I have managed to get my 11th fret at Ma in tune with my first string after several hours but now I have another problem - my 13th (ga) is inalterably at A - Rao says it should be G - the rest of the sitar seems in tune with itself but my Bilawal scale exercies between the 7th and 7th fret are thrown off - when I play the scale from fret 7 I go to 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17 instead of 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16 and 17 - the 13th fret cannot go any flatter (to G) without throwning off the sitar's intonation - any advice
Ohoh! Seems like you have a fret jam: 13 must be Pa, no Ga --- if Bilawal is 11, 12,
13, 14; not 11, 13, 14, 16, there is maybe a fret missing.
Count your frets, normal Taat Bilawal layout should be: from Parti (upward string holder) 7 frets in halftone distance (last of them Sa), one big (wholetone) step (-:for sitar mankind:-), then 6 frets in halftone dist. (last of them Pa), again one fulltone, then four trets in htone (last is high Sa), then 2 fulltone and one halftone (if you have 20 frets total with high Ma fret).
So: how many frets do you have total, and how are they grouped? If you have 2 fulltone steps up from Ma, there seem to be only five frets in the middle group?? Maybe you have a sitar in Debu Chaudhuri setup, he leaves out the komal Ga fret, and now these are at other places?
So maybe your sitar needs another fret, d be nice gift for xmas?
So, first count, look what is missing or in a wrong place, be happy, play the scale, sing the notes, don't learn to play by fret numbers. If all frets you have now are intonating well, you've allmost made it.
johnnysitarwhatson (Nov 28, 2003 05:44 p.m.):
Ohoh! Seems like you have a fret jam: 13 must be Pa, no Ga --- if Bilawal is 11, 12,
13, 14; not 11, 13, 14, 16, there is maybe a fret missing.
Count your frets, normal Taat Bilawal layout should be: from Parti (upward string holder) 7 frets in halftone distance (last of them Sa), one big (wholetone) step (-:for sitar mankind:-), then 6 frets in halftone dist. (last of them Pa), again one fulltone, then four trets in htone (last is high Sa), then 2 fulltone and one halftone (if you have 20 frets total with high Ma fret).
So: how many frets do you have total, and how are they grouped? If you have 2 fulltone steps up from Ma, there seem to be only five frets in the middle group?? Maybe you have a sitar in Debu Chaudhuri setup, he leaves out the komal Ga fret, and now these are at other places?
So maybe your sitar needs another fret, d be nice gift for xmas?
So, first count, look what is missing or in a wrong place, be happy, play the scale, sing the notes, don't learn to play by fret numbers. If all frets you have now are intonating well, you've allmost made it.
definetly have 20 frets - what is a fret jam and how can I fix it?:-)? seems like the tuning peg for my sympathetic strings makes it impossible???
Rg: Is there a mark where your bridge originally sat? An indentation or some other mark left in the shellac? If so, how far away from this mark is the bridge now? If it's more than a half an inch or so, you might try putting the bridge back to where it originally was and starting over.
If you are considering to remove the kunti pegs to push the frets to the other side, then i hope you know what you are dooing. to move them back again is just as time consuming as moving them in the first place.
If you have a digital camera nearby, some snapshots of the neck would make it a lot easyer to judge. Billy might want to post the images on his site if we ask him in a gentle way. .
As everyone else is saying the key is the placement of the jawari/bridge. and out of that you will find the frets placement. There was a www. site that had some info regarding jawari possitioning. (spelling)
Yes. photo would be good to find out about this mystery - seems like you have full steps from Ma to Pa and Pa to Dha - so maybe you have one fret too many above high Sa, or the missing link/fret is hanging around as komal Re? (Only possibilities if that fret isn't tied to the backside of the dandi and assuming you dont have a quartertone setup:-)
Do move the fret, you can move it from neigbouing positions by putting out to pegs inbetween (as mentined above, not so easy), if there is one of the chik posts inbetween or the fret comes from far positions, you need to retie it (even more uneasy). But photo would really help - before there is a misunderstanding and your sitar gets really messed up.
I bought my first sitar off ebay for around the same cost. It had fret issues as well. In the same area of the neck you are experiencing problems, I had a wrong sized fret(too big) wedged up against a weirdly placed tarb peg. Removing the peg helped but I opted for a new shrishti standard instead =)
