Guitar? Sitar? WTF?

jp_nyc

jp_nyc

Kick Henry Jackassowski
This is an interesting instrument rebuilt by luthier Tony Karasek, who was Ravi Shankar’s tech in the 1990s and 2000s. It started as a carbon fiber sitar and the owner wanted it converted to geared tuners. That’s a tall order since the strings on a sitar connect to pegs that go through the hollow neck and headstock. So Karasek tore it down and rebuilt it with Grover mini tuners and a Rickenbacker toaster pickup.
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I like all sorts of stringed instruments, but while I occasionally find electric sitars of the Coral/Danelectro type kind of neat, regular sitars do nothing for me.
 
I don't get people not getting sitars -- it's about the only time I can stand to listen to someone "solo" for 15 minutes. It also really sits well in the mix for rock -- Cornershop, the Black Angels, and the Brian Jonestown Massacre have made great use of them.

jp, that's a nice sitar, man.
 
Flamencology said:
I want one.
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Mine was only $760, shipped, from MusiciansMall. Although if I could do it over I would have spent $1200.

Danhedonia said:
I don't get people not getting sitars -- it's about the only time I can stand to listen to someone "solo" for 15 minutes. It also really sits well in the mix for rock -- Cornershop, the Black Angels, and the Brian Jonestown Massacre have made great use of them.
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There's lots to not understand. To start with, Indian music is tuned differently and there are no set values for notes. So to westerners it all sounds out of tune. Harmony doesn't exist in Indian classical music. Timekeeping is different and much more complex. The structure of a raag is totally different from the A/B/A structure of western songs. There are constant drones. Ornament is as important as the notes being ornamented.

Indian music is really the antithesis of our music. Ravi Shankar had to make compromises and start concerts with lectures to bring his music to the west.

I never understood when I was younger. It wasn't until I spent years studying doom metal and post rock that I was ready to grasp the sitar.

And the sitar is not easy to play. Playing while seated on the floor makes the legs go numb. Until you build a thick callus the melody string is like a cheese slicer. Knee joints can ache and spasm after playing. These things don't matter much if you grow up with it, but learning as an adult is literally masochistic.

The instruments are all handmade by people living in poverty. So most are junk and they're hard to work on. Only three reputable sellers exist outside India. And probably less than ten competent technicians. This can be frustrating to people who grew up in this glorious age of CNC made Asian guitars.
 
Great post.

"I never understood when I was younger. It wasn't until I spent years studying doom metal and post rock that I was ready to grasp the sitar."

Yeah, I'll NEVER be Mr. Doom Metal, but I sure was very present for post rock and ... well, it just made sense. More than Gastr del Sol, that's for sure.

Isn't a lot of Indian music in 7's?

And let's not forget my favorite band ever, the Spacemen 3, and their insane "Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music." If you ever really want a good read, get Wil Carruthers' book Playing the Bass With Three Left Hands. There's a wonderful synopsis of that night in there.

What do you do with your sitar? Go down to sixth street and play in a window?
 
Danhedonia said:
Isn't a lot of Indian music in 7's?
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They have seven notes in their major scale. And lots and lots of modes. There are a few dozen that get used, around 250 that have been explored, and potentially tens of thousands that nobody bothers with.

Danhedonia said:
What do you do with your sitar? Go down to sixth street and play in a window?
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I’m not living in NYC at present. So it only leaves the house for my lessons across town. It will be a long time before I play in public.
 
Oh, I was there in the late 80's when Alphabet City turned into Shabby Chic. Funny how Tompkins Square went from riots defending the homeless's right to live there in boxes, to being too upscale to permit Brownie's to stay open nearby (ok, that's a bullshit oversimplification).

When I said 7's, I was thinking of the rhythms. No? It really intrigues me.

I'm finding that I'm quite jealous of your sitar-ownership and playing.
 
Danhedonia said:
When I said 7's, I was thinking of the rhythms. No? It really intrigues me.
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Indian rhythms, taals, are cyclical. The most common for instruments is teentaal, which is four cycles of four beats. It’s kind of like 4/4 in western music. Improvisation in the music is built around taals. So you might start a precomposed bit on beat thirteen, play it, then only play the first four beats, improvise for four, then play four composed beats, and repeat variations of this. Which can get pretty complicated.

Traditionally instruments were only played in teentaal, and the others taals were for vocals. But in the last century they started playing all the other taals, and making up new ones. Some of them have weird cycles of dozens or even over a hundred beats. It’s like mathcore for grownups.Devotees in the audience will count the beats on their fingers, and very good players will move through taals with increasing complexity, calling out the number of beats to the crowd. Prateek Chaudhuri does that stuff in this video.


Danhedonia said:
I'm finding that I'm quite jealous of your sitar-ownership and playing.
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It’s fun. And once I’m set with a few good instruments I’m done buying. Which beats the hell out of my old habit of constantly buying and selling amps, pedals, etc.
 
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