Does a sitar have 12 strings?
The sitar's curved frets are movable, allowing fine tuning, and raised so thatsympathetic strings (tarb, also known as "taarif" or "tarafdaar") can run underneath them. A sitar can have 21, 22, or 23 strings, among them six or seven played strings which run over the frets: the Gandhaar-pancham sitar (used by Vilayat Khan and his disciples) has six playable strings, whereas the Kharaj-pancham sitar, used in theMaihar gharana,to which Pt. Ravi Shankar belongs, has seven. Three of these (or four on a Kharaj-pancham sitar), called the chikaari, simply provide a drone: the rest are used to play the melody , though the first string (baajtaar) is most used.The instrument has two bridges; the large bridge (badaa goraa) for the playing and drone strings and the small bridge (chota goraa) for the sympathetic strings. Its timbre results from the way the strings interact with the wide, sloping bridge. As a string reverberates its length changes slightly as its edge touches the bridge, promoting the creation of overtones and giving the sound its distinctive tone. The maintenance of this specific tone by shaping the bridge is called jawari. Many musicians rely on instrument makers to adjust this.Materials used in construction include teak wood or tunwood (Cedrela tuna), which is a variation of mahogany, for the neck and faceplate (tabli), and gourds for the kaddu(the main resonating chamber). The instrument's bridges are made of deer horn, ebony, or very occasionally from camel bone. Synthetic material is now common as well. The sitar may have a secondary resonator, the tumbaa, near the top of its hollow neck.uning depends on the sitarist's school or style, tradition and each artist's personal preference. Generally, the main playing string is tuned to the tonic (approximately B#/C - D#/Eb), called Sa or vaad and the drone strings both to that tone and to thesamvaad or second note, which is usually the perfect fifth. The sympathetic strings are tuned to the notes of the raga being played: although there is slight stylistic variance as to the order of these, typically they are tuned:I Sa= C,VII Ni= B,I Sa= C,II Re= D,III Ga= E,IV Ma= F,V Pa= G,V Pa= G,VI Dha= A,VI Ni= B,I Sa= C,II Re= D,III Ga= E,(the last three in the upper octave). The player should re-tune for each raga. Strings are tuned by tuning pegs, and the main playing strings can be fine-tuned by sliding a bead threaded on each string just below the bridge.Chikari strings: Sa (high), Sa (middle), and Pa.Kharaj (bass) strings: Sa (low) and Pa (low).Jod and baaj strings, Sa and Ma.In a "Gandhar Pancham" (Imdadkhani, school of Vilayat Khan) sitar, the bass or kharaj strings are removed and are replaced by a fourth chikari which is tuned to Ga. By playing the chikari strings with this tuning, one produces a chord (Sa, Sa, Pa, Ga).To tune the sympathetic strings to raga Kafi for example: I Sa, vii ni (lower case denotes flat (komal) I Sa, II Re, iii ga, III Ga (Shuddh or natural, in Kafi the third is different ascending and descending), iv ma, V Pa, VI Dha, vii ni, I Sa, II Re, iii ga. However, there is a lot of stylistic variance within these tunings.
