I was about to say that the sitar in it's relatively present form is probably less than 200 years old
which would make it a contemporary of the piano and since there was steel piano wire at the time I
assume there was steel sitar wire. I wanted first to check the dating of sitar so I went to wikipedia.
I'd forgotten about the name Amir Khusrau. I've forgotten quite a few things about sitar and Indian
music in general lol. Anyway, it's stated in wikipedia that the sitar is believed to have been created
by him in the 13th century which I believe is true but, it was also a modification of the Persian "Tar"
and sitar means 3 strings. Maybe they used gut in those days and yes it would have sounded
much different but the sitar then only had 3 strings. That was always my understanding. The sitar
didn't develop into being close to what we see today until maybe the last 150 years.
Ok here's a quote I just found:
"Large, fretted long-necked lute, a prominent instrument of the classical music of the northern and
central regions of the South Asian subcontinent, including modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh
and with extensions into Afghanistan and Nepal. The name 'sitar' is an Urdu transcription of
Persian sihtar, Persian being the court language of north India from the 13th century to the 19th. It
did not become standard in India until the instrument began to reach its present form in the 18th
century. Courtesy of New Grove DMI © 1995."
That's pretty much what was in my mind. At points in time I'd heard things about the history of sitar
but didn't pay much mind. I was too busy learning to play the thing, learning to file the bridge,
learning to tie the frets, to give a crap about who made the bloody thing and when.
Oh yeah and I was reminded that the frets move. You have to make sure they are tied tightly
enough that they won't move incidentally from playing but that you can move them deliberately
when you need to. The frets are normally tied end to end by rather thick wound gold thread that
runs behind the neck but I've seen heavy fishing line used. Whether or not fishing line is better is
de-bait-able