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Topic: Sitar-ing: How to make your lap steel sound like a sitar |
Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 25 Jan 2018 6:08 am |
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I've experimented a bit with trying to do just that, even to the extent of installing a sitar type bridge on a steel, but still, for pure sitarish sounds on one string, this bar technique is my favorite. Note: I have never tried using a sitar bar, or a bar with flat side. A bullet bar turn length-wise on a string is still my favorite sound, though perfecting the technique requires a lot of work. It's also very hard to jump strings, because, as you'll find out, the intonation varies widely from string to string, and so does the buzz effect. It's really a feel thing that you need to adjust for.
I was fooling around one night and this tune popped into my head as a perfect vehicle for it.
https://youtu.be/x_SMDz7d1Xk
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http://www.steelinstruction.com/
http://mikeneer.com |
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Nic Neufeld
From:
Kansas City, Missouri
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Posted 25 Jan 2018 6:29 am
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Very nice! Has an open jawari (more Ravi Shankar than Vilayat Khan) sound. The vibrato is a bit less sitar-sounding, but it works for (to coin a phrase) "hapa-hindustani" eg. Beatles / 60s sitar pop.
I play "the real thing" better than I play steel at this point (7 years ago I was interested in Hawaiian and Hindustani...put Hawaiian on the backburner and focused on Indian classical and have just come back to Hawaiian steel). It does get me thinking of ways to adapt the steel guitar to Indian music. For instance...a large part of the sound of the sitar (other than the "buzz" effect of the jawari bridge) is the sympathetic string resonance, tuned to the notes of the raag. If you had an old beater double-8 to play around with...you could string up the far neck with light gauge strings that you can tune variously to fit an octave-worth of the notes in the raag. The front neck, tune it to something where the main playing strings go (from low to high) Root, fifth, root, 4th (in sitar these are Sa, Pa, Sa, Ma...the Ma is the main playing string) and then put 2-3 high strings separated from those, closest to the player, tuned to high Sa and Pa (these are the chikari strings, that percussive "ching!" sound you hear sitarists punctuate their phrases with). What's really cool is that you could then wire it so the pickups on the far neck can be blended in to taste with the front neck...controlling the amount of resonance you want in the sound. On a sitar, when everything is really, really in tune, and you hit a note just perfectly, the sympathetic resonance is beautiful, like an auto-tuned reverb. You have to play in tune though!! I discovered the effect with steel when I set my Stringmasters middle B11th neck to on, but played on the unamplified adjoining neck in the B mixolydian scale, Raag Jhinjoti. B11 has all those notes and it worked well, but I'm not ready to hack into my Stringmaster to rewire it for blending between necks...
Now, maybe that's a lot of work when you can just get a Mohan Veena instead. Saw Vishwa Mohan Bhatt in Lawrence Kansas years ago...phenomenal player. He demonstrated subdividing rhythms in these fast scalar runs with 1 per beat, 2 per beat, on up to 8. 7 and 5 nearly broke my brain trying to process that. I felt sorry for his tabla player!
(Sorry for waxing on, its a bit of a worlds-collide topic for me)
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Waikīkī, at night when the shadows are falling
I hear the rolling surf calling
Calling and calling to me |
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Bill McCloskey
From:
Nanuet, NY
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Posted 25 Jan 2018 6:46 am
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Rob Ickes teaches that technique on one of his Homespun video tapes. He calls it his sitar sound and uses it quit a bit if you listen to his work.
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Check out the Steel Guitar Union Hall Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@steelguitarunionhall |
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Bill Sinclair
From:
Waynesboro, PA, USA
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Posted 25 Jan 2018 7:03 am
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Very cool, Mike. After watching your video I tried several bars and found that I had more control and got the most consistent sound using a Stevens Dobro style bar flipped over with the finger trough over the string. Not as difficult a balancing act as the bullet bar. A rusty bar also worked pretty well but, nah, who wants to play with a rusty bar.
Nic,
I've been playing around with various iterations of a double neck with sympathetic strings much in the way you described. I haven't tried tunings for Indian music but more as an effect like the damper pedal on a piano. I can tell from some of your previous posts that this is something I'd like to discuss with you sometime. I tried using a double ganged volume pot for different volume settings for the two necks but they were too interactive. My next attempt will be to simply have two separate output jacks for two different amp channels. I've tried it with alligator clips on the pickups and it works quite well. Now I just need to get around to wiring a D8. I have a somewhat mutilated Stringmaster that I will be using but I haven't found the time yet. |
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Chris Brooks
From:
Providence, Rhode Island
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Posted 25 Jan 2018 7:12 am
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Dunlop made (makes?) a 7/8 sitar bar . . .but Jim Burdon made a steel bar with a flat on it to my own specs. Contact him!
Chris |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 25 Jan 2018 7:13 am
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| Bill McCloskey wrote: |
| Rob Ickes teaches that technique on one of his Homespun video tapes. He calls it his sitar sound and uses it quit a bit if you listen to his work. |
Cool, I had no idea as I really don't spend much time in that galaxy, but I know he can play his ass off.
I don't remember where I first learned of this technique, but it was here on the forum and it was in the Steinar/Fred Kinbom universe somehow. I can't recall.
And Nic, way to go! But I am just a transient observer in the realm of world music. I have basked in the sounds of every kind of music I could find without delving too deeply into how they do it--mostly just so I could figure out a way to incorporate (steal/steel) those sounds.
Chris, as far as the sitar bar, less is more for me, meaning I like to figure out a way to do without having to rely on any additional gadgets.
_________________
http://www.steelinstruction.com/
http://mikeneer.com |
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Jeff Mead
From:
London, England
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Posted 25 Jan 2018 11:51 am
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I'm a bit surprised that you went to the trouble of installing a sitar bridge without even trying the much simpler (and probably cheaper) option of a sitar bar.
I've used a sitar bar and have been very happy with the results (and it doesn't roll off a flat surface!). |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 26 Jan 2018 4:45 am
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I'm just a weirdo in that way. I get something in my head and then I have to figure out how to do it myself. It really never even occurred to me to get a sitar bar. Plus, I'm a tinkerer, musically and otherwise--not a good one, just a curious one.
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http://www.steelinstruction.com/
http://mikeneer.com |
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