K&K Big Twin external mount
I mounted a K&K sound Big Twin internal transducer on a Raj Musicals sitar by Joël Van Roode (Alpacas Collective – Flugzeug Music Art Design). Since it is not always obvious to open a tabli, we chose to do an external mount. That is, the transducers are mounted on…
Travel Sitar Mods (3B) … the white sitar
After finalizing the structural rough woodwork on the travel-sitar’s body (see Part 1 = Travel Sitar Mods (3A)) the final acts are: completing the body finish and preparing and installing the sitar’s hardware such as godi (jawari), machine heads, strings, pardas and eventually an electro-magnetic pickup. I’ve painted the body…
Kartar Chand Hari Chand history
In 1940, young Rikhi Ram Sharma was making harmoniums in Kartar Music House in Lahore. One day a casual customer gets Rikhi Ram Sharma interested in a sitar. He finds and opens a simple 7 string sitar to find out how it is made and starts learning making sitars…
Travel Sitar Mods (3A)
Both Rikhi Ram brothers Ajay & Sanjay, and after them many others, make and sell this handy and compact sitar. Some call it “Ovation” sitar, some call it “Studio” sitar and also “Travel” sitar is commonly used for this successful innovative musical instrument. Commercially it is a succes. No…
Shipment finally arrived…
During my last trip to India in march 2009, I collected some sitar bodies and other instruments. Now they finally arrived, after more then 7 months… Next to a variety of techno-organisatory problems which caused the delay, the packing service got worse as well. This is the result: severely…
Raj Musicals
Visiting Raj Musicals workshop, run by Hans Raj Sharma, at Patel Nagar, New Delhi, India:
S.Raj, answering the telephone at the workshop:
The workshop floor, making a taus:
Cutting sitar dandi:
Cutting a taus. The whole instrument is cut from one single piece of wood.
Construction of dilruba:
