Sitar Saturday - Sitar-Like Instruments

It has been a while since I posted anything for #sitarsaturday here I'll focus on sitar-like instruments

Ever want a sitar with more strings to play with and less sympathetic strings with more of a bass sound? Then the Saraswati Veena is the instrument for you. It is quite large and is often laid flat on the ground on its two large resonator gourds. I really like the bass sound of it.

When I was younger I thought tanpuras were sitars. Instead these are the sympathetic background drone instruments that accompany the sitar lead. They get tuned to whatever drone key the sitar is tuned to and are slowly plucked to the rhythm that the tabla player is playing to. With the tanpura and tabla in place you have the perfect background to solo over with a traditional sitar.

Another sitar-like instrument is the sarod. These kind of remind me of a sitar a fretless bass and cigar box guitar getting mashed together. The trick with playing these is to have really long flat ended nails on your fretting hand. It sounds way too muted without your nail pressing the string to the smooth metal neck. I've always wanted to get one of these but I wouldn't be able to play regular guitar with nails that long on my fretting hand.

That's all for now, more sitar soon...