Good news for the thousands of “tourist”-grade cheap and crappy sitars, bought in India by trusting tourists eager for buying a “real” sitar as a souvenir. For many of them there is life after years of exile to the attic: the sitanpura is born!
I turned this old innocent banished beauty into a real full-fledged 5-string tanpura. And, it is also very flexible because it can be quickly converted into a regular 4-string tanpura. You only have to remove 1 string and put the remaining ones into another slot. You’re done…
Only one skill remains: jawari. Making the ghodi, installing it on the tabli, adjusting the angle and “doing jawari”. But also this can be learned by doing… with patience and persistance…
Sound sample: PA-ni-sa-sa-SA Sitanpura
The string set is
1: 0,56mm bronze string tuned to G#2
2: 0,41mm bronze string tuned to C3
3: 0,41mm bronze string tuned to C#3
4: 0,41mm bronze string tuned to C#3
5: 0,76mm brass wound string tuned to C#2
Oh my, this saved me (well it saved around 5 strings from me) My grandad recently bought me a sitanpura from eBay and me and my Mum have been restoring it, the carvings and decoration are so beautiful but it wouldn’t play properly. After my Mum had spent her own spare time on meticulously carving the tuning pegs down to fit perfectly (honestly she’s the best Mum ever I can’t overstate that) I tried to tune it to a usual Tanpura tuning but to my disappointment the strings either wouldn’t hold the tension or just snap. I then found this it sounds so much better as well thank you so much.
I did the same with a crappy surbahar
excellent recycling
why not! better to have a nice, playable tanpura than a lousy sitar!