Sitar

The sitar (English: /ˈsɪtɑːr/ or /sɪˈtɑːr/; 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.

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. Du + tar is the 2-stringed dutār, se + tar is the 3-stringed setār, čartar (4 strings), pančtār (5 strings).

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. Proponents of this hypothesis claim that Indian temple sculptures from the 9th and 10th centuries feature sitar-like instruments. However, according to author Samidha Vedabala, a researcher and professor of music at Sikkim University, none of the instruments depicted in these sculptures precisely resemble the sitar, and neither the word "sitar" nor any local equivalent appears in any texts referring to these instruments. So its authenticity is in the absolute dark. According to Allyn Miner, the evidence for this hypothesis is too weak for any conclusion and these hypotheses represent a prominent yet obsolete late 19th-century idea: that many of India's modern cultural innovations are actually products of pre-Muslim Sanskritic traditions. According to Alastair Dick, the "modern view that ... invading Muslims simply changed into Persian the name of an existing Hindu instrument ... has no historical or musical foundation". Other scholars have contested the veena origin hypotheses of the sitar by pointing out that proponents of these hypotheses select the number of strings as the primary criterion in coming to their conclusions. Additionally, they attempt to trace the sitar back to a known Indian musical instrument with a Sanskrit name, while acknowledging that there is no evidence for the existence of long-necked lutes in the Indian subcontinent prior to the era of Muslim expansion into the region.

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.