This page covers instruments associated with the subcontinent of India, including Pakistan and Bangla Desh.

Sitar

The sitar has 18 to 23 strings, of two types:

• Six or seven playing strings above the frets, which can be plucked and fretted. These are further divided into melody strings, the first three playing strings, which are the ones which are in practice played, and drones which are playable but not actually played. Most of the playing takes place on the first string.
• Eleven to sixteen sympathetic strings which lie beneath the frets, and are not plucked or fretted.

There is no standard tuning. The tuning depends not only on the type but also on the player and the piece; Student tuning depends upin the teacher, who may give different tunings to different students, tailored to their needs at the time.

Ravi Shankar

Seven playing strings:

• c# ' ' - c# ' - g# - C# - G# - c# - f #

Eleven sympathetic strings:

• c# ' ' - c' ' - a# ' - g# ' - f # ' - f ' - f ' - d# ' - c# ' - c' - c# '

( From:

http://www.buckinghammusic.com/sitar/sittut/lgkeys.html

http://www.buckinghammusic.com/sitar/sittut/lgsitar.html )