sitardude2000

Just seeing if there's any musicians out there with a desire to play Indian flavored music. I have created my own sitar-guitar and needless to say its an esoteric interest so far, and particularly hard to find interest here in the South US, even among Indian-Americans.

jvwgtr

Do you have any pics of your guitar? I've always wanted a sitar-guitar, ever since I saw one in a guitar shop in Tacoma, Washington a few years back.
How did you make it?
I love Indian music, but I don't know anything about it.

sitardude2000

I will try to post a pic soon. Its just a pawn shop strat copy that I jigsawed into a tear drop shape but what gave it "life" was simply buying a sitar bridge online and adding it. I love classical Indian music too, and emulating Ravi Shankar is a challenge.

The Nightfly

I studied North Indian Classical music for a year, and I love it. Indian music theory has always felt much more natural and organic to me than western music theory.

I tried playing slide guitar like Vishwa Mohann Bhatt, or Debashish Battacharya (check them out if you don't know them), but quickly realised that you need a good teacher if you're ever going to get anywhere doing that.

While we're on the subject of Indian flavoured guitar music... have you heard Nadia by Jeff Beck?

sitardude2000

Debashish Bhattacharya played on a CD with Shakti. My guitar hero of all time is John McLaughlin. I haven't or don't remember hearing "Nadia" but will check it out. Bhattacharya is great. I am already discovering limitations with the sitar-guitar and am fixing up my sitar. An instrument I own but don't "play". I appreciate that I would need a "pandit" to sit under to ever attempt the microtones and voicings of Indian music.

sitardude2000

Checked out "Nadia". Very nice. Jeff Beck is awesome. Derek Trucks also can do some nice things as on "Sahib Teri Bandi". Ravi Shankar still has everybody's daddy.

roachboy

microtones are not a big deal in themselves--they're just pitches that fall between steps in an equal temperment tuning (equal temperment=standard piano tuning). any other tuning system necessarily involves microtones. a tuning system is internally consistent/coherent, so you can just work with a system and learn its possibilities. and these systems are legion.

http://bostonmicrotonalsociety.org/

here's some of la monte young's "well tuned piano" piece



which is done in a particular tuning system of his own devising:

http://www.kylegann.com/wtp.html

that said, i'm personally kinda obsessed with microtones and manipulating them.

la monte young is an interesting cat in the cross-over space that you're interested in--he studied for many years with pandit pran nath...
this is a kinda interesting essay by henry flynt, who was around young and also studied with pran nath.

http://www.henryflynt.org/aesthetics..._pran_nath.htm

like sun ra said, there are other worlds they've not told you about, and they want to speak with you...

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

sitardude2000

Currently restringing and fixing my sitar up. I was in love with my sitar-guitar but am feeling the limitations now. I own tabla and they are a nice conversation piece. Especially after seeing Zakir Hussain and his percussion masters Sunday night. Awesome concert.