| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Sitar is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical, where it has been ubiquitous in Hindustani classical music since the Middle Ages. It derives its resonance from sympathetic strings, a long hollow neck and a gourd resonating chamber. Used throughout the Indian subcontinent, particularly in Northern India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, the sitar became known in the western world through the work of Pandit Ravi Shankar.
|
|
The sitar is often said to have been developed in the thirteenth century by Amir Khusrau from a member of the veena family of Indian musical instruments called the tritantri veena and to have been named by him after the Persian setar. The sitar is, like the setar, a member of the lute family while the north Indian veena is a zither, but it shares the veena's resonating gourds and sympathetic strings. Amir Khusrau does not mention the sitar but he does mention the tanbur and, by the mid 18th century, Indian tanburs were referred to as sitars. During the time of Moghul rule Persian lutes were played at court and may have provided a basis of the sitar. However, there is no physical evidence for the sitar until the time of the collapse of the Moghul empire. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|