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INDIAN MUSIC FORUM ARCHIVES: Sitar Forum: old sitar pic on ebay, c1890

 

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pb
old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 27, 2004 02:27 p.m.

Man sitars have come a long way since then:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3268653144&category=14279
Rudrani
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 27, 2004 03:24 p.m.

Me thinks is a Tanpura, or Tambura.
pb
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 27, 2004 04:27 p.m.

With fretts?

Pb
Remco
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 27, 2004 04:52 p.m.

Nope, it's a sitar alright. Hase anyone seen the Ravi Shankar DVD? There's a small piece of an old movie of a very young Ravi Shankar playing a similair sitar. There's also a similiar sitar in his book "My Life, My Music" (page 36)

Peace,

Remco
K.K.
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 27, 2004 05:49 p.m.

I believe it's a "student" sitar. No sympathetic strings = less time tuning & tweaking for the young student = more time practicing the basics. :-)
K.K.
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 27, 2004 04:53 p.m.

And. .if you blow up the photo, you'll notice she's wearing a mizrab :-)
AJ
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 28, 2004 02:04 a.m.

Wow i wish I had a few bucks, I think it's a very cool pic. . . .!!!

aj
tarsi
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 28, 2004 06:04 a.m.

Yes, nautch girl from Rajasthan, with old sitar. They didnt have the best reputation. Interesting fret arrangement - guess the possible ragas . . without resonance strings it is a very good training to get the meends right - btw. this is good for riaz: dampen the tarafs and then practise the meends - and then DANCE:-)
Remco
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 30, 2004 06:26 p.m.

eeehhhh. . .are we witnessing a trend or what?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3269871784&category=15907

Peace,

Remco
Jeff
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 30, 2004 06:53 p.m.

pb (Jan 27, 2004 02:27 p.m.):
Man sitars have come a long way since then:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3268653144&category=14279

There is a similar sitar illustrated in the book
"My Music, My Life" by Ravi Shankar on page 36.
AJ
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 31, 2004 02:06 a.m.

[quote]pb (Jan 27, 2004 02:27 p.m.):
Man sitars have come a long way since then

You should see the taboura on pg. 37 on the far left. . . . . . .!!!!! (MMML)
Remco
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 31, 2004 09:13 a.m.

Hey!! Just discovered this site: with soundsamples!!
http://www.paulgrant.net/galery.html

and samples of an old sitar:
http://www.paulgrant.net/pages/sita.html

Peace,
Remco
tarsi
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 31, 2004 06:04 p.m.

Thanx Remco, niece piece - also the kechwa Sitar. Second half of the old Sitar sample seems to be a Santoor contamination or the server mixed em up when I loaded?
Remco
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Jan 31, 2004 07:15 p.m.

Does anyone know what a kechwa sitar is? It sounds like it's between a sitar and a surbahar as far as tuning goes.

Peace,

Remco
DaveP
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Feb 01, 2004 01:12 a.m.

DaveP (Feb 01, 2004 01:08 a.m.):
Remco (Jan 31, 2004 07:15 p.m.):
Does anyone know what a kechwa sitar is? It sounds like it's between a sitar and a surbahar as far as tuning goes.

Peace,

Remco

Oops! Sorry about the above.
Kechwa (spelling?) sitars have their gourds cut like surbahars. It means tortoise shell shaped, I believe.
DaveP
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Feb 01, 2004 01:08 a.m.

Remco (Jan 31, 2004 07:15 p.m.):
Does anyone know what a kechwa sitar is? It sounds like it's between a sitar and a surbahar as far as tuning goes.

Peace,

Remco
Matt
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Feb 01, 2004 04:00 p.m.

tarsi (Jan 28, 2004 06:04 a.m.):
resonance strings it is a very good training to get the meends right - btw. this is good for riaz: dampen the tarafs and then practise the meends - and then DANCE:-)

This is great advice! I'm suprised by the number of beginners (and I count myself at this level) who spend a lot of time worrying about getting their sympathetics in tune. As KK mentioned above, if you have limited time to practice, why bother tuning those things in the first place? One of the first things my teacher told me was to mute the sympathetics - that way you can work on getting a pure tone without interference and you are training your ear to hear the relationships between notes. I know the only time he tunes the tarbs on his sarod is when he performs. Just my $.02!
Remco
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Feb 01, 2004 05:00 p.m.

I beg to differ. . . When you don't have the tarab-strings you'll have no point of reference when f.i. doing a meend. With the tarabs you'll hear them starting to sound when you're up to pitch, thus training your ear faster than without them.

Peace,

Remco
Matt
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Feb 01, 2004 08:29 p.m.

Makes sense, Remco - let me clarify -

I'm playing the starting note, fretting the destination note, back to the starting note, then pulling to the destination note, then back again, etc. So, Sa to Re: play Sa, then Re (fretted), Sa, pull to Re, and so on, until "Re" is stuck in your head and you hit it. And, you've got to have a tanpura going for this to work best.

I wonder if this is a gharana difference between teachers?
pb
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Feb 02, 2004 12:31 a.m.

I did my tarab cleanup today, pulled them all off, sanded chalked, fixed the gromets (dab of superglue) etc.

While they were all off, and I was waiting for the superglue to dry, I thought of that pic and played a bit. Man is it ever a different sound. I can see it being good for ear training, everything is so simple and clear sounding.
But, I had a hard time finding meends, apart from just aiming at the same spot everytime. I agree with remco that they really help in this regard.

Of course, there are no cool microtones, and it just sounds kind of thin.

I have heard that in drupad style, no tarabs are used e.g rudra and a few other venas. I can't see the gromets that hold the tarabs on that sitar, maybe you can't use tarabs on that model at all.

my 2 cents CDN (1.7 US).

Pb


Matt (Feb 01, 2004 08:29 p.m.):
Makes sense, Remco - let me clarify -

I'm playing the starting note, fretting the destination note, back to the starting note, then pulling to the destination note, then back again, etc. So, Sa to Re: play Sa, then Re (fretted), Sa, pull to Re, and so on, until "Re" is stuck in your head and you hit it. And, you've got to have a tanpura going for this to work best.

I wonder if this is a gharana difference between teachers?
tarsi
Re:old sitar pic on ebay, c1890 Feb 02, 2004 06:37 a.m.

Yes, this is a difference in teaching/learning style. IMO the tarbs are sort of a nice sound effect, but they cant properly respond to microtonal differences. If you use the sitar as a fretted instrument with fixed intervals (tarbs tuned to fretted notes) it is much easier to find these ten points of reference in the octave. If you use the instrument in a "singing style" or gayaki, you use all kinds of ornaments around the fixed pitches, for example in andolits or shakes around the note, but only the note in the center of that shake will work the taraf. And singers dont have tarfs either, they only use a swarmandel or some other reference but depend on the picture of the modd in their head.
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