I'll start with this raga by showing some examples to listen to. If you want to understand a raga you need to start to understand the feelings and emotions it conveys.
This is a video of one of my favourite sitarists, Shujaat Khan, son of the legendary Ustad Vilayat Khan. This is a very unusual rendition of Yaman, as usual Shujaat's style sets him apart from most other musicians.
The next one is a beautiful version and I think it displays the characteristics of Yaman very well. Shivkumar...
How To Tune A Sitar
There are probably many ways to tune a sitar and every good player will tell you that you should tune by ear, which is certainly something you should work on developing, but this can be difficult when you are starting out. Once you have the sitar tuned properly it should be fairly easy to make small adjustments because you will hear the clashing sound compared to the pureness of a well tuned sitar but if you have never tuned your sitar to Just Intonation this is how we can start, there is quite...
Indian Tuning - Just Intonation
When it comes to sitars you really don't want to be using a guitar tuner. Sitars, and a lot of Indian instruments, use something called Just Intonation, which is a method of tuning quite different from that of a guitar or a piano.
Just Intonation notes are written as fractions or ratios corresponding to the base note. This means that the resulting notes are purer sounding compared to the rounded up/down version that western music creates.
Have you ever noticed the 'beating' or slight clashing/dissonant...
The Basics - Indian Notation - Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa - Sargam
In Indian music the western notes that we all know are not used so the first thing to do is familiarize yourself with the system that is used. Most western people will at least have heard of Do Re Mi La etc. which refer to steps in a given scale, or pitch intervals, rather than actual notes.
This means that you can sing a scale in any key without needing to know what the actual notes are, it is the relationship between the notes that is the important part - so the difference between Do and Re...
Introduction To The Blog - Aims and Purpose
In this blog I am going to write about my journey in to Indian classical music as I learn to play the sitar. I am going to document all the things I learn along the way and hopefully provide a useful resource for other people starting out on this mind-boggling topic.
I am starting out by learning raga Yaman, the king of all Indian ragas. I do not have a teacher so I cannot verify the validity of the things I post here but I will make every effort to make sure everything is true.
There is very...
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