Sitar

Sitar (Hindi sitar, setar of Persian, " three strings ", in German " sitar " rare " sitar " ) is a plucked lute in India. It is the most famous melody instrument of North Indian music and has a characteristic sound rich in overtones.

Design

The musical instrument originated from the Persian culture, it should have been invented in the 13th century by Amir Khusrau. The present form was formed approximately in the 17th century out. It differs significantly from the Persian lutes Setar and Tar

The sitar is made from a dried bottle gourd ( calabash ) as a resonance chamber with a wooden ceiling and a long, hollow neck, on which are movable brass frets.

The sitar usually has 18-20 strings today. Four playing strings and three drone strings ( Chikari ) that are tuned to the root note and the fifth of the scale and used for rhythmic accents that extend above the curved frets. Up to 13 sympathetic strings run underneath the frets. These are tuned to the notes of the scales played ragas amplify the sound of the overtones and reinforce the "singing " sound of the sitar. The web ( Jovari ) has a special curved shape, so that the strings lie only partially, thereby producing the peculiar overtones. The root note in the diatonic tuning the sitar can individually - are chosen and mostly lies between C and D. Some models have a screw- second body shortly before the top plate ( Tumba ), reflecting mainly the lower frequencies - depending on the sound ideal.

Play

The player, called Sitarji, sits in the classic pose with legs crossed on the floor. The instrument rests it on the right side of the player on his left foot and is held with the right forearm resting on the resonance body diagonally in front of the body. The left hand grasps the strings behind the frets. By lateral distortion of the string, the pitch can be increased up to a sixth and a glissando ( Meend ) are generated.

The strings are struck with a plectrum made of wire ( Mizrab ), which is placed on the index finger of the right hand. For special effects, the lower strings can be struck directly with a long fingernail.

Use

The sitar is the best known and most widely used instrument of North Indian classical music and is relatively difficult to play compared with western plucked instruments. The Indian stringed instruments Vina and Sarangi but still provide significantly higher demands on the player. The sitar is usually accompanied by tabla and tanpura.

Famous Sitar Players are Indians Nikhil Banerjee, Imrat Khan and Ravi Shankar. Shankar became known for the Beatles and the collaboration with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin also outside India celebrity. In India enjoys the virtuoso Vilayat Khan great popularity, who learned how his family 's style of Imdakhani - Gharana. He developed a quick easy game and changed the sitar on his terms (only two playing strings, but four Chikari, eleven sympathetic strings ). Many Indians he is considered the best Sitarji his time. The next generation of sitar players like Budhaditya Mukherjee, Shujaat Khan ( Vilayat Khan's son ) and Irshat Khan ( Khan's son Imrat ) make music seamlessly to their full size counterparts. In Germany occurs since the 1970s regularly trained in the Dhrupad style Subroto Roy Chowdhury.

In the early 1960s came the sitar in jazz; initially by Indian musicians such as Ravi Shankar, who in his compositions opened up the Western popular and classical music and at the same time made ​​for a meeting of the modal scales of Indian ragas with jazz harmonies. A little later, jazz musicians began to incorporate the sounds of sitar only monophonic used in India as an exotic addition to the polyphonic jazz orchestra. In the wake of Ravi Shankar, Indian sitar player Nishat Khan is an east - western interaction in the field of jazz. The best known, dating from the jazz sitar player was up to his death in 1984 Collin Walcott. In Germany, the jazz guitarist Volker Kriegel changed occasionally to sitar.

The mid-1960s influenced the sitar and Indian music in general, the western beat and rock music. George Harrison, guitarist of the Beatles, learned the sitar and thus ornamented songs like Norwegian Wood played or completely Indian title as Within You Without You on the album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band -in. Even the Rolling Stones had sitar playing, so for example in the piece Paint It, Black.

Coral Electric Sitar

Since the 1960s, the Electric Sitar is built, a 6- string electric guitar, which, although produced with bevelled bar and sympathetic strings a sitar -like buzzing sound, but not the sonority and ornamentierenden capabilities of a real sitar has. Since it is a guitar with chromatic mood and every guitar player just can play on it, it is often used by musicians from the jazz and rock to imitate range of Far Eastern sound of the sitar. Max Cavalera achieved with this instrument in the metal scene with his band Soulfly and Sepultura high reputation. But also bands like Rage, Metallica, Yes, Genesis & Asian Dub Foundation and many others try with this sitar guitar or even just to copy an electronic sitar guru - effects unit the unique buzzing sound of the sitar and to enrich their music with them.