Playing an electric sitar gives some weird possibilities.
Watch this Niladri Kumar on the electric highway.
Tag Archives: varisitari
Dieter Zarnitz
A very special and most beautiful series of sitars and surbahars made by Dieter Zarnitz.
The tumba is replaced by a wooden construction as used in traditional western lute making. Neck and body are made from flamed maple, with old air-dried pine soundboard. The head and curl are made of rosewood, the tuning pegs are made from ebony.
But, all I’ve ever heard about the man who builds these beauties is this flyer, taken by my friend Bert Cornelis at a concert in Aachen (Germany).
Sitar, Surbahar & Tanpura
Dieter Zarnitz
Gutenbergstr. 40
31139 Hildesheim
Tel: 05121/2043815
dieter.zarnitz@htp-tel.de
Electric Zeetar
Anyone ever seen this one in real ?
The Rajah Zeetar is an instrument made in the 1960’s in the likeness of a sitar. Supplied with an electronic amplifier. Made in Japan. It comes with 2 eye-catching big magnetic pickups and the body is made of papier-mache with a wooden soundboard, lenght is 112 cm.
Hiren Roy Compact Sitar
Towards the end of last year Hiren Roy company came with their version of the “compact sitar”.
At first sight a regular sitar with an original slotted head, but …
…they simply cut the tumba by half.
It looks very similar to Sanjay’s “studio travel model“, which has a full wooden body. This very successful concept has been copied and sold by many other sitar makers.
Further pics and details of the Hiren Roy Compact sitar are available at http://www.india-instruments.de/pag/stringinst/sitar/hr_full_com_e.html. Pictures courtesy of www.india-instruments.de.
Jay Scott Hackleman
Jay Scott Hackleman and late Kartar Chand Sharma
21 years ago Jay Scott Hackleman was so very lucky to be able to spend a whole year in the very special company of some of the world’s finest traditional sitarmakers, Kartar Chand & Hari Chand Sharma.
He wrote a profound article about his apprenticeship in the shop of Late Kartar Chand which has originally been published in The Journal of The Guilds of American Luthiers N°67 in 2002.
Hari Chand often talked to me about this “very fine young American person”. He showed me many pictures in his much used and thumb marked album. And during one of my last visits Hariji proudly presented me a beautiful copy from this unique article written by Jay. It’s a real extensive documentary (4,13Mb pdf), made with sincere care and love. Thank You So Much, Jay.
Today Tineke found a website about his present-day work.
Electric Sitar @ NAMM
Seen at the annual top-event of music-industry in California :
Look at the similarities to my solid body sitar.
Or, check here: blog categories sitar making.
Flower Sitar completed
The flower sitar in the hands of its proudly owner, Thierry.
The sitar is ready but it’s not really sufficiently solid to actually play it. Too bad…
Flower Sitar on visit
This flower sitar belonging to Thierry Willame is on a visit.
We want to change it into a playable instrument.
How to make a mizrab, the translation
Here is the translation of “how to make mizrab” section taken from an old “teach yourself sitar” manual.
Or, try this alternative animated demonstration .
Basic sitar tuning
I added a basic sitar tuning chart to the maintenance page…
I hope it helps some motivated beginners to start the journey.