Information on the sitar | Sitars.net April 1920 – December 2012 Welcome to Sitars.net Sitars are plucked stringed musical instruments, originating from the lute family. The sitar originated in the Middle East originally. In fact, the word "sitar" is Iranian in origin and means 'three strings' (seh means 'three' and tar means 'string') although it is a multi stringed instrument. The History of the Sitar traces its origins to an instrument first built under Medieval Muslim influence from the tanbur, a Middle Eastern lute with a distinctive long neck as well as from the vina, a narrow, intricately crafted Indian Zither. Although images similar to the sitar date back to 1800. Delhi, the more well-known form of the sitar had become prominent by the mid nineteenth century. The long hollow neck and gourd body produce a rich resonance and harmony, and is the dominant instrument used in Hindustani classical music and is played as an accompaniment to dance throughout India and Pakistan. Sitar Music is ubiquitous in these and other Middle Eastern countries.

Additional design innovations made during the mid-twentieth century have given form to the standard sitar made popular by musicians such as Ravi Shankar , one of the most Famous Sitar Players , and rock acts such as The Beatles looking to infuse their music with the exotic sound that eminates from the intricately crafted instrument. Beatles guitarist George Harrison learned to play the sitar with help from Ravi Shankar, and it is featured in Beatles songs such as 'Norwegian Wood', 'Love You Too', and 'Within You Without You'. The sitar also made its way into 1960's pop culture when Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones famously played it as an accompaniment to Keith Richard's guitar in their hit 'Paint It, Black'. Although there are different Types of Sitars , the construction of a quality sitar is a complex process. These instruments are often crafted by sitar 'makers' or 'fitters'.

The neck, faceplate, and gourd (the main resonating chamber) of the finely-crafted sitar are typically constructed of a combination of mahogany and teak wood, which is known as toon wood, and its bridges are made from various materials such as deer horn, ebony, or even camel bone, although synthetic materials are also used, often to lesser effect. Expert sitar builders string the instrument with a bridge through jawari (the process of optimizing the sitar's tonal quality), and then let the instrument sit for a week or so to allow the neck to bend slightly. This is done so it settles in before the sympathetic peg holes are drilled, which ensures that the fret setting is correct. Proper selection of wood and other materials, as well as many years of knowledge, patience, and craftsmanship that have been passed on from generation to generation of sitar builders, is said to be necessary to build a quality sitar. However, even this instrument, the sound and appearance of which often brings to mind far-off lands, is not without contemporary touches, perhaps best demonstrated with the advent of the Electric Sitar . Simply put, the sitar is as unique and fascinating an instrument as the music it creates.

A Sitar Player On The Unique Instrument Shankar Made Famous : NPR A Sitar Player On The Unique Instrument Shankar Made Famous Embed Embed A Sitar Player On The Unique Instrument Shankar Made Famous A Sitar Player On The Unique Instrument Shankar Made Famous Embed Embed Email December 12, 20121:00 PM ET Sitar player Ravi Shankar died Tuesday at the age of 92. Brian Q. Silver, a sitar player with over 40 years of experience, talks about playing the unique instrument and how Shankar popularized the Indian musical style. NEAL CONAN, HOST: As you probably heard by now, the great sitar player Ravi Shankar died yesterday at the age of 92. His music arrived in most American ears thanks to George Harrison and the Beatles, whose interest triggered something of a sitar craze back in the late '60s. Harrison played the exotic instrument on a couple of tracks. The Rolling Stones followed suit on "Paint It Black." The electric sitar soon followed. But Ravi Shankar remained the unchallenged master. But what do I know? He's the only Indian-born sitar player I ever heard.

So let's hear from the sitar players in the audience. What made Ravi Shankar so good? And is the sitar really as hard to play as it looks? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. BRIAN SILVER is a sitar player of over 40 years, and he is here with us in Studio 3A. And well, as we begin our conversation, let's hear the beginning of Shankar's "Raga Jog." (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "RAGA JOG") CONAN: Brian Silver, as we listen to that, what is he doing that makes him so special? BRIAN SILVER: Well, first of all, he is playing the sitar, which is a wonderfully expressive and challenging instrument.

This particular recording is very meaningful to me because this was a recording that tilted my universe by about five degrees when I first heard it, checked out from the Denver Public Library in the late '50s, and sent me on my way to India. So what he is doing is playing the sitar. It is an instrument, unlike the Western string instruments, which usually play up and down the neck only; you can play up to five notes pulling the string to the side. So he's playing both notes with a special sound of the sitar up and down the frets, but he's also pulling the string to the side, which gives that fluid ornament. CONAN: Bending the note as some blues guitarists... SILVER: Exactly, and bending it up to five pitches or tones. CONAN: And what makes him especially good compared to other sitar players? SILVER: Well, the wonderful thing is there are many great sitar players. I have to go back to my origins in the 20th century. And he was one of a number of major sitar players, but he had a unique capability to engage his audience and to be what we like to think of as a musical ambassador.

And so he would talk about the music and make it very dramatic, which would draw the audiences in. CONAN: So he had great charisma as well as great technique? SILVER: Absolutely. CONAN: The instrument itself, is it really that hard to play? SILVER: Yes. (LAUGHTER) SILVER: I mean it's easy to play simply. It's very difficult to play in a complex way. What, as I say, distinguishes it from the Western instruments is you play almost all of your notes in the upper two octaves on one string. CONAN: Really? SILVER: And so you have to go up from the left to the right rather than going across the fret board. CONAN: I have the advantage of being able to see you here in the studio. When you say going up, you're going way out with your left hand. SILVER: Right. Right.

So I mean in the style of sitar that I play, and there was another tradition - the late-great Ustad Vilayat Khan, who had just four notes below the main playing string; he played almost all the notes on that main playing string, from a fourth to a double octave fourth and the other three notes below. (Unintelligible) Ravi Shankar had an octave below, so he had two more strings to play another octave on. CONAN: And we think of - the guitar, of course, has six strings. As I understand it, the sitar has six main strings but then all those resonating strings underneath. SILVER: Well, in Pandit Ravi Shankar's style, there were four main playing strings and 11, 12, 13 - I'm not certain what he had on his sitar - sympathetic strings, plus four more drone - three more drone strings. So you have the drone strings, which you keep the tonic going and then you play the melody on the, you know, two or the four strings. CONAN: Let's hear that music again and tell us what you're talking about, the tonic. What are we hearing there?

SILVER: The tonic is the dough. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SILVER: That's the tonic right there if I'm singing badly. Seventh tonic. Then he hit the drum strings. You heard in the background there. Then he goes up to the third. And you hear it varying. CONAN: And is this something that's written down? Is he's playing off sheet music? SILVER: No, no. The exciting thing and the terrifying thing about this music is you don't have music to play from. You sit down to play. And whatever you play comes from your education and from your heart. CONAN: So it's an improvisation every single time. SILVER: It's improvisation. I like to use the analogy like a game of chess. Every raga - and there are hundreds of different ragas - has its own set of rules. And you have to follow the ascending or the descending patterns, the emphasized notes, the notes you don't hit, the notes you hit, in some cases, crookedly. But you have to follow the rules. But in that limitation, you're intimately free. CONAN: And we think of, you know, classical music.

These are long pieces, correct? SILVER: Well, they - in the old days when they had the gramophone come to India, you had three-minute ragas. (LAUGHTER) SILVER: Some of which are masterpieces because the masters could put all they had into those three minutes. The longest raga I've ever heard was about two and a half hours. CONAN: Let's get some callers in on the conversation. We want to hear from sitar players: What made Ravi Shankar so good, and how hard is that instrument to play after all? 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. Lawrence(ph) is calling us from Charlotte. LAWRENCE: Yeah. Hey, thanks for taking my call. I actually had the opportunity to hear Ravi Shankar early on in the '60s and then again just the last couple years. And it did - he didn't change a bit. In fact, he got better over the years in comparison with Andres Segovia, whom I also saw early on and then later, who was starting to kind of lose his chops.

CONAN: The great guitar player, of course, the Spanish guitar player. LAWRENCE: Of course. But I didn't play sitar. After I saw him the last time, I bought a sitar from his technician of the years who lives here in Charlotte. And playing the sitar itself is easy. The hard part is, as the commentator said, was mastering the scales. And there are 72 different scales. And then, you know, variants and the grace notes and that kind of stuff. So it's a pleasure to play and improvise on, but learning the rhythms and the scales are somewhat difficult. CONAN: Well, Lawrence, you tend to keep at it? LAWRENCE: Oh, absolutely. I just bought a set of tablas, too, so I'm going to keep working in trying to, you know, master at least one raga in the rest of my life. So - but it's a great music. He has done a tremendous job. And his daughter Anoushka is really fantastic as well. CONAN: Thanks very much for the phone call. Appreciate it. LAWRENCE: Thank you.

CONAN: And we'll skip his evaluation of Andres Segovia. But Ravi Shankar, was he playing as well at the end as he was all those years ago? SILVER: Well, since it's in the evolving music, of course, as he got older - all musicians, as they get older, sacrifice some technique for expression. Interestingly enough, in Charlotte, I think I know his sitar technician, Tony - a friend of ours. But he kept playing, which was the courage of it. I mean, some people retire. But he chose to keep playing. He, in the end, played a modified sitar, which suited his physical capabilities. CONAN: So is it a young man's game? SILVER: It's a lifetime game. CONAN: Like tennis, I suspect. You may not be able to play the same game that you did when you were 20 but you can play very well. SILVER: Right. Because it's improvised you - every time you play, it's a different experience. CONAN: Did you meet Ravi Shankar? SILVER: Oh, many times, yeah. CONAN: And what kind of man was he?

SILVER: Well, charismatic, sense of humor and energetic. And he was so in love with the music, which is, I think, part of the reason that this music became more popular than any other non-Western form of classical music. Now, Indonesian music is around, Chinese music is around, Japanese music is around, but the sitar and the ragas of Indian music really took the country by storm in the late '60s, thanks, to some extent, to George Harrison and The Beatles. CONAN: Now, here's an email from Max(ph) in Kansas - in Cincinnati: I had the great privilege of learning under the indirect tutelage of a sitar player, Shahid Parvez Khan, considerably praised around the world. I learned for a few months at an Indian classical music academy and can say it certainly is a difficult instrument to play. It takes constant daily dedication. My practice almost solely consisted of playing what in the West would be a major-scale, up-and-down called sargam. Even for those, who had been students for years, we're still working on playing the simple scale for considerable chunks of time each day just to gain more speed and produce a clearer sound.

I still have my sitar, and though I no longer play it, my brief time learning it was special and a profound experience I'll never forget. SILVER: Well, he mentioned Shahid Parvez, who's a superb master of the sitar, one of the great living sitar players right now. And again, it is a challenge to try to master things. By the way, I do have to thank my first full-time student, David Whetstone in Minnesota, for getting me on this show. And he... CONAN: We're reaching out to find the sitar player best to talk about Ravi Shankar and an indirect route to you. SILVER: Exactly. It bounces back to Washington. But yes. And then I had the opportunity to interview him a couple of times and was always an exciting and delightful man to meet. CONAN: Let's see if we'd get another caller in. This is Joe(ph). Joe is on the line from Cincinnati. JOE: Hi there. Great show. I love it. CONAN: Thank you. JOE: I'm just wondering what kind of strings they use on the sitar. I play a guitar myself.

Does he have nylon strings, plain strings, they use gut strings? CONAN: What kind of string is on a sitar? SILVER: That's a wonderful, precise question. Basically, the closest thing I can say is harpsichord wire or piano wire. When they played the sitar - even though it's allegedly several hundred years old, as far as I could tell, it's not more than 150 years old, and every sitar I've seen uses steel strings. If you're playing a deep - the deepest bass string that Ravi Shankar played - I'm not certain because I don't play that style - might have been a wound string. But otherwise, it's piano wire. It's 11 thousandths, 10 thousandths, 12 thousandths and brass wire for the lower string or lower strings. JOE: Great. Thank you. CONAN: Thanks for the call, Joe. And we were hearing about a technician. Do you need a technician to maintain your sitar? SILVER: Well, yes. I mean, when I first learned, starting back in 1964, a year before George Harrison, I must say...

(LAUGHTER) SILVER: ...when I came back, I had to maintain the instrument myself and I learned by watching the craftsman. It's mainly filing the bridge. The distinctive sound of a sitar is the twang, or as one of my students once said, sort of the dental drill effect. And that's because the string comes off the bridge at an angle as opposed to a guitar bridge where it's a straight string on the bridge which gives it that distinctive high-overtone sound. Well, you have to file the bridge so that on every note on the 22 frets or the notes pulled to the side has to have basically the same sound quality. So you have to file that yourself. But you get old and you get a little lazy and if Tony Karasek is down there in North Carolina and comes to Washington and can do - redo the bridge for you, we appreciate that. CONAN: And obviously the accompanying instrument most often associated with the sitar is tabla, a kind of drum. Exactly. The tabla is a pair of drums.

I mean, we're sitting here in a studio where nobody can see, but the right-hand drum, very uniquely, is tuned to the tonic that either the vocalists is singing or the instrument is - instrumentalist is playing, and the left-hand drum is kind of loose and by a variance of boom, boom. The heel of the left hand, unless you're a left-handed player... Left-handed player, yes. SILVER: ...gives a different pitch, and a deep bass effect. And that is the common accompanying instrument for the sitar. CONAN: We're talking with sitar player Brian Q. Silver about the great Ravi Shankar who died yesterday. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And we were listening earlier to parts of Shankar's "Raga Jog." Let's go back.. SILVER: They pronounce it "Raga Jog." CONAN: Jog, oh... SILVER: It's spelled jog, but it's pronounced jog. CONAN: Jog. Well, thank you for correcting me. This I wanted to play because I think we're going to get some rhythmic changes here. Tell us what's going on.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RAGA JOG") SILVER: Right now, actually, he's still playing solo sitar, but he's playing a section called jala, where you hit the melodic strings in fast interaction with the upper-drawn strings. So the - technically, we call it ching-ching so you hear this. Now, those are the sympathetic strings which he just played with his little finger of his right hand. Now he's getting into the rhythmic composition known as the gut. And since the tabla player has been sitting there very patiently for a long time, he does a fancy solo. And coming down to the first beat: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 1. And I changed the pitch there because on those four beats, the left-hand drum isn't played. CONAN: Let's listen. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RAGA JOG") SILVER: Eleven, 12, 13...

CONAN: And forgive me, that sounds like a little jazz rift there. SILVER: ...14, 15, 16, 1. Again, it's improvised. The comparison with jazz is apt in some ways because it is improvised. As jazz, in different styles, is governed by certain harmonic rules, in Indian music, the improvisation is governed by rules of scale and as you heard of rhythm. CONAN: You mentioned another sitar player. Who right now would be in Ravi Shankar's class? SILVER: That's a rough question. Who's the best cellist in the world? I mean, there are many, many fine musicians. Of the senior musicians (unintelligible), who happens to be my wife's teacher but is one of the senior sitarists, is there. Shahid Parvez is fantastic. He is extraordinary. There are a number of fine sitarists, and I could go on and on. CONAN: Well, Brian Q. Silver, thank you so much for lending us your expertise today.

SILVER: Well, I'm very honored to say whatever I can in praise of the late Ravi Shankar, who was the man who basically established world music. CONAN: Brian Q. Silver has played sitar for more than 40 years. He joined us here in Studio 3A. Tomorrow, we'll talk about the ongoing drought and shallow waters on the Mississippi. Join us for that. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Ravi Shankar, Who Brought Sitar Music to the West, Dies - The New York Times The New York Times Music |Ravi Shankar, Sitarist Who Introduced Indian Music to the West, Dies at 92 Search Photo George Harrison with Ravi Shankar in 1967. Credit Associated Press Ravi Shankar , the sitar virtuoso and composer who died on Tuesday at 92, created a passion among Western audiences for the rhythmically vital, melodically flowing ragas of classical Indian music — a fascination that had expanded by the mid-1970s into a flourishing market for world music of all kinds. In particular, his work with two young semi-apprentices in the 1960s — George Harrison of the Beatles and the composer Philip Glass, a founder of Minimalism — was profoundly influential on both popular and classical music. And his interactions throughout his career with performers from various Asian and Western traditions — including the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, the flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and the saxophonist and composer John Coltrane — created hybrids that opened listeners’ ears to timbres, rhythms and tuning systems that were entirely new to them. Mr.

Shankar died in San Diego, at a hospital near his home. He had been treated for upper-respiratory and heart ailments in the last year and underwent heart-valve replacement surgery last Thursday, his family said. His final performance was a concert with his daughter, the virtuoso sitarist Anoushka Shankar, on Nov. 4 in Long Beach, Calif. He was also the father of the singer Norah Jones. Continue reading the main story Mr. Shankar, a soft-spoken, eloquent man whose own virtuosity transcended musical languages, was trained in both Eastern and Western musical traditions. Although Western audiences were often mystified by the odd sounds and shapes of the instruments when he began touring in Europe and the United States in the early 1950s, Mr. Shankar and his ensemble gradually built a large following for Indian music. Advertisement Continue reading the main story A Beatle Was Intrigued Western interest in his instrument, the sitar, exploded in 1965 when Harrison encountered one on the set of “Help!,” the Beatles’ second film.

Harrison was intrigued by the instrument, with its small rounded body, long neck and resonating gourd at the top, and its complexity: it has 6 or 7 melody strings and about twice as many sympathetic strings, which are not played but which resonate freely as the other strings are plucked. He soon learned its rudiments and used it that year on a Beatles recording, “Norwegian Wood.” The Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Byrds and other rock groups followed suit, although few went as far as Harrison, who recorded several songs on Beatles albums with Indian musicians rather than with his band mates. By the summer of 1967 the sitar was in vogue. At first Mr. Shankar reveled in the attention his connection with popular culture had brought him, and he performed for huge audiences at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 and at Woodstock in 1969. He also performed, with the tabla virtuoso Alla Rakha and the sarod player Ali Akbar Khan , at an all-star concert at Madison Square Garden in 1971 that Harrison had organized to help Mr. Shankar raise money for victims of political upheaval in Bangladesh.

But his reach went much further. He composed for films (including the score for Richard Attenborough’s “Gandhi” in 1982), ballets, electronic works and concertos for sitar and Western orchestras. As his popularity spread, societies for the presentation of Indian and other traditional music began springing up — the largest one in New York is the World Music Institute — and a thriving world music industry was soon born. Last week Mr. Shankar was told he would receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in February, said Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. Though linked with the early rock era by many Americans, Mr. Shankar came to regard his participation in rock festivals as a mistake, saying he deplored the use of his music, with its roots in an ancient spiritual tradition, as a backdrop for drug use. “On one hand,” he said in a 1985 interview, “I was lucky to have been there at a time when society was changing. And although much of the hippie movement seemed superficial, there was also a lot of sincerity in it, and a tremendous amount of energy.

What disturbed me, though, was the use of drugs and the mixing of drugs with our music. And I was hurt by the idea that our classical music was treated as a fad — something that is very common in Western countries. “People would come to my concerts stoned, and they would sit in the audience drinking Coke and making out with their girlfriends. I found it very humiliating, and there were many times I picked up my sitar and walked away. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “I tried to make the young people sit properly and listen. I assured them that if they wanted to be high, I could make them feel high through the music, without drugs, if they’d only give me a chance. It was a terrible experience at the time. Photo Ravi Shankar, center, played during the Concert for Bangladesh in Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1971. Credit Donal F. Holway/The New York Times “But you know, many of those young people still come to our concerts. They have matured, they are free from drugs and they have a better attitude. And this makes me happy that I went through all that.

I have come full circle.” Ravi Shankar, whose formal name was Robindra Shankar Chowdhury, was born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, India, to a family of musicians and dancers. His older brother Uday directed a touring Indian dance troupe , which Ravi joined when he was 10. Within five years he had become one of the company’s star soloists. He also discovered that he had a facility with the sitar and the sarod, another stringed instrument, as well as the flute and the tabla, an Indian drum. The idea of helping Western listeners appreciate the intricacies of Indian music occurred to him during his years as a dancer. “My brother had a house in Paris,” he recalled in one interview. “To it came many Western classical musicians. These musicians all made the same point: ‘Indian music,’ they said, ‘is beautiful when we hear it with the dancers. On its own it is repetitious and monotonous.’ They talked as if Indian music were an ethnic phenomenon, just another museum piece. Even when they were being decent and kind, I was furious. And at the same time sorry for them.

Indian music was so rich and varied and deep. These people hadn’t penetrated even the outer skin.” Mr. Shankar soon found, however, that as a young, self-taught musician he had not penetrated very deeply either. In 1936 an Indian court musician, Allaudin Khan, joined the company for a year and set Mr. Shankar on a different path. ‘I Surrendered Myself’ “He was the first person frank enough to tell me that I had talent but that I was wasting it — that I was going nowhere, doing nothing,” Mr. Shankar said. “Everyone else was full of praise, but he killed my ego and made me humble.” When Mr. Shankar asked Mr. Khan to teach him, he was told that he could learn to play the sitar only after he decided to give up the worldly life he was leading and devote himself fully to his studies. In 1937 Mr. Shankar gave up dancing, sold his Western clothes and returned to India to become a musician.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story “I surrendered myself to the old way,” he said, “and let me tell you, it was difficult for me to go from places like New York and Chicago to a remote village full of mosquitoes, bedbugs, lizards and snakes, with frogs croaking all night. I was just like a Western young man. But I overcame all that.” After studying with Mr. Khan and marrying his daughter, Annapurna, also a sitarist, Mr. Shankar began his performing career in India. In the 1940s he started bringing Eastern and Western currents together in ballet scores and incidental music for films, including Satyajit Ray’s “Apu” trilogy, in the late 1950s. In 1949 he was appointed music director of All India Radio. There he formed the National Orchestra, an ensemble of Indian and Western classical instruments. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy Mr. Shankar became increasingly interested in touring outside India in the early 1950s.

His appetite was whetted further when he undertook a tour of the Soviet Union in 1954 and was invited to perform in London and New York. But it wasn’t until 1956 that he began spending long periods outside India. That year he left his position at All India Radio and toured Europe and the United States. Through his recitals and his recordings on the Columbia, EMI and World Pacific labels, Mr. Shankar built a Western following for the sitar. In 1952 he began performing with Menuhin, with whom he made three recordings for EMI: “West Meets East” (1967), “West Meets East, Vol. 2” (1968) and “Improvisations: West Meets East” (1977). He also made recordings with Rampal. Coltrane had become fascinated with Indian music and philosophy in the early 1960s and met with Mr. Shankar several times from 1964 to 1966 to learn the basics of ragas, talas and Indian improvisation techniques.

Sitar performances are partly improvised, but the improvisations are strictly governed by a repertory of ragas (melodic patterns representing specific moods, times of day, seasons or events) and talas (intricate rhythmic patterns) that date back several millenniums. Coltrane named his son Ravi Coltrane, also a saxophonist, after Mr. Shankar. Mr. Shankar loved to mix the music of different cultures. In 1978 he collaborated with several prominent Japanese musicians — Hozan Yamamoto, a shakuhachi player, and Susumu Miyashita, a koto player — on “East Greets East.” In 1988 his seven-movement “Swar Milan” was performed at the Palace of Culture in Moscow by an ensemble of 140 musicians, including the Russian Folk Ensemble, members of the Moscow Philharmonic and the Ministry of Culture Chorus, as well as Mr. Shankar’s group of Indian musicians. And in 1990 he collaborated with Mr.

Glass — who had worked as his assistant on the film score for “Chappaqua” in the late 1960s — on “Passages,” a recording of works he and Mr. Glass composed for each other. “I have always had an instinct for doing new things,” Mr. Shankar said in 1985. “Call it good or bad, I love to experiment.” Photo Mr. Shankar in New Delhi in January 2012. Credit Manish Swarup/Associated Press Though many listeners became familiar with Mr. Shankar mainly through his cross-cultural, style-blending experiments, his film scores and his concertos, his main love remained the ancient Northern Indian Hindustani style in which he was trained as a young man. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Throughout his career he toured the world with a variation on the traditional Indian ensemble: himself as the sitar soloist, backed by a pair of tamburas — string instruments that provide a backing drone — and tabla, a sublimely tactile percussion instrument that produces rounded, subtly bending pitches. Often his tabla player was Alla Rakha, who became a renowned soloist in his own right. At times, Mr.

Shankar also shared the spotlight with Ali Akbar Khan, a master of the sarod, another Indian stringed instrument. These concerts, including an annual performance at Carnegie Hall, adhered to traditional forms, in which the musicians would improvise on a raga, often ecstatically, for about an hour per piece. A Lasting Friendship Western listeners who were sensitive to the techniques that Mr. Shankar and his musicians were using to expand on the ragas found the music entrancing and Mr. Shankar’s inventiveness and dexterity startling. Many sought out the music of other sitar, sarod and tabla soloists, as well as Indian vocalists, and branched out to other forms of world music, from China, Japan, Indonesia and eventually African and Latin American countries. Mr. Shankar maintained his friendship and working relationship with Harrison, who released a recording of a 1972 performance by Mr. Shankar on the Beatles’ Apple label. In 1974 Harrison also produced a recording on his own Dark Horse label by a group billed as Shankar Family and Friends performing in a more popular style — short, bright-edged songs with vocals, rather than expansive instrumental improvisations.

The “friends” included Harrison, listed in the credits as Hari Georgeson, as well as the bassist Klaus Voormann, the pianist Nicky Hopkins, the organist Billy Preston and the flutist Tom Scott. Mr. Shankar toured the United States with Harrison the same year. They last worked together in 1997, when Harrison produced Mr. Shankar’s “Chants of India” CD for EMI. After Harrison’s death in 2001, Mr. Shankar contributed a new composition to the “Concert for George,” a starry celebration of Harrison’s music staged at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2002. The new piece, “Arpan,” was performed by an ensemble of Indian and Western musicians led by Anoushka Shankar. Protecting the Heritage Mr. Shankar continued to be regarded in the West as the most eloquent spokesman for his country’s music. But his popularity abroad and his experiments with Western musical sounds and styles drew criticism among traditionalists in India. “In India I have been called a destroyer,” he said in 1981. “But that is only because they mixed my identity as a performer and as a composer.

As a composer I have tried everything, even electronic music and avant-garde. But as a performer I am, believe me, getting more classical and more orthodox, jealously protecting the heritage that I have learned.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Shankar was a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, from 1986 to 1992 — one of 12 “nominated members” chosen by the president for their contributions to Indian culture. Mr. Shankar taught extensively in the United States and founded a school of Indian music, the Kinnara School, in Los Angeles. He was a visiting professor at City College in New York in 1967. Recordings of his lectures there were the basis for “Learning Indian Music,” a set of cassettes. Mr. Shankar was the subject of a documentary, “Raga: A Film Journey Into the Soul of India,” in 1971, and published two autobiographies: “My Music, My Life” in 1969 and “Raga Mala” in 1997.

In 2010 the Ravi Shankar Foundation started a record label, East Meets West Music, which began by reissuing some of his historic recordings and films, including “Raga.” Mr. Shankar’s first marriage, to Annapurna Devi, ended in the late 1960s. They had a son, Shubhendra Shankar, who died in 1992. He also had long relationships with Kamala Shastri, a dancer; Sue Jones, a concert producer, with whom he had a daughter, Ms. Jones, in 1979; as well as Sukanya Rajan, whom he married in 1989. Ms. Shankar, the sitar virtuoso, is their daughter, born in 1981. He is survived by his wife and two daughters, as well as three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. “If I’ve accomplished anything in these past 30 years,” Mr. Shankar said in the 1985 interview, “it’s that I have been able to open the door to our music in the West.

I enjoy seeing other Indian musicians — old and young — coming to Europe and America and having some success. I’m happy to have contributed to that. “Of course now there is a whole new generation out there, so we have to start all over again. To a degree their interest in India has been kindled by ‘Gandhi,’ ‘Passage to India’ and ‘The Jewel in the Crown,’ ” he added, referring to popular Western films and TV shows. “What we have to do now is convey to them an awareness of the richness and diversity of our culture.” Correction: December 29, 2012 An obituary on Dec. 13 about the sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar misstated the number of strings on a sitar. Sitars have either six or seven melody strings, and the number of sympathetic strings varies but is usually between 11 and 13; they do not have six melody strings and 25 sympathetic strings. A version of this article appears in print on December 13, 2012, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Wooed World With His Sitar.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Top 10 Sitar Songs Top 10 Sitar Songs REDDIT Express Newspapers, Hulton Archive, Getty Images Our list of the Top 10 Sitar Songs includes only the real thing — the massive, multi-stringed instrument from India that fascinated a segment of adventurous rockers during the ’60s. So no electric sitars (like the one heard in Steely Dan ‘s ‘Do It Again’) or other instruments configured to sound like sitars (sorry, Tom Petty ‘s ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’). The instrument came to prominence after George Harrison introduced Western ears to it on several mid-’60s Beatles songs. Its popularity even made sitar master Ravi Shankar a star for a brief period. Not so surprisingly, most of the songs on our list originated during the psychedelic era. 10 From: ‘Tomorrow’ (1968) Before Steve Howe joined Yes , he was a member of the little-known U.K.-based psychedelic group Tomorrow, which released a pair of albums at the end of the ’60s.

(They’re probably best known as the band that recorded John Peel’s first BBC radio session in 1967.) ‘Real Life Permanent Dream’ is filled with period flourishes, including a pretty prominent sitar, played by Howe, who would occasionally drag out the instrument for his solo projects over the years. From: ‘Madman Across the Water’ (1971) For the most part, Elton John has stayed away from period trappings in his music (the less said about his disco years the better). ‘Holiday Inn,’ from his fourth album ‘Madman Across the Water,’ details the boredom of touring over an acoustic-based rhythm featuring mandolin, piano and a string section. The sparingly used and tasteful sitar is buried so deep, you hardly notice it — part of John’s timeless appeal. From: ‘Cloud Nine’ (1987) If anyone could get away with putting a sitar on a song in 1987, it was George Harrison, who capped his nostalgic look at the Beatles, ‘When We Was Fab,’ with a bit of the instrument.

The song’s winking, affectionate tone drops references to several of the group’s classics, but it’s the sitar’s ringing appearance at song’s end that adds just the right amount of spice. From: Single (1966) The Cyrkle were best known for their 1966 debut single, ‘Red Rubber Ball,’ a No. 2 hit co-written by Paul Simon . Managed by the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, the group scored only one more Top 40 hit: ‘Turn-Down Day,’ which climbed into the Top 20. The cheery pop melody is driven by various instruments, including, right there in the intro and carried all the through to the end, a sitar. From: ‘Revolver’ (1966) ‘Norwegian Wood’ (see elsewhere on our list of the Top 10 Sitar Songs) was first and is better known, but ‘Love You To,’ from the Beatles’ masterwork ‘Revolver,’ features George Harrison’s most extensive, and adventurous, use of the instrument. And it’s not just sitar that races throughout the song; the tabla and tambura, two other Indian instruments, also make prominent appearances.

From: Single (1967) Traffic’s debut single sounds little like anything else in the band’s catalog. Steered by a stinging sitar played by Dave Mason, ‘Paper Sun’ is far from the pastoral, folksy songs Traffic would play for a sizable chunk of their career. One similarity: Steve Winwood ‘s vocal, somewhere between Traffic’s rootsy prog and the R&B he sang with the Spencer Davis Group. ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)’ Scott McKenzie From: ‘The Voice of Scott McKenzie’ (1967) Few songs symbolize the Summer of Love more perfectly than Scott McKenzie’s Top 5 hit from that year, ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair).’ In addition to all the hippie speak going on, the song includes a sitar weaving in and out of the mix. You don’t get more 1967 than that. McKenzie reached the Top 40 only one more time as a solo artist, but he did co-write the Beach Boys ‘ 1988 No. 1 ‘Kokomo.’ From: Single (1968) Donovan was never shy about flying his freak flag.

But he hoists it higher than ever on the 1968 single ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man.’ Loaded with quavering vocals, a dreamlike rhythm and sitar and tambura accents, it sounds like a trip across the globe (or your head, take your pick). Future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones arranged ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’ and plays bass on it. For years, rumors persisted that Jones’ future bandmate Jimmy Page also plays on the track, but nobody remember it that way now. Surprise. From: ‘Aftermath’ (1966) In the first part of the Rolling Stones ‘ career, Brian Jones was the catalyst behind most of their most musically adventurous ideas. One of his greatest is the opening riff, and the driving rhythm, that fuels ‘Paint It, Black,’ the first No. 1 song to feature the sitar. Jones would use exotic instruments on other Stones’ songs , but this was his showcase. ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’ The Beatles From: ‘Rubber Soul’ (1965) The song that introduced Western ears to the sitar is also the finest to feature the instrument in such a prominent role.

John Lennon ‘s confessional ‘Rubber Soul’ track (which he wrote to disguise an affair from his wife) was already a pretty significant step in the Beatles’ songwriting. George Harrison’s sitar riff, which steers the whole thing, made it an ear-opening instant classic. Top 100 Classic Rock Songs Welcome back to Ultimate Classic Rock It appears that you already have an account created within our VIP network of sites on . To keep your personal information safe, we need to verify that it's really you. To activate your account, please confirm your password. When you have confirmed your password, you will be able to log in through Facebook on both sites. Enter your password YES, Activate My Account Now! Welcome back to Ultimate Classic Rock It appears that you already have an account on this site associated with . To connect your existing account just click on the account activation button below. You will maintain your existing VIP profile. After you do this, you will be able to always log in to using your original account information. Sitar - classical Indian instrument, sitar description, tuning and adjustments of sitar | Sitar.net Sitemap What is a Sitar?

Although the sitar easily resembles a guitar from another galaxy, it is actually a part of the lute family of stringed instruments. The sitar is a classical Indian instrument that has a long, broad, fretted neck and a gourd-shaped body. The sitar has 7 strings, 11-13 sympathetic (resonating) strings and 20 frets. Melodies, rather than chords, are played on two strings; the other strings are drones tuned to the main chord of the "raga" or rag. Although some notes are played, the corresponding sympathetic strings react to and sound along with it. This creates what could best be described as a "natural reverb" or buzz. Listen to an Indian Raga . This reverb sound is one of the key characteristics that encapsulate the sound of sitar music. This "buzz" is produced by the bridge, which is typically made of bone or animal horn and filed to an angle that will allow the sitar player to coax out that bright, reverberating buzz. The sitar's signature sound is produced by the string vibrating on a flat bridge with a gently curved surface.

This sound is known as jawari, which refers to the maintenance, which requires great skill, required to properly shape the bridge. Jawari translates to "glimmering" or "jewel-like". How much of the string rests on the bridge, and how steep the curves in the back and front of that contact area are all affect how much buzz is emitted and how clear the sound is. A key feature of the sitar is its curved, movable frets, which allow for a wide variation of tuning; they are also raised so that the 11-16 tarbs, or sympathetic strings, can run under the frets. Among its 20-odd strings are 6 or 7 playable strings which are situated over the frets. The Kharaj-Pancham , used by Ravi Shankar , has 7 playable strings.

(The difference between the 6 and 7 string styles is that the latter has two extra bass strings, low pa and low sa, which give them an extra bass octave).Four of these strings, called the chikari, provide the "drone" while the remaining strings are used to play the melody, though most of the notes of the melody are played on the baj tar, or first string. The sitar also has two bridges. The bada goraj, or main bridge, is used for the playing and drone strings and a chota goraj, or secondary bridge, is for the sympathetic strings that run beneath the main strings. The best bridges are usually made of horn- typically deer antler. With a sitar, as the string reverberates, its length changes slightly as its edge touches the bridge, which creates overtones and lends it a distinct, rich tone. Proper adjustment of the jawari promotes this fullness of sound. The "pick", called a mazrab, is used by the player's dominant hand to pluck the sitar.

The thumb of the playing hand should be positioned on the top of the fret board just above the main gourd, and the sitar itself should be balanced between the player's left foot and right knee, allowing the hands to move freely and not support the weight of the sitar. Most quality-made sitars are constructed from a combination of teak and mahogany wood called toon wood. Teak is a rare wood, so a sitar built of one often has an air of mystique about it, and it also suggests that the sitar is old, as they are expected to last 30-40 years. Also, because the sitar is under a lot of tension from the strings, it will eventually start to bend, throw the frets off, and generally become harder to play. Even the best made sitars are prone to this, and will eventually require the neck to be replaced. The Beatles and India | The Beatles Bible The Beatles and India 1 2 3 4 Next The music and philosophy of India had a key effect on The Beatles' music, particularly between 1965 and 1968. They tentatively began using traditional Indian instruments in 1965.

Between 1966 and 1968 the group wrote three songs written by George Harrison in the Indian style. The Beatles' exposure to Indian music occurred while they were making Help!, their second film. We were waiting to shoot the scene in the restaurant when the guy gets thrown in the soup and there were a few Indian musicians playing in the background. I remember picking up the sitar and trying to hold it and thinking, 'This is a funny sound.' It was an incidental thing, but somewhere down the line I began to hear Ravi Shankar's name. The third time I heard it, I thought, 'This is an odd coincidence.' And then I talked with David Crosby of The Byrds and he mentioned the name. I went and bought a Ravi record; I put it on and it hit a certain spot in me that I can't explain, but it seemed very familiar to me. The only way I could describe it was: my intellect didn't know what was going on and yet this other part of me identified with it. It just called on me ...

a few months elapsed and then I met this guy from the Asian Music Circle organisation who said, 'Oh, Ravi Shankar's gonna come to my house for dinner. Do you want to come too?' George Harrison Billboard, December 1992 On 5 and 6 April 1965 they shot the 'Rajahama' Indian restaurant scenes at Twickenham Film Studios. The first time that we were aware of anything Indian was when we were making Help!. There was an odd thing about an Indian and that Eastern sect that had the ring and the sacrifice; and on the set in one place they had sitars and things - they were the Indian band playing in the background, and George was looking at them. We recorded that bit in London, in a restaurant. And then we were in the Bahamas filming a section and a little yogi runs over to us. We didn't know what they were in those days, and this little Indian guy comes legging over and gives us a book each, signed to us, on yoga. We didn't look at it, we just stuck it along with all the other things people would give us. Then, about two years later, George had started getting into hatha yoga.

He'd got involved in Indian music from looking at the instruments in the set. All from that crazy movie. Years later he met this yogi who gave us each that book; I've forgotten what his name was because they all have that 'Baram Baram Badoolabam', and all that jazz. All of the Indian involvement came out of the film Help!. John Lennon , 1972 Anthology George Harrison first played a sitar on the Rubber Soul song Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) , recorded in October 1965. I went and bought a sitar from a little shop at the top of Oxford Street called Indiacraft - it stocked little carvings, and incense. It was a real crummy-quality one, actually, but I bought it and mucked about with it a bit. Anyway, we were at the point where we'd recorded the Norwegian Wood backing track and it needed something. We would usually start looking through the cupboard to see if we could come up with something, a new sound, and I picked the sitar up - it was just lying around; I hadn't really figured out what to do with it. It was quite spontaneous: I found the notes that played the lick.

It fitted and it worked. George Harrison Anthology However, Norwegian Wood wasn't the first Beatles release to feature a sitar. The North American version of the Help! album featured an instrumental, called Another Hard Day's Night; a medley of A Hard Day's Night , Can't Buy Me Love and I Should Have Known Better performed on a sitar, tablas, flute and finger cymbals. Although The Beatles didn't perform on it, Another Hard Day's Night soundtracked the film's Rajahama restaurant scene. The music was written by Ken Thorne. The US Help! album was issued in August 1965, four months prior to Rubber Soul. George Harrison recorded three songs with The Beatles which were influenced by the Indian classical style. Love You To was recorded for Revolver in 1966. The following year the second side of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band opened with Within You Without You . Harrison's Indian trilogy was completed by The Inner Light , the b-side of the Lady Madonna single. Its lyrics were based on the Taoist holy book Tao Te Ching.

The song's backing track was recorded with Indian musicians in January 1968 in Bombay, where Harrison was producing the soundtrack to the film Wonderwall. The Beatles and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi The Beatles' association with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi began on 24 August 1967 , when they attended a lecture by him at the London Hilton on Park Lane. At the end of the lecture they had a private audience with the Indian master of Transcendental Meditation. Suitably inspired, they agreed to travel the following day to Bangor, Wales, to attend a 10-day series of seminars. Their stay in north Wales was cut short following the death of Brian Epstein . A planned trip to Rishikesh, India, was also postponed while The Beatles agreed to press on with the Magical Mystery Tour film and soundtrack. John and George , plus their wives Cynthia and Pattie , arrived in Delhi on 16 February 1968 , and took the 150-mile journey by taxi to Rishikesh. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr , with Jane Asher and Maureen Starkey , arrived four days later .

John and George were going to Rishikesh with the idea that this might be some huge spiritual lift-off and they might never come back if Maharishi told them some really amazing thing. Well, being a little bit pragmatic, I thought in my own mind, I'll give it a month, then if I really really like it, I'll come back and organise to go out there for good, but I won't go on this 'I may never come back' thing, I won't burn my bridges. That's very me, to not want to do that. I just see it as being practical, and I think it is. Paul McCartney Danelectro Baby Sitar Review | Premier Guitar Danelectro Baby Sitar Review A A When the Coral electric sitar appeared in 1967, it was not outlandish to think Indian classical textures might become as common as Appalachian or African sounds and rhythms in pop and rock. “Paint It Black” and “Norwegian Wood” soared on sitar-based hooks. And The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” helped demonstrate that the fusion of raga and rock could be a quite intoxicating—and very lucrative—hit-making brew.

None of this was lost on opportunistic music producers downstream from the Beatles/Byrds/Stones axis of hip. Nor was it lost on New York session man Vinnie Bell, who suddenly faced an uptick in requests for quasi-raga guitar parts. Bell (whose exploits as a technical wiz and session ace are well-documented elsewhere) was crafty, and with the help of Danelectro (who sold guitars under the Coral brand) he developed the first electric sitar. The Coral was cool, but it was a handful—with an impossible-to-intonate “buzz bridge,” an array of 13 sympathetic strings, and three Danelectro “lipstick” pickups. It wasn’t cheap either—at least by Danelectro standards. Still, Dano saw promise in the concept and released a simpler streamlined version, sans sympathetic strings. That Danelectro sitar lives again as the Baby Sitar. At $499, it’s the most accessibly priced electric sitar we’ve seen since the originals started populating pawn shops. Raga Rock Revisited Danelectro isn’t the first to revisit the electric sitar concept. Jerry Jones built gorgeous versions of the original Coral.

More recently Italia added a Coral-influenced model to their Modena line. But neither was or is inexpensive—especially relative to the limited use most will have for the instrument. The new Baby Sitar, however, achieves affordability via the same design simplicity that put the original within reach. The slightly out-of-kilter intonation mixes with the sitar-like tonality to create ghostly, odd harmonic overtones. The key to the Baby Sitar is the Gotoh “buzz bridge.” It’s a small, subtly harp-shaped piece of plastic that’s burnished to a texture approximating bone. It has six gently scalloped “saddles” ranging from about 43 mm in length for the lowest string to about 48 mm in length for the highest string. The manner in which the strings vibrate over the bridge creates the buzzing sitar sound, not unlike a real sitar or tamboura. Enterprising tinkerers already know that the Gotoh unit can be purchased as an aftermarket item for around 100 bucks and fitted with relative ease to most Danelectro guitar reissues. But a replacement tailpiece is also required to complete the conversion.

And unless you’re working with a spare Dano or managed a second-hand score, the Baby Sitar will cost less than a conversion. The Baby Sitar has a few other design advantages over a conversion, depending on your perspective. The pickup is situated a little closer to the bridge than it would be on a conversion—which provides more trebly, sitar-like attack. The baby sitar is also incredibly compact and light, so taking it on a gig or tour for a song or two isn’t much additional hassle. Ratings danelectro.com Other design quirks are less advantageous. For starters, it’s very difficult to play without a strap. Lacking waist contours, it will slip off your leg if you try to hold it in a typical seated playing position. You’ll likely have to hold the Baby Sitar in something closer to classical guitar playing position. Ghosts in the Machine Intonation obsessives will struggle with the lack of intonation that the buzz bridge can cause. Me… I like the way the slightly out-of-kilter intonation mixes with the sitar-like tonality to create ghostly, odd harmonic overtones.

But players and recording engineers that are sticklers for near-perfect intonation may wrestle with the Baby Sitar’s intrinsic imprecision. (This quirk of the electric sitar also begs this question: How did notorious tuning and intonation freaks Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan survive tracking Skunk Baxter’s electric sitar solo for “Do It Again”?) For all its idiosyncrasies, the Baby Sitar is very well put together. The fretwork is flawless; the neck is dead straight and feels great. Even details like the glue-on binding (which was often sloppy on the early Danelectro reissues) are without flaw. Unless you’re a fearless Brian Jones-level musical adventurer, it takes a minute to get comfortable with how the Baby Sitar wreaks havoc with picking and touch dynamics that work on a 6-string. But the less-immediate way that individual notes rise and decay are the essence of the Baby Sitar sound. If you have the rhythmic precision of Skunk Baxter or Steve Howe, you can play a pretty ripping lead on the Baby Sitar. If you don’t, the Baby Sitar is no less satisfying or useful.

Lazy, languid lead lines sound fantastic—particularly with a little delay and reverb to enhance the droning qualities of the instrument. The same goes for folky, arpeggiated chord melodies. The Baby Sitar excels at doubling guitar parts in this context. One of the coolest ways to extract more sitar-like exoticism from the Baby Sitar is to use alternate tunings heavy on fifths, octaves, and doubles. Here, again, you’ll run into limitations in the Baby Sitar’s design: Slack tunings render the buzz bridge ineffective. But there are work-arounds. I used E-A-E-A-A-E for many of my sessions and found a lot of room for melodic invention amid all the droning, swirling goodness. Open E (E-B-E-G#-B-E) presents even more melodic possibilities and infuses chords and melodies with a cool blues-raga feel. The Verdict You have to be open-minded, sonically curious, and into unconventional six string expressions to get the most out of the Baby Sitar. Extracting the best sounds demands a little musical resourcefulness.

But if I may risk sounding a little like, well, a guru, this instrument will yield unexpected—and very cool—rewards if you dedicate yourself to the search. A A Gear Editor Charles Saufley is a career writer and editor from San Francisco. Before joining Premier Guitar he served as Associate Editor at Acoustic Guitar magazine (where his predecessor was esteemed PG Editor in Chief Shawn Hammond.) He became music obsessed not long after birth—thanks in no small part to older siblings who ‘babysat’ him with a set of headphones, Revolver, and Sticky Fingers. Charles still spends a lot of time listening to records. And his many git-fiddle heroes include Roger McGuinn, Pete Townshend, Tom Verlaine, Eddie Phillips, Nokie Edwards, Gabor Szabo, John Cippolina, Randy Holden, Erkin Koray, Greg Ginn, and Sonic Youth.

Question: With which country do you associate the sitar?
Answer: India