Sitars, sarods, tanpuras, veenas and the bowed instruments, from our own workshop and from Kanai Lal & Sons, Monoj K Sardar, Hemen & Co and Hiren Roy. Every instrument is strung, set up and checked in our Delhi workshop before it ships.
Start with what the instrument has to do. A sitar is a solo melodic instrument with sympathetic strings that ring under the melody. A tanpura plays no melody at all: it holds a drone that the singer or soloist tunes against. A sarod is fretless and metal fingerboarded, so it slides where a sitar steps.
Within sitars, the two families are Ravi Shankar style, with a second gourd and a fuller lower register, and Vilayat Khan style, with a single gourd and a brighter voice built for gayaki, the singing style. Kharaj pancham tuning adds the lower strings and is the usual Ravi Shankar setup. Neither is better; they are different instruments for different music.
For tanpuras, size follows voice. Male tanpuras are longer with a deeper drone, female tanpuras are shorter and pitched higher, and a tanpuri is smaller again for travel and for accompanying instrumental practice rather than a voice.
Student and concert instruments differ in wood seasoning, decoration and setup time rather than shape. A student sitar plays correctly and holds tune. A concert instrument has better wood, more careful fretwork and a longer sustain that becomes obvious as your playing gets better.
We string and set up every instrument in Delhi before it ships, with the gauges the instrument is designed for. Bridges are cut and curved by hand, since the jawari, the shape of the bridge surface, is what produces the buzzing overtone that makes these instruments sound the way they do.
Expect to retune on arrival. Strings stretch and pegs move in transit, and a sitar that arrives perfectly in tune has usually been shipped too tightly. Tune it up over a day or two rather than forcing it to pitch immediately.
Jawari wears with playing. On a well used sitar the buzz gradually turns dull, and the bridge needs recutting by someone who does it regularly. That is normal maintenance, not damage, and it is the single thing most worth paying a specialist for.
Gourds crack in dry air and swell in damp. If you live somewhere with hard winters and heated rooms, keep the instrument away from radiators and consider a room humidifier. If you live somewhere humid, keep it off the floor and out of a closed case for long periods.
Slacken the strings if the instrument is going into storage for more than a few weeks. A sitar left at full tension for a year will pull its neck.
Sympathetic strings break more often than main strings and are cheap to replace. Keep a spare set. Wipe the strings after playing, since sweat is what kills them.
Ravi Shankar style has a second gourd and lower sympathetic strings, giving a fuller instrumental voice. Vilayat Khan style drops the second gourd and some lower strings for a brighter tone closer to the singing voice. Choose by the music you want to play.
Male tanpuras are longer and pitched lower, for male vocalists and instrumental accompaniment. Female tanpuras are shorter and higher. If you are buying for a singer, match the tanpura to the singer's range rather than to the player.
It will arrive set up but expect to retune. Strings stretch in transit and pegs move with temperature. Bring it up to pitch over a day or two rather than all at once.
Jawari is the curved bridge surface that produces the buzzing overtone characteristic of Indian strings. It wears with playing and needs recutting periodically. It is the single most important part of how a sitar or tanpura sounds.
For anything travelling, yes. Fibre trolley cases are standard on our concert instruments. A soft bag is fine for a tanpuri that stays at home.
