Ever since George Harrison of The Beatles fame, introduced the Indian classical instrument known as the sitar, to the pop world in the 1960's in the album Norwegian Wood, it has never really faded from western musical awareness, and the subsequent rise of Ravi Shankar, the preeminent classical sitar performer of our time, it has grown in popularity and favour among musicians, both rock and traditional, ever since.

However, before Harrison played his sitar, it was around for many hundreds of years as a well-known and loved instrument to peoples of the East.

A musical instrument, considered belonging to the lute family the sitar is familiar to audiences not only in India, but in Turkey, Iran and other parts of the Near East as well.

The first thing it may resmemble to North American audiences, is a standard, four-string guitar. But unlike a guitar, the sitar is constructed out of a dried gourd-- the largest part of the sitar, is actually a pumpkin that has been carved out and dried and this makes up the sound-chamber where the vibrations of the strings find themselves echoed and made more resonant.

The tone is controlled by the bridge, or sounding board, where the fingers fly up and down pressing and releasing the strings. In total the instrument may have as many ast twenty-three strings--some of which are 'sympathetic' strings, and hence are not intended to be played.

Part of the skill in playing this Eastern instrument is in having an excellent 'ear' for the resonating strings, and what they will produce when the primary strings are plucked.

For this reason the sitar is considered a challenging instrument to master. Excellent finger dexterity is needed, because the notes that one plucks when playing, are spaced far apart. In addition the strings also need considerable pressure placed on them to hold them down.

This, however, does not mean it is an instrument exclusive to men, with their somewhat stronger arms than women, for playing the sitar, since in fact, one of Ravi Shankar's daughters is considered one of the great masters of this difficult instrument, and is a worldwide performer on the sitar, as is her father.(See her video above).

Because the frets on a sitar are somewhat extended above the surface of the instrument, it can take enormous amounts of practice before one is able to strike a clear note.

As opposed to the guitar, the sitar is literally played in two directions, or two dimensions — vertically from top to bottom and horizontally from left to right. Combined, these two dimensions of strings canvass the entire scale and plucking the central string can further resonate as many as six notes of the scale simultaneously. To sound the notes, one pull from right to left in a sweeping motion. On the guitar, on the other hand, you would sweep downward across the strings to bend them, thus causing the strings to vibrate.