Why the Sitar Shimmers: Jawari, Taraf Strings and Meend

Play a single note on a sitar and listen to what happens after the pluck. The note does not simply fade. It buzzes, glows and seems to bloom, as if other instruments in the room were quietly joining in. In a sense they are: some of that sound comes from strings nobody touched.

The sitar's voice is one of the most recognisable in the world, and it is not an accident. Almost every part of the instrument has been shaped over centuries to produce that rich, singing tone. Let us take it apart, piece by piece.

A gourd, a long neck and curved frets

The round body at the bottom of the sitar is traditionally made from a dried gourd, cut and fitted with a wooden top. It works like the body of a guitar, amplifying the vibration of the strings, but its shape gives a warmer, rounder colour. Many sitars also have a second, smaller gourd near the top of the neck, which helps balance the instrument and adds a little resonance.

The long hollow neck carries the frets, and these are unusual. They are curved metal arches tied to the neck with thread, and they can be moved. Before a performance, a player slides some frets slightly up or down so that they sit exactly where the notes of the chosen raga need to be. The curve also leaves plenty of space under the strings, which matters for one of the sitar's most important techniques, as we will see.

The jawari: where the buzz is born

On a guitar, the bridge touches the string at one sharp point. The sitar's main bridge is different: it is a broad, gently sloped surface, traditionally made of bone or horn. As the string vibrates, it brushes against this surface again and again. That grazing contact adds a halo of bright overtones to every note, the characteristic buzz that sitar players call jawari.

Jawari is also the name for the delicate craft of shaping that bridge surface. A tiny change in the curve alters the whole character of the instrument, from a soft glow to an open, almost brassy sparkle. Players and makers take it very seriously, and the bridge is periodically reshaped as the strings wear it down.

Sympathetic strings: the taraf

A sitar has two layers of strings. On top are the main strings: a few playing strings plus drone strings, including high chikari strings that are struck for rhythmic accents. Underneath, running beneath the frets on their own small bridge, are around eleven to thirteen thinner strings called taraf, or sympathetic strings.

The player rarely touches them. Instead, they are tuned to the notes of the raga being played, and when a main string sounds one of those notes, the matching taraf string starts vibrating on its own. This is sympathetic resonance, the same effect that makes a piano's strings ring faintly when you sing loudly into it with the sustain pedal held. The result is that every important note of the raga is surrounded by a soft, ringing echo, which is the shimmer you hear.

Occasionally the player brushes across the taraf strings for a harp-like flourish, but mostly they are a hidden choir that reacts to the music.

Meend: bending notes like a singer

Indian classical music is deeply rooted in the voice, and the sitar tries to sing. Its most expressive technique is meend: the player presses a string against a fret and pulls it sideways across the neck, raising the pitch smoothly. Because the frets are tall and curved, a skilled sitarist can stretch a string far enough to glide through several notes from a single fret.

Meend lets the sitar slide between notes the way a singer does, without the steps you hear on a keyboard. Combined with the buzz of the jawari and the ring of the taraf, it gives the instrument its fluid, vocal quality.

The raga in brief

Everything above serves the raga. A raga is more than a scale. It is a set of notes with rules about how to move through them, which notes to emphasise, characteristic phrases, and an associated mood, sometimes even a time of day. Raag Yaman, for example, is a popular evening raga and a common first raga for students.

A sitar performance often begins with a slow, unmetered alap, where the player introduces the raga's notes one by one over a steady drone, before the tabla joins and a rhythmic composition begins. You can explore the wider family of instruments that play this music on the Indian instruments page.

Ravi Shankar and the sitar's journey west

For most of its history the sitar was heard mainly in the Indian subcontinent. That changed in the 1960s, largely through Ravi Shankar, a master sitarist who toured widely and performed at major Western festivals, including Monterey Pop in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969. George Harrison of the Beatles studied with him, and sitar sounds began appearing in pop and rock records of the period.

The fashion for sitar in pop music faded, but the interest in Indian classical music that Shankar sparked did not, and today the sitar is studied by musicians all over the world.

Try it: hear the drone and the notes together

You do not need a sitar to start training your ear for this music. Here is a short practice you can do in a few minutes:

The virtual sitar also lets you switch between standard, Punjabi-style, Bengali-style and electric sitar sounds, which is a nice way to hear how different the instrument can be.

Open the tanpura drone and let it play softly. This drone marks Sa, the home note.
Open the virtual sitar in another tab. Its seven main strings are labelled in sargam on the number keys: 1 is Sa, 2 Re, 3 Ga, and so on up to 7 for Ni.
Play Sa, then Re, then Ga, then back down: Sa Re Ga Re Sa. Leave a long gap after each note and listen to how it sits against the drone.
Extend the phrase to Pa and back. Notice which notes feel restful against the drone and which feel like they want to move.
When you are ready, follow the built-in Raag Yaman guide and record yourself to hear your phrasing.

Listening with new ears

Next time you hear a sitar recording, try to pick out its layers: the main melody, the bright buzz on each note, the soft ring of the taraf behind it, and the long sliding meend between notes. Once you know they are there, you will never hear the sitar as just another plucked string again.