सितार

The tradition & historical record

The sitar (English: or ; IAST: sitāra) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form in 19th-century India. Khusrau Khan, an 18th-century figure of the Mughal Empire, has been identified by modern scholarship as the inventor of the sitar. According to most historians, he developed the sitar from the setar, an Iranian instrument of Abbasid or Safavid origin. Used widely throughout the Indian subcontinent, the sitar became popularly known in the wider world through the works of Ravi Shankar, beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The advent of psychedelic culture during the mid-to-late 1960s set a trend for the use of the sitar in Western popular music, with the instrument appearing on tracks by bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Metallica and many others. ¹

The word sitar is derived from the Persian word sehtar, meaning 'three-stringed'. According to Curt Sachs, Persians chose to name their lutes around the word tar, meaning string, combined with a word for the number of strings. By example: ¹

Du + tar is the 2-stringed dutār, se + tar is the 3-stringed setār, čar + tar is for a tar with 4 strings, panč + tār is for a tar with 5 strings. ¹

It was theorized that the sitar was invented, or rather developed by Amir Khusrow (c. 1253–1325), a famous Sufi inventor, poet and pioneer of Khyal, Tarana and Qawwali, during the 13th century. However, the tradition of Amir Khusrow is considered discredited by scholars. Whatever instruments he might have played, no record exists from this period using the name "sitar". An ambiguous statement made in a 19th-century work by Captain N. Augustus Willard may have resulted in the incorrect association of the renowned poet Amir Khusrau with a later individual, potentially named Khusrau Khan, who lived during the 18th century. The earliest mention of Sitar dates back to 1739 AD. The "Muraqqa-i-Dehli", written by Dargah Quli Khan during the reign of Muhammad Shah Rangila, gives the earliest reference to the sitar. Oral and textual evidence analysed by historians indicate that an eighteenth-century figure of the Mughal court, named Khusrau Khan originated the sitar from the small Persian three-stringed setar. In the late Mughal Empire, the instrument began to take on its modern shape. The neck got wider. The bowl, which had been made of glued lathes of wood was now made of gourd, with metal frets and a bone nut on the neck. Masid Khan added two more strings to the sitar. The modern seven string sitar was created by Allauddin Khan. Sympathetic strings on sitar were first added by Imdad Khan. The earliest compositional style specifically for the sitar emerged in the mid-eighteenth century, attributed to Firoz Khan, who was either the son or nephew of Khusrau Khan. Another, discredited hypothesis is that the sitar is derived from locally developed Indian instruments, such as the veena, prior to the arrival of Islam. ¹

A sitar can have 18, 19, 20, or 21 strings; 6 or 7 of these run over curved, raised frets and are played strings; the remainder are sympathetic strings (tarb, also known as taarif or tarafdaar), running underneath the frets and resonating in sympathy with the played strings. The frets, which are known as pardā or thaat, are movable, allowing fine tuning. The played strings run to tuning pegs on or near the head of the instrument, while the sympathetic strings, which have a variety of different lengths, pass through small holes in the fretboard to engage with the smaller tuning pegs that run down the instrument's neck. The instrument has two bridges: the large bridge (badaa goraa) for the playing and drone strings and the small bridge (chota goraa) for the sympathetic strings. Its timbre results from the way the strings interact with the wide, rounded bridge. As a string vibrates, its length changes slightly as one edge moves along the rounded bridge, promoting the creation of overtones and giving the sound its distinctive tone. The maintenance of this specific tone by shaping the bridge is called jawari. Many musicians rely on instrument makers to adjust this. Materials used in construction include teak wood or tun wood (Cedrela toona), which is a variation of mahogany, for the neck and faceplate (tabli), and calabash gourds for the resonating chambers. The instrument's bridges are made of deer horn, ebony, or very occasionally from camel bone. Synthetic material is now common as well. ¹

There are two popular modern styles of sitar: the fully decorated "instrumental style" (sometimes called the "Ravi Shankar style") and the "gayaki" style (sometimes called the "Vilayat Khan" style). ¹

The instrumental style sitar is most often made of seasoned toon wood, but sometimes made of teak. It is often fitted with a second resonator, a small tumba (pumpkin or pumpkin-like wood replica) on the neck. This style is usually fully decorated, with floral or grape carvings and celluloid inlays with colored (often brown or red) and black floral or arabesque patterns. It typically has 13 sympathetic strings. It is said that the best Teak sitars are made from teak that has been seasoned for generations. The sources of very old seasoned wood are guarded trade secrets. Therefore, instrument builders look for old teak that was used in old colonial-style villas as whole trunk columns for their special sitar constructions. ¹

There are various additional sub-styles and cross mixes of styles in sitars, according to customer preferences. Most importantly, there are some differences in preferences for the positioning of sympathetic (taraf) string pegs (see photo). Among all sitar styles, there are student styles, beginner models, semi-pro styles, pro models, master models, and so on. Prices are often determined by the manufacturer's name and not by looks alone or materials used. Some sitars by certain manufacturers fetch very high collectible prices. Most notable are older Rikhi Ram (Delhi) and older Hiren Roy (Kolkata) sitars, depending upon which master built the instrument. Nikhil Banerjee had a small extra bridge fixed at the top of the sitar fingerboard for sustain. ¹

Tuning depends on the sitarist's school or style, tradition and each artist's personal preference. The main playing string is almost invariably tuned a perfect fourth above the tonic, the second string being tuned to the tonic. The tonic in the Indian solfège system is referred to as ṣaḍja, ṣaḍaj, or the shortened form sa, or khaṛaj, a dialectal variant of ṣaḍaj, not as vād, and the perfect fifth to which one or more of the drones strings are tuned is referred to as pañcam, not samvād. The player should re-tune for each raga. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Sitar”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

sitar is plucked stringed instrument used in Hindustani classical music, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 34 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²