These are the questions we are actually asked, day after day, by players walking into our Mumbai showroom and by customers writing to us from Europe, the Gulf, Australia and North America. The answers below are ours, written from what we see on the bench when we set up and repair sitars, not copied from anywhere else. If your question is not here, write to us or send a WhatsApp message and a person who works on these instruments will answer you.
Listening and the two schools
Which sitar players should I be listening to?
Start with the two schools that shaped the modern instrument. Ravi Shankar and his students Nikhil Banerjee and Shahid Parvez give you the Maihar approach: dense, gayaki-influenced alap and a strong chikari pulse. Vilayat Khan and the Imdadkhani gharana give you the singing style, with meend carried across four and five frets. Then listen to Budhaditya Mukherjee for clarity of tone, Balaram Pathak for weight in the low register, and Ustad Rais Khan for phrasing. Listening is the cheapest sitar lesson there is, and it will tell you which instrument you actually want before you spend anything.
What is the difference between a Ravi Shankar style and a Vilayat Khan style sitar?
A Ravi Shankar style sitar (often called kharaj pancham) has seven main strings, thirteen sympathetic strings and a second gourd at the top of the neck. It carries a deep, resonant bass and suits a long alap. A Vilayat Khan style sitar (gandhar pancham) drops the two lowest bass strings, usually has no upper gourd, and is tuned and set up for a bright, vocal tone with heavy string pulling. Neither is better. The Ravi Shankar style is the fuller, more traditional voice; the Vilayat Khan style is lighter to hold and easier to bend notes on.
What do kharaj pancham and gandhar pancham mean?
They describe how the instrument is strung and tuned. Kharaj pancham includes a low Pa and a low Sa below the playing string, which is what gives the Ravi Shankar style its bass register. Gandhar pancham starts higher, with Ga and Pa as the drone strings, so the sound sits in the middle of the range. The terms are about tuning and stringing, not about the maker or the quality.
The instrument itself
Does the upper gourd make a difference?
Acoustically, less than most people expect. The upper tumba adds a little sustain and some low resonance, and it makes the instrument look grand. What it definitely does is add weight and length, which matters when you sit with the instrument for an hour or when you ship it abroad. Many professional players use sitars with no upper gourd at all. If you travel with your instrument, a single-gourd sitar is the more practical choice.
What is jawari?
Jawari is the gently curved playing surface on the bridge, and it is the single thing that makes a sitar sound like a sitar. The string does not sit on a sharp point; it grazes along a shallow curve, and that grazing contact produces the shimmering overtone cloud Indian instruments are known for. The curve wears down with playing and has to be recut by hand with a file and a strip of wire, a few thousandths of a millimetre at a time. A sitar with tired jawari sounds dull and dead no matter how good the wood is.
What is the main bridge made of?
Traditionally deer antler, which is dense, close-grained and takes a very fine jawari. Antler is now restricted in most countries, so makers work in camel bone, buffalo bone, ebony and synthetic materials. We fit bone and synthetic bridges on the instruments we sell and set the jawari here in Mumbai before despatch.
Are synthetic bridges as good as bone?
For most players, yes, and in some ways better. A good synthetic bridge holds its jawari longer than bone and is completely unaffected by humidity, which matters if your instrument is going from Mumbai to a dry winter in Europe or North America. Bone still has a slight edge in warmth at the top of the range, which is why concert players often stay with it. We are happy to fit either.
Where are sitars actually made?
Almost all serious sitars come from two places. Kolkata, where the Hiren Roy, Hemen, Naskar and Kanai Lal workshops built their reputations, is known for a warm, round tone. Miraj in Maharashtra is the other great centre, known for strong, clear instruments and a long tradition of tanpura making. Delhi has its own line through Rikhi Ram. We buy from workshops in all three and we say on every listing who made the instrument.
How long does a sitar last?
A well-made sitar outlives its first owner. The gourd and the teak or tun neck are stable for decades if the instrument is kept out of direct sun and extreme dryness. What wears out are consumables: strings every few months, frets and fret thread every year or two, the bridge surface whenever the jawari goes, and the pegs eventually. A fifty year old Kolkata sitar with fresh jawari and new strings will usually outplay a new mid-range instrument.
What wood is a sitar made from?
The neck and the top plate are usually tun, a light Indian cedar that is easy to carve and resonates well, or teak, which is heavier and denser. The gourd is a dried pumpkin gourd, not wood. Decorative work is celluloid, bone or ebony. The wood must be seasoned properly before carving, which is one of the real differences between a workshop instrument and a mass-produced one.
Setup and playing
How high should the action be?
Measured at the last fret, roughly three to four millimetres for the playing string on most instruments. Lower than that and the string will buzz against the frets when you pull a note. Higher and the meend becomes hard work. The right height depends on how hard you play and how far you pull, so it is worth setting once you know your own hand. We set the action before despatch and will adjust it to your preference if you tell us.
Can I tune a sitar with a guitar tuner?
Yes, a chromatic tuner works perfectly well, and most players now use a phone app. The point to remember is that a sitar is tuned relative to your chosen Sa, not to concert C. Decide which pitch your Sa will be, usually C sharp or D for a standard instrument, then tune everything relative to that. The sympathetic strings are tuned to the notes of the raga you are about to play, so they are re-tuned constantly.
Something rattles inside the gourd when I move the sitar. Is that a problem?
Usually not. It is generally a loose piece of dried gourd or a fragment of glue that came free inside. It does not affect the sound while you are playing. If it rattles audibly as you play rather than only when you tilt the instrument, send us a short video and we will tell you whether it needs opening up.
How do I wear the mizrab?
The wire loop goes on the index finger of your right hand, with the point of the plectrum sitting just past the fingertip so it strikes the string as the finger moves. It should be firm enough not to spin but not so tight that the fingertip goes white. New mizrabs are stiff and are meant to be squeezed to shape. Most players keep two or three in different sizes because the fit changes with the weather.
How do I tie the frets?
The frets are held on with thread wound in a figure of eight around the neck, which is what lets you slide them to suit the raga. It takes practice to get the tension even so the fret does not rock. We have a step by step walkthrough on our sitar fret tying page, and we fit fresh thread on every instrument before it leaves us.
Why are my frets out of tune on the low string but fine on the others?
Because the frets are set for the playing string, and the thicker bass strings stretch slightly differently under pressure. A small amount of this is normal and every sitar has it. If it is severe, the usual causes are a fret that has tilted, a bridge that has moved, or a string gauge that is too heavy for the instrument. Check the bridge position first, since it is the easiest to correct.
My tuning changes when I lift the sitar off the floor. Is that normal?
It is completely normal, and it happens to every sitar. The gourd and the long neck flex very slightly when you change how the instrument is supported, which is enough to shift the pitch. The fix is simple: tune the instrument in the position you are going to play it in, sitting with the gourd on your foot, rather than flat on the ground.
Choosing and buying
What is the difference between student, concert and professional sitars?
Grade reflects the wood, the carving and the hours spent on setup rather than a formal standard. A student instrument uses plainer wood, simpler decoration and a straightforward setup, and is built to be playable and affordable. A concert instrument uses better-seasoned wood, more careful fretwork and a finer jawari. A professional instrument is a maker doing their best work, often to order. Every grade is playable; you are paying for tone and finish.
What separates your number one, two and three sitars?
We grade the instruments we stock ourselves after they arrive in Mumbai. The number one instruments are the ones we would take on stage: the best tone, the cleanest carving, the most stable neck. Number two is a very good instrument with a small cosmetic compromise or a slightly less remarkable voice. Number three is honest, well-set-up and priced accordingly. The grading is ours, not the maker's, and we will always tell you exactly why an instrument sits where it does.
Why does my sitar go out of tune when I pull notes on the Ma string?
Because pulling a note is literally stretching the string, and some of that stretch comes out of the peg or the length of string behind the bridge rather than the speaking length. New strings do this a lot until they settle. If it continues on settled strings, the peg is slipping or the string is binding in the nut groove. A little peg compound and a lightly graphited nut groove usually cure it.
Still deciding?
Our sitar buying guide walks through what to check on a new or used instrument, the overview of the sitar explains how the instrument is built, and our setup page describes exactly what we do to every sitar before it is despatched. You can see what is in stock in sitars, and read about the workshops we buy from in our guide to makers. We ship worldwide from Mumbai, insured, and we are happy to record a video of an instrument being played before you commit to it.