What is the Sitar?
Brief History
The sitar is an ancient instrument coming from North India. It was invented by the musician & poet Amir Khusro during the 14th century. The main inspiration behind the sitar was the Tritantri Veena (three-stringed veena). In the beginning, it had only three strings, which is why it was named Sehtar (Persian for three-stringed).
A lot of people are curious about the sitar and compare it to the guitar in an attempt to try to find cross-overs with Western music. Of course, this is only natural since our analytical minds like to compare and contrast in order to gain an understanding of something. But in reality, there is nothing that compares to the sitar in the west. Sitar is its own unique lion breed.The only similarity perhaps that it shares with guitar is that it has frets. I’m sure a professional musician would have more to say.
When I found sitar, I completely dropped everything I thought I knew about music. I think this was helpful for me. It felt intuitive at the time because I was so intimidated by this instrument that even trying to have my analytical mind trying to translate notes or seeing how it compares to music in a western context seemed like too much work that wouldn’t ultimately help me learn to play sitar any better. I felt like it would just diminish or water down my experience with sitar. So I came to sitar completely naive and…
