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Bill wrote: >In the spirit of the Tueffel and Glisstar thread, is anyone out >there aware of a manufacturer of electric sitars or guitars with >additional drone strings? There's a luthier who builds what he calls a "sympitar" which is a standard acoustic guitar (normal guitar frets) with internally placed sympathetic strings. See: http://www.beyondthetrees.com/sympb.htm >I've never seen an actual sitar, but from photos it appears >the drones run under very large D shaped frets, with the melody >strings passing over the top of the metal arc of the D. >Is that accurate? Any DIYers ever try this? What you described above is correct. However, on a sitar these raised, curved frets are so high above the neck that they serve as a fingerboard themselves. That is, the top of the fret is 1/2 inch above the neck, which is actually hollowed into a trough-like shape. The bridge (which is specially shaped to give that characteristic sitar twanginess) is correspondingly high as well. So there's no way you could ever actually touch the string to the "fingerboard" as on a guitar, violin, etc. The frets are raised and curved to facilitate the graceful, sliding glissando effect called "meend." On a good sitar one should be able to "bend" the main string a full fifth (e.g., from C to G) from any fret. Because this pulling features so prominently in sitar technique, there is quite a wide space between the highest string (the "main" string) and the end of the neck -- it would be as though the highest string on a guitar was the D string! When most string players see my sitar they want to know why there aren't *more* strings on it :-) The sympathetic strings, which have their own separate bridge, lie beneath the main playing strings (and under the frets). These strings run through small holes that have been drilled into the "fingerboard" and connect to friction pegs that run through the hollow neck. The neck is hollow not only to provide a place for the sympathetic string pegs, but also to increase the overall resonance of the instrument. The sympathetic strings are tuned to the notes of the scale that one is playing in, and get retuned for every different melody. I think it would be difficult if not impossible to do a full guitar conversion using sitar frets and sympathetic strings, because of the solid neck, as well as the height of the frets/bridge. Years ago a musician that I worked with bought a goofy used 60's relic called a "Rah-Zeetar" which was an electric "sitar" (looked like the real thing) with a resin/plastic "gourd" resonator and body, along with standard sitar frets, bridges, and pickups for both the main and sympathetic strings. However, the frets were fully chromatic (unlike a "real" sitar) and the stringing did not allow for the openly-tuned rhythm/drone strings called "chikari" on a standard sitar. I found it poorly set up for playing classical Indian music, since it seemed designed more to allow a guitarist to be able to just jump in and "play sitar" without having to learn an entirely new technique. I doubt that these are made any longer, but it might be worth looking into. Good luck, and remember, "it don't mean a thang if it ain't got that twang" James