Sitar

The sitar is an ancient Indian musical instrument, which has existed for at least six centuries. The traditional acoustic style uses a hollowed-out gourd for the resonating chamber. Unlike most other stringed instruments, the twenty frets are curved and movable, being tied onto the neck. This allows other strings to run underneath the arched frets, which will resonate sympathetically with the plucked strings. There may be six or seven playable strings and 11 to 13 sympathetic strings.The strings are plucked with a metal finger pick called the mezrab. Tuning and playing the sitar are difficult. The instrument is played by sliding the index finger of the left hand up and down the neck, over the three-octave range of a single string, while the mezrab on the right hand strikes the string. An Indian proverb says that to master the instrument, a person needs to spend twenty years learning, twenty years performing, and twenty years teaching.The best known sitar player in America is Ravi Shankar. His influence on Beatles guitarist George Harrison was displayed in songs such as 'Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)' and 'Within You Without You.' His association with the Beatles led to invitations to perform at such venues as the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock and the Concert for Bangladesh, thereby greatly increasing his Western audience. Traditional music for the sitar is known as a raga. It usually involves a ground note that serves as a drone, and all other notes are played relative to this. Sitars, especially electric sitars, are often used in modern Western music as well.