New things
Read older news items...
Interesting
If I find something really interesting, I'll put it here!
Watch
You'll find thousands of sitar related videos on YouTube. Here are some of the best to help get you started.
How?
New to learning the sitar? Here's what you need to do to get started:
- Find a good teacher. It's almost impossible to learn properly without one.
- Listen to as much sitar music as you can. The Music section on this page will give you links to the essential sitar music you will love and learn from for an entire lifetime.
- Find the best instrument you can. Unless you really know sitars well, stick to a sitar by one of the best makers: Hiren Roy, Ibrahim Bashir or Rikhi Ram.
- Practise at least an hour a day. In 5-7 years you'll be playing really well. If you want to do it professionally, commit 25 hours a week for 10 years, and go from there. Yes, it's worth it!
Here are some more learning resources to get you started:
Lessons
- The Sitar Studio: 3 week/90 hour Introduction to the Sitar intensive training courses for beginners.
Dates and locations for 2012:
- Feb-March: Ko Pangan, Thailand
- April: Bali, Indonesia
- May: Hawaii
- June: Anchorage, Alaska
- July: Vancouver, Canada
- August-December: Toronto, Canada
Contact The Sitar Studio for more information or to arrange a workshop in your part of the world.
- Ali Akbar Khan College of Music: Based in San Rafael, AACM is the longest running college for the study of Indian Classical Music in North America, with an excellent stable of teachers comprised of professional musicians. They also offer online lessons in most instruments.
Learning resources
Software
- iTabla Pro: Superb tabla and tanpura software for iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) that's infinitely configurable.
- Cleartune: A software tuner for iOS devices that can accurately tune a sitar. Set the Temperament to Pythagorean Just and the Temperament Key to C#. (You can't use a guitar tuner to tune a sitar, because the tuner will be calibrated to Equal Temperament, which is a compromise tuning system for harmony based music.)
- Practice Pro: iOS software that lets you take slow down and repeat loop sections of recording for transcription and learning.
Music
Commercial recordings
If you're new to the sitar and sitar music, here are the must-have sitar recordings:
It can be difficult to find sitar music or videos on the internet, but the the best place to start is a very specialized Google Music Search. (You probably didn't know about this!)
Non-commercial recordings
Many of the best recordings of sitar music are orphaned works. Visit the sitar music orphanage to listen to them. Contact sitar.co to claim parentage or to submit a recording for adoption.
Contemporary
The sitar is not just a classical instrument. Here's some contemporary sitar music in a variety of genres.
- Hot Water: South The sitar is featured on tracks Big Bang and Blackbird.
- Raga.co: Contemporay classical sitar music and experimental collaborations.
- The Kingdom of Thieves: Surrealist rock band featuring heavy use of sitar on most tracks.
Psychedelia
The sitar plays an illustrious and charming feature role in 60's and 70's psychedelic music. Here's some of the best.
Instruments
If you're looking to buy a sitar, the following dealers are the best. Sitar.co has used all of them.
- Delhi Music Stores. DMS will ship anywhere in the world with FedEx. Ask for their Ibrahim Bashir sitars.
- Rain City Music. All their stock is personally curated by the owner from the best instruments available.
- Ali Akbar College of Music Store. A great place to buy Hiren Roy and Rikhi Ram sitars, and the best place to order strings.
- Tony Karasek. If your sitar needs fixing, and you're not in India, send it to Tony. He also specializes in custom Delrin sitar bridges that don't require any maintenance. Send him an email.
