Sitar Technique in Nibaddh Forms

by Stephen Slawek

The book focuses on Sitar technique and shows how that technique comes into play during the improvisatory music-making endeavours of master Sitarists. A series of systematic descriptions and analyses reveals how instrumental technique as that of Sitar acts as a generative structure at the broad level and provides a corpus of factors of variation at the specific level. It includes musical transcriptions detailing physical gestures to produce melody.

Students of Indian music are well aware of the emphasis their gurus place on the development of correct technique through rigorous practice. This book focuses on sitar technique and shows how that technique comes into play during the improvisatory music-making endeavours of master sitarists.

A series of systematic descriptions and analyses reveals how instrumental technique acts as a generative structure at the broad level and provides a corpus of factors of variation at the specific level. A unique feature of this study is the inclusion of musical transcriptions detailing not only the line of melody, but also the physical gestures (techniques) necessary to produce melody. Though technically complex in appearance, these transcriptions and the accompanying analyses provide valuable information to students interested in learning Sitar and to musicologists and ethnomusicologists inquiring into the basic improvisational processes that underlie contemporary styles of Sitar performance.

About the Author:

Stephen Slawek is Associate Professor of Music and Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. An accomplished sitarist, Dr. Salwek is a student of Pandit Ravi Shankar and the Late Dr. almani Misra.