Sitar Musical Instrument

History and Facts about Sitar Music Instrument, the sitar Instrument is a stringed instrument used mostly in Indian classical music and Hindustani music. The instrument is supposed to have been based on the veena, an antique musical instrument of India, which was customized by a musician of the Mughal court to match the tastes of his customers of Persia and the instrument was named after Setar, which is a musical instrument of Persia, designed with three strings.

History

At first, the Urdu and Hindi word sitar derives from Persian word seh + tar, which means three strings. The Sitar instrument became prevalently recognized in the wider world during the work of Ravi Shankar, commenced during the last part of the 1950s and the initial part of the 1960s. The sitar thrived during the 16th century and the 17th century and attained its current form during the 18th century in India. It derives its unique timbre and timbre from sensitive strings, bridge pattern, an elongated empty neck and a gourd resonating compartment.

There is a widespread tale attributing the discovery of the sitar instrument to Amir Khusru, who lived around 1300 AD. He is a great celebrity and is a symbol of the early growth of the classical music of North India, called Hindustani Sangeet. As familiar as this story is, it has no root in historical detail. The sitar was obviously absent, pending the time of the fall down of the Moghul Empire.

One more hypothesis the Sitar instrument has evolved from the antique veenas, which was called as the rudra veena. However, the rudra veena is an instrument with stick zither, whereas the sitar is a lute instrument, and there are dissimilarities in the use of materials. It is not extremely likely that the sitar owes its sources to this instrument.

Some music experts propose that the sitar is based on the Saraswati veena, which has a minimum possibility. Still, there exist some questions, regarding the origin of Sitar, such as the origin of the Saraswati veena and the reason that this category only started to turn up in India 800 years ago. There is an option that the lute category of chordophones is not native to India, but it was imported from other foreign countries.

It is apparent that the sitar instrument as it is considered grown in the subcontinents of India and Pakistan at the last part of the Moghul period. It is also understandable that it developed from the lutes of Persia, which had been played during the Moghul courts used for hundreds of years. The "Sangeet Sudarshana” mentions that the sitar was discovered by a fakir, called Amir Khusru during the 18th century. Of course, this was a different instrument from the one developed by Amir Khusru. Amir Khusru was the 15th successor of the son-in-law of Tansen, called Naubat Khan. It is supposed that he developed the Sitar instrument from the Sehtar instrument of Persia.

Masit Khan, who was the grandson of Amir Khusru, was one among the most important musicians in the growth of the Sitar. He composed many slow gats in the dhrupad fashion of the day. This fashion is called as the Masitkhani Gat. These styles of gats were further made popular popularized by Bahadur Khan, who is the son of Masit Khan. He was an inhabitant of Delhi, so the name Dilli Ka Baaj was assigned to Masitkhani Gats.

Raza Khan was also a vital personality in the growth of sitar music, as well. He was also a successor of Tansen and survived in Lucknow from 1800 to 1850, and he was identified as Ghulam Raza, as well. He built up the fast gat, called the Razakani gat.

Rahim Sen and Amrit Sen are attributed to changing the stringing and tuning of the Sitar instrument and bringing in many innovative methods to the instrument.

Nowadays, the Sitar instrument is extensively used all through the subcontinent of India. This musical instrument has seen further application in the admired music following the Beatles included the instrument in their compositions, such as “Within You Without You", "Norwegian Wood” "Love You To" and "Tomorrow Never Knows". Their application of the Sitar instrument came as a consequence of taking lessons by George Harrison on the way to play it from Shambhu Das and Ravi Shankar. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones also used the Sitar in "Paint It Black" and a brief fad began for using the instrument in pop songs.