Anyone Else Here Play Sitar?

I've wanted to since the 60's, but never got up there nerve to try. I love the sound of it, and love traditional Indian music.
 
Some do. Not me though.

I've always wanted a sitar to mess around on, and I've liked a lot of Indian music I've heard, but I have an outsider's interest and ear to the whole genre. I suspect that a good sitar effects pedal would satisfy 95% of my need.
 
I started playing in the mid-sixties. I, too, loved classical India raga and I worked hard to teach myself to hear the totally different ways of working with time and to think horizonatally, not vertically. (Never had formal training) I also, of course, did some original rock (http://www.60sgaragebands.com/images/Tiltons_Market_Like_the_Living_Dead_Lingering_On.mp3) and some sort of hard to describe improv, perhaps more akin to jazz than anything else, once enjoying a lengthy session with Jazz bassist Charlie Mingus.

Played on and off for some years, then, as can happen with so many things in life, I put it aside.

I am seriously thinking of getting back into it this summer.

275_Tiltons_Market_Don_with_Sitar_zps612f2cc0.jpg


-don
 
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duceditor said:
I started playing in the mid-sixties. I, too, loved classical India raga and I worked hard to teach myself to hear the totally different ways of working with time and to think horizonatally, not vertically. (Never had formal training) I also, of course, did some original rock (http://www.60sgaragebands.com/images/Tiltons_Market_Like_the_Living_Dead_Lingering_On.mp3) and some sort of hard to describe improv, perhaps more akin to jazz than anything else. (Indeed, I once enjoying a lengthy session with Jazz bassist Charlie Mingus.)

Played on and off for some years, them put it aside. I am seriously thinking of getting back into it this summer.

275_Tiltons_Market_Don_with_Sitar_zps612f2cc0.jpg


-don
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Cool photo.
 
I dig the sound and I'd like to try playing one sometime.

If I felt some sort of connection early enough, I'd likely pursue it.
 
Gary Blanchard said:
I know the feeling.:rolleyes:

My first wife destroyed all my photos so I have no record of my hippie days. :(
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And my wife, pack-rat extraordinaire, saved all mine.

Indeed, when, just over a year ago, Break-A-Way Records was in the early production stages of The Abstracts "Hey, Let's Go Now" LP, and they asked what photos might be available I was able to provide them with a veritable treasure trove -- all due to my wife's fastidious habits. Habits that I had endlessly teased her about for over 40 years.

Needless to say the teasing has stopped. :)

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-don
 
Had one for a while, about 25 years ago, but really never played real ragas, more like faux-ragas (faking it, like many folks around here knew the difference! :tongue:)...unfortunately, it was the sitar version of a Esteban or a Zager, and literally came apart one hot humid summer day. :mad: Bought it from Pier One Imports.

OTOH, I do own a Coral Electric Sitar, and while it's played as a guitar, it has drones and a buzz-bridge, so sounds "right" enough, I'm told.
 
Terry Allan Hall said:
Had one for a while, about 25 years ago, but really never played real ragas, more like faux-ragas (faking it, like many folks around here knew the difference! :tongue:)
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Terry, I would not be too surprsied if you were being unnecasarily hard on yourself.

I took the same view of my own playing. Yes, kids in Tomkin's Sq park (NYC) and the Boston Common might have been fooled, but my playing, I was sure, was a sham.

Then, in the summer of 1967, my sister visited my parent's home with a friend who was majoring in music at the University of New Delhi and who was, herself, an accomplished tablist. We sat on the lawn and played for several hours together. My dad, who hated my sitar playing ("It'd just chicken scratch!") finally could take it no longer, but himself in awe of anyone with an advanced degree, approached and asked my sister's friend "Does he actually know what he is doing?" Her answer -- "Yes! He is very good!" -- surprised me even more than my dad.

So it is altogether possible that your ear had, indeed, allowed you to play "real ragas." Not that there wasn't/isn't more -- much more - to learn. But isn't that always the case?

-don
 
Those look cool and I personally enjoy the music but would never play. I lose focus fast enough on guitar.
What do all the knobs do? How does it work?

Sent from The Nether
 
MonkeyZero said:
Those look cool and I personally enjoy the music but would never play. I lose focus fast enough on guitar.
What do all the knobs do? How does it work?
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The "knobs" are the tuners. They work, without any gearing, by wood agaist wood friction (sometimes with chalk added to prevent slippage). Fine tuning is accomplished by sliding beads either between the bridge and the end pins or on the headstock.

There are so many because there is one for each of the sitar's many strings, which are set in two courses. The top group consists of (typically) 7 strings, a lead melody string, 4 drone strings which are strummed but not fretted, and 2 "chikari strings" which are used for rhymatic accent.

Underneath these are a 2nd course of strings on their own bridge that are tuned to the scale being played and which react sympathetically to the notes played.

The bending of notes - a key part of sitar music - enliven a series of sympathetic strings as the pitch changes.

It is this combination of sounds -- the lead melody, the drone, the rhythmic chikari and the sympathetic strings 'echoing' of each fretted note that gives the sitar its unique sound.

Classical Indian raga has a horizontal structure. I.e, there are no chord changes. Musical tension and expression is created by the relationship of the played (fretted) note to the tonic and drones and by very complex rhythm patterns with, in western musical parlance, "measures" being given a changing number of beats according to a preset pattern.

-don
 
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Wow! Thanks man! I figured they were tuners but couldn't for the life of me figure out how that would work. Sounds like fun and frustration all rolled into one! :grin:

Sent from The Nether
 
MonkeyZero said:
Sounds like fun and frustration all rolled into one! :grin:
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That's as good a description as any I have heard.

One thing it does not fully encompass is the pain. If you wish to play sitar you'd better be ready to bleed a bit. Or, a lot.

With the guitar most of us build up enough calluses to, after a short time playing, find that the physical discomfort is minimal. Not so on the sitar. String tension and the need for extreme bending puts enormous demands on the hands and fingers.

This sometimes becomes part of 'the show.' Once, and I am talking many years ago, I was playing at a well known Greenwich Village jazz club. The invitation had surprised and very much pleased me, and I gave it my all. Like most of us I can get 'lost' in the music and become oblivious to time and space. That is certainly what happened that day, and I was only subliminally aware of 1) the intense burning if my left hand an 2) the growing and highly unusual interest of the audience in my performance.

Well, that was true only until the piece - an 'afternoon raga' and semi-western improv - ended. Then I became acutely aware of the reason for both as my I saw that my hand, arm, the instrument and the floor on which I sat had a fairly substantial coating of blood. My blood! :ack:

Ah, what we musicians do for our art! :grin:

-don
 
duceditor said:
That's as good a description as any I have heard.

One thing it does not fully encompass is the pain. If you wish to play sitar you'd better be ready to bleed a bit. Or, a lot.

With the guitar most of us build up enough calluses to, after a short time playing, find that the physical discomfort is minimal. Not so on the sitar. String tension and the need for extreme bending puts enormous demands on the hands and fingers.

This sometimes becomes part of 'the show.' Once, and I am talking many years ago, I was playing at a well known Greenwich Village jazz club. The invitation had surprised and very much pleased me, and I gave it my all. Like most of us I can get 'lost' in the music and become oblivious to time and space. That is certainly what happened that day, and I was only subliminally aware of 1) the intense burning if my left hand an 2) the growing and highly unusual interest of the audience in my performance.

Well, that was true only until the piece - an 'afternoon raga' and semi-western improv - ended. Then I became acutely aware of the reason for both as my I saw that my hand, arm, the instrument and the floor on which I sat had a fairly substantial coating of blood. My blood! :ack:

Ah, what we musicians do for our art! :grin:

-don
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Did you use coconut oil to "lube" your fingers?
 
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