Janya

The sitar is a long-necked plucked stringed instrument with a gourd resonating body, movable metal frets, and a system of sympathetic strings that vibrate in resonance with the played strings — producing the instrument's characteristic shimmering sustain. Its name comes from the Persian setar, meaning "three strings," though the modern sitar carries between 18 and 21 strings in total. Modern scholarship credits Khusrau Khan, an 18th-century Mughal court musician, with developing the sitar from the Persian setar, incorporating the indigenous Indian vina tradition, and adapting it to the demands of Hindustani raga. The instrument arrived at its present form in the 19th century.

The sitar is capable of remarkable expressive range. Its movable frets allow access to the microtonal pitches of Indian classical music; its sympathetic strings create a shimmering resonance that sustains and deepens every note; and its playing technique — using a metal plectrum (mizrab) on the index finger — allows both rapid runs and the slow, ornamented meend (slides) that are the emotional heart of raga performance.

Two major traditions of sitar playing define the modern era. The tantrakari ang — associated with the Senia-Maihar gharana and popularized by Ravi Shankar — emphasizes a wide range of instrumental techniques and a fuller, orchestral sound. The gayaki ang — developed by Vilayat Khan of the Imdadkhani gharana — imitates the melisma and breath of the human voice, bending strings to reproduce the ornaments of khyal singing. Both approaches sit within the larger structure of raga performance: a slow, unmetered alap opening, a jor section with pulse but no tabla, and finally the gat — a composed theme around which improvisation unfolds in dialogue with the tabla player.

The sitar's presence in the Western imagination is almost entirely the work of one musician. Ravi Shankar — trained for seven years under the demanding Allauddin Khan in Maihar — became the instrument's global ambassador, performing at Monterey Pop in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969, teaching George Harrison, and collaborating with Yehudi Menuhin, John Coltrane, Philip Glass, and Zakir Hussain. His discomfort with the hippie appropriation of Indian music was real and documented; but the audiences those concerts produced eventually became serious listeners, and the sitar's place in the world was permanently changed.