How many strings does a sitar have?

Usually 18 or 20 total. There are 6 or 7 playing strings on top (melody + drone + chikari rhythm strings) and 11–13 sympathetic strings (taraf) running underneath. The player only touches the top strings; the sympathetic strings ring on their own when the melody passes over their pitches.

Why does the sitar sound “buzzy”?

Because of the jawari — the wide curved bridge over which the playing strings pass. The string grazes along the curve as it vibrates, exciting upper harmonics and creating a sustained shimmering buzz that is intrinsic to the sitar’s tone. It’s engineered, not broken; jawari shaping is one of the most specialised skills in sitar making.

Why are the frets curved and tied with thread?

Two reasons. Curved frets lift the melody string well above the next fret over, so the player can bend a single note sideways across several frets’ worth of pitch — the meend technique that makes the sitar sound vocal. Tying the frets with thread instead of fixing them lets the player slide them up or down to micro-tune each fret’s pitch for the specific raga being played.

What is the difference between a Ravi Shankar sitar and a Vilayat Khan sitar?

They are two main styles of modern sitar. The Ravi Shankar (Maihar gharana) sitar has 7 playing strings with an extra bass string, often two gourds (a smaller upper tumba behind the head), and supports the instrumental-meditation style Ravi Shankar developed. The Vilayat Khan (Imdadkhani gharana) sitar has 6 playing strings (no extra bass), often only one gourd, and is set up for the vocal-imitation “gayaki” style with long sustained bends.

Can a guitarist learn sitar quickly?

Some things transfer (fretted neck, plectrum technique, reading TAB-like notation), but most don’t. The sitting posture, the wire-mizrab right hand, the heavy left-hand bends across curved frets, microtonal placement, raga theory, and tala cycles are all new. Most teachers will tell you that the sitar takes years of supervised study under a guru in the Indian classical tradition. Treat it as a new instrument, not a re-skinned guitar.

Why does String Warrior show sitar chords if Indian classical music isn’t chord-based?

Hindustani classical music is melodic-modal, not harmonic — chords are not part of the tradition. But many sitar owners come from a guitar background and want to map fretboard shapes to their instrument for songwriting, fusion, or learning to relate Western theory to the sitar layout. String Warrior’s sitar chord and scale pages serve that crossover use case, with a simplified C–G–C–G–C reference tuning, while explicitly noting that traditional repertoire is not built on chords.

Sitar — Gear basics, anatomy & tunings

The parts of a sitar

A sitar is a tall instrument — usually 120–130 cm long — with a single large body, a long neck, and a wealth of strings and frets. Every part has a name in Hindi/Sanskrit, and almost every part is tunable or repositionable.

Tumba (main gourd): the lower resonating body — a large dried gourd (pumpkin or bottle gourd) with a thin tun- or toon-wood top glued across it. The gourd, not the wood, is the primary resonator.
Tabli (top): the thin wooden soundboard glued across the open face of the gourd. Typically tun (cedrela toona) or sometimes teak. Carries the bridges.
Upper tumba (optional): a smaller second gourd attached behind the upper end of the neck near the head. Found on the older Vilayat Khan-style and some Ravi Shankar instruments; adds resonance and balance. Many sitars have it, some don’t.
Dand (neck): a long hollow neck, usually teak or toon, often quite wide and curved. The neck is itself hollow and contributes to the instrument’s sustain and resonance.
Parda (frets): 17–22 curved metal frets, each tied to the neck with thread (and historically gut). They are not fixed — they can be slid up or down the neck and re-tied to match the raga being played.
Jawari (main bridge): a wide, curved bridge (deer-horn, camel-bone, ebony, or synthetic) on which the playing strings cross. The curve is the “jawari” itself — it is what produces the sitar’s characteristic buzzing sustain.
Sympathetic bridge: a smaller bridge underneath the main one, carrying the taraf strings through holes in the main jawari and the neck.
Kunti (tuning pegs): friction tuning pegs around the head — one bank for the playing strings, plus a row of small side pegs along the side of the neck for the sympathetic strings.
Manka (bead tuners): tiny tuning beads on the playing strings between the jawari and the tailpiece, used for fine-tuning that a friction peg is too coarse for.
Atti (tailpiece) & gulu (neck heel): the metal tailpiece at the bottom anchors the strings; the heel is the carved transition where the neck meets the gourd.

Strings: playing & sympathetic

A sitar has two separate sets of strings. The top set are the playing strings — the player touches these. The lower set are the sympathetic strings — the player never touches them, but they ring on their own whenever the playing strings sound a pitch they are tuned to. It’s the second set that gives the sitar its halo of resonance.

Playing strings (6 or 7): the top strings, played with the right-hand mizrab. Number depends on style — the Ravi Shankar (Maihar gharana) sitar typically has 7; the Vilayat Khan (Imdadkhani gharana) sitar typically has 6.
Main melody string (baj tar): the lowest playing string and the one the player spends most of the time on. Usually a steel string of about .010–.012″. Almost all melodic work happens here.
Drone strings (jod): one or two strings tuned to the tonic and/or fifth, providing a low drone accent under melodic phrases. Usually struck on accented beats.
Chikari strings: 2–3 high-pitched rhythm strings tuned to the tonic (and often the upper octave). Struck rapidly on the upbeat between phrases and during the rhythmic jhala section.
Sympathetic strings (taraf / tarab): 11–13 thin steel strings running underneath the main strings, threaded through holes in the jawari and tied off at side pegs along the neck. Each is tuned to a note of the raga and rings sympathetically when the melody crosses its pitch.
Material: playing strings are steel (plain and copper-wound bass); chikari strings are plain steel; sympathetic strings are thin plain steel. No nylon or gut on a modern sitar.

Movable curved frets (parda)

Sitar frets are unlike anything on a Western fretted instrument. They are tall, curved metal bars — not embedded inlay — tied to the neck with thread so they can be repositioned. The curvature is what makes the sitar’s signature heavy bends physically possible.

Tied frets: each curved metal fret (parda) is tied around the neck with thread. Because they aren’t glued or hammered in, the player can slide them up or down the neck and re-tie them to fine-tune the placement of microtonal notes for a specific raga.
Curved shape: the frets arch over the neck rather than running flat across it. This lifts the melody string well above the next fret over, so the player can push the string sideways across several frets’ worth of pitch without it touching anything underneath.
Why this matters — meend: by pulling the melody string sideways across the curved fret, the player can bend a single fretted note by 4–7 semitones smoothly. This bending technique — meend — is the sitar’s most recognizable expressive device, used to imitate vocal portamento.
Fret count: a modern sitar typically has 17–22 movable frets covering about two octaves on the main melody string. Older sitars sometimes have fewer.
Microtonal placement: the same neck can be set up for any raga. The frets that correspond to scale degrees vary by raga — if a raga uses a komal (flat) third, the player can slide that fret slightly down. This is impossible on a fixed-fret guitar.

The jawari bridge & the buzz

The sitar’s sustained, shimmering, slightly buzzing tone is not an accident or a defect — it is engineered into the bridge itself. The shape of the jawari is what every sitar maker spends years learning to carve.

Wide curved surface: instead of a sharp saddle, the jawari presents a wide, gently curved top surface where the string crosses. The string doesn’t stop on a single point but glances along the curve as it vibrates.
The buzz: because the vibrating string repeatedly grazes the curve, harmonics that wouldn’t normally bloom are excited and sustained, and the attack picks up a halo of upper partials — the distinctive sitar “buzz” or jawari sound.
Material: traditionally deer horn or camel bone; modern instruments use ebony or synthetics like delrin or pre-shaped composites. The harder the material, the brighter the jawari.
Open vs closed jawari: an “open” jawari (gently curved) gives more buzz; a “closed” jawari (closer to a regular saddle) gives a cleaner, more focused tone. Players and gharanas have preferences.
Re-shaping (rajai): the jawari wears down with playing and has to be re-shaped by a specialist roughly every year or two on a working instrument — the shape determines the entire sound of the sitar.

Tunings

Unlike a guitar, the sitar does not have a single fixed tuning. The exact pitches change with the player’s gharana (school), the raga being played, and whether the sitar has 6 or 7 playing strings. Below are the most common reference tunings.

Style / gharana	Playing strings (low → high)	Notes
Ravi Shankar / Maihar (7-string)	C–C–G–C–G–C–C (Sa as C)	7 playing strings: extra bass (low Pa), bass Sa, lower Pa, main Sa (baj tar), drone Pa, and two high chikari strings tuned to upper Sa. Sa is conventionally written as C for reference; the actual concert pitch varies per instrument.
Vilayat Khan / Imdadkhani (6-string)	C–F–C–G–C–C (Sa as C)	6 playing strings, no extra bass string. Designed for a more vocal “gayaki” style. Slightly thinner gauge on the melody string than Ravi Shankar setups, encouraging long sustained bends.
Simplified reference	C–G–C–G–C	A 5-string reductive reference used in some Western teaching materials and in String Warrior’s sitar chord charts. Captures the Sa/Pa drone relationship without depending on the specific gharana setup.
Taraf (sympathetic strings)	11–13 strings tuned to the notes of the raga	Re-tuned every time the player changes raga — one string per relevant scale degree across one to two octaves. The taraf set ringing in sympathy is what gives the sitar its halo of resonance.

String Warrior uses a simplified C–G–C–G–C reference on the sitar chord pages — this isn’t a substitute for a guru’s tuning but it lets a guitarist or Western-trained musician map the Sa/Pa relationship onto familiar shapes.

The mizrab (wire plectrum)

The sitar is played with a single wire plectrum worn on the right-hand index finger. The mizrab is one of the few non-tunable parts of the instrument — once a player settles on a shape, they tend to stay with it.

Construction: a single piece of stiff steel wire bent into a loop at one end (which slides onto the index finger) and a small triangular blade at the other (which strikes the string).
Da and ra: the right-hand strokes have specific names — da is the inward stroke (toward the player), ra is the outward stroke. Almost all sitar repertoire is taught as patterns of da and ra.
Jhala: rapid alternation between the main melody string and the high chikari rhythm strings — the sitar’s climactic right-hand technique, typically the final fast section of a raga.
Wax on the finger: traditional players use beeswax to seat the mizrab firmly on the index finger so it stays put during long bends and fast jhala. The wax doubles as a small custom shim.
Other-finger mizrabs: some surbahar (bass sitar) players wear additional small mizrabs on the middle and ring fingers for low-string strokes. Standard sitar uses one only.

Music: raga & tala

The sitar is built for Hindustani classical music. Its repertoire is organised around raga (modal/melodic system) and tala (rhythmic system) — the same two pillars that organise all North Indian classical music.

Raga: a melodic framework richer than a Western scale — with specific ascending and descending forms, characteristic phrases, rules about which notes are emphasised, ornaments, and an associated time of day or season.
Alap: the slow, unmetered opening of a raga performance. The player establishes the raga’s mood through long meend bends and slow exploration of its characteristic phrases — no rhythm yet.
Jor & jhala: the rhythmic but unaccompanied middle and climactic sections, where pulse emerges (jor) and accelerates into rapid chikari-string strumming (jhala).
Gat: the composed, tabla-accompanied melodic theme — typically slow (vilambit) and then fast (drut). The gat is the structural anchor of the rhythmic portion of a concert.
Tala: rhythmic cycles, most commonly teental (16 beats) but including jhaptal (10), rupak (7), and many more. The sitar player and tabla player interlock over the cycle.

Players to know

A short list — far from complete — of players whose recordings map the sitar’s modern landscape.

Ravi Shankar (1920–2012): Maihar gharana, the most internationally famous sitarist of the 20th century. Brought Indian classical music to global audiences through concerts and recordings, collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin, and lessons with George Harrison.
Vilayat Khan (1928–2004): Imdadkhani gharana, master of the gayaki ang (vocal style) on sitar. Developed the 6-string sitar setup and a vocal-imitation technique of long bends and slow phrasing.
Nikhil Banerjee (1931–1986): Maihar gharana, widely regarded as one of the most musically refined sitarists. Recordings preserve some of the most lyrical and rigorous raga playing in the post-war era.
Shahid Parvez Khan: Imdadkhani gharana, a leading living sitarist in the Vilayat Khan lineage with deep gayaki phrasing and strong meend technique.
Anoushka Shankar & Niladri Kumar: contemporary players pushing the sitar into new musical contexts — world fusion, contemporary classical, and electrified “zitar” modifications.
Ali Akbar Khan (sarod, not sitar) & Ravi Shankar duets: the jugalbandi duet recordings between these two are essential listening for anyone trying to understand Hindustani classical phrasing.

A short history

The sitar developed in 18th-century North India out of older Indian and Central Asian plucked lutes — most directly the medieval Indian veena family and the long-necked Persian setar (the name “sitar” comes from seh-tár, “three strings”). It crystallised at the courts of the late Mughal period and the early princely states.

19th- and early 20th-century master builders and players refined the modern sitar: more sympathetic strings, the tall curved movable frets, the wide jawari bridge, and the gharana-specific 6- and 7-string configurations. Ustad Imdad Khan and Ustad Allauddin Khan are the two most influential figures in shaping the schools (Imdadkhani and Maihar) that dominate today.

In the 1960s, Ravi Shankar’s concert tours and his lessons with George Harrison brought the sitar into Western popular music. The instrument appears on recordings by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and many other 1960s rock acts — almost always as a colour effect rather than as a vehicle for raga. The serious Hindustani-classical tradition continued in parallel, and today the sitar is taught in conservatories worldwide and recorded across classical, jazz, electronic, and film contexts.

Once you know the gear, put it to use:

Frequently asked questions

How many strings does a sitar have?: Usually 18 or 20 total. There are 6 or 7 playing strings on top (melody + drone + chikari rhythm strings) and 11–13 sympathetic strings (taraf) running underneath. The player only touches the top strings; the sympathetic strings ring on their own when the melody passes over their pitches.
Why does the sitar sound “buzzy”?: Because of the jawari — the wide curved bridge over which the playing strings pass. The string grazes along the curve as it vibrates, exciting upper harmonics and creating a sustained shimmering buzz that is intrinsic to the sitar’s tone. It’s engineered, not broken; jawari shaping is one of the most specialised skills in sitar making.
Why are the frets curved and tied with thread?: Two reasons. Curved frets lift the melody string well above the next fret over, so the player can bend a single note sideways across several frets’ worth of pitch — the meend technique that makes the sitar sound vocal. Tying the frets with thread instead of fixing them lets the player slide them up or down to micro-tune each fret’s pitch for the specific raga being played.
What is the difference between a Ravi Shankar sitar and a Vilayat Khan sitar?: They are two main styles of modern sitar. The Ravi Shankar (Maihar gharana) sitar has 7 playing strings with an extra bass string, often two gourds (a smaller upper tumba behind the head), and supports the instrumental-meditation style Ravi Shankar developed. The Vilayat Khan (Imdadkhani gharana) sitar has 6 playing strings (no extra bass), often only one gourd, and is set up for the vocal-imitation “gayaki” style with long sustained bends.
Can a guitarist learn sitar quickly?: Some things transfer (fretted neck, plectrum technique, reading TAB-like notation), but most don’t. The sitting posture, the wire-mizrab right hand, the heavy left-hand bends across curved frets, microtonal placement, raga theory, and tala cycles are all new. Most teachers will tell you that the sitar takes years of supervised study under a guru in the Indian classical tradition. Treat it as a new instrument, not a re-skinned guitar.
Why does String Warrior show sitar chords if Indian classical music isn’t chord-based?: Hindustani classical music is melodic-modal, not harmonic — chords are not part of the tradition. But many sitar owners come from a guitar background and want to map fretboard shapes to their instrument for songwriting, fusion, or learning to relate Western theory to the sitar layout. String Warrior’s sitar chord and scale pages serve that crossover use case, with a simplified C–G–C–G–C reference tuning, while explicitly noting that traditional repertoire is not built on chords.