Sitar Saturday

Here are a few of my sitar songs for #sitarsaturday

This one combines a doumbek, shaker, a kalimba and my sitar on lead.

My sitar has quite a bit of intricate decoration in the binding. This binding is made out of bone and etched with a knife by hand.

Here is another sitar song. This one was an improvisation to a drum beat by Jim Dooley. I just listened to the beat then played whatever came to mind on the sitar.

Sitar is a bit tricky with 21 string to tune. The main playing strings have these beads to help tune the strings after you play. When you bend the main strings eventually they go out of tune and you have to slide these beads farther towards the nut to bring the string back in tune.

This song combines my Roland Handsonic's tabla and Indian drum library with some jaw harp and my sitar. The jaw harp is tuned to the key of F so it works perfectly with the key of c# and F of the sitar.

My sitar is made by Hiren Roy and Sons the same make of George Harrison's sitar from the Beatles. These are the tuning pegs, the tip is covered in chalk then jammed into the body of the sitar. The chalk helps keep friction between the wood of the sitar body and the tuning peg to keep the string taut. There are also some tuning beads high up on the headstock for tuning higher strings.

This sitar song combines my Indian drums and some gongs on my Roland Handsonic. I recorded the sitar first then added the drums later on.

The front of the sitar has some intricate flower decorations carved into it. I believe the front is tun wood and the rest of the body is made out of a gourd.

This song combines my Indian drum samples with the sitar and later on I bring in my Paul Reed Smith guitar as a lead.

Here is another little detail from the sitar. Its some kind of bird with a tiny little sound hole in it to let some of the frequencies of the strings ring out more.

That's all for #sitarsaturday. Thanks for reading and listening :-)