sitar
A plucked string instrument from India with sympathetic strings and a distinctive buzzing tone.
In Depth
The sitar is a plucked string instrument central to North Indian (Hindustani) classical music. It has a long neck with movable frets, a gourd resonator, and typically 18 to 21 strings — several melody strings, drone strings, and a set of sympathetic strings that vibrate in resonance, creating the instrument's characteristic shimmering, buzzing quality.
Ravi Shankar brought the sitar to international attention in the 1960s, notably through his collaboration with George Harrison of The Beatles. The sitar's complex technique involves bending strings across the wide, curved frets to produce the continuous pitch slides (meend) that are essential to Indian melodic expression. A single note on the sitar can contain an entire phrase of musical information.
Ravi Shankar taught George Harrison to play sitar, directly introducing Indian classical music to millions of Western listeners through The Beatles and the Concert for Bangladesh.