Most Difficult Sitar Exercise Ever? Part 1

My sitar teacher gave me a very difficult exercise to practice. He told me it would take a year before I would be able to play it correctly. I’m going to document my progress. This is video #1.

Please leave comments.

I took my first sitar lesson on January 27th, 2012.

How to play Sitar (with less pain)! AKA: how to tape your fingers.

Playing the sitar is hard and it can be really painful. In this video I’ll demonstrate the method I use to tape my fingers. This helps reduce pain and can be very useful when you have been practicing a lot. Or, if you are just beginning to learn sitar using tape can be helpful while your fingers build up a callous.

Some additional thoughts:
Sorry for the messy room. I figured it was better for me to shoot a video surrounded by my son’s toys than to clean everything up and not have time to make the video.

You don’t want to use tape every time you practice.

I suggest masking tape because it’s very slick on the strings and also because the glue is fairly weak allowing you to take the tape off easily. It also won’t leak glue onto your strings like a fabric athletic tape will.

I changed my shirt halfway into filming so that you can see my hands better. But if you like the shirt I was wearing, you can buy one at http://copycreditmeals.net/ My buddy runs that website and is giving his profits back to artists, actors, etc.

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Sitar taan at 170 bpm!

I was really determined to play this Taan at 170 beats per minute. I’ve been stuck at 160, so today I slowly worked my way up to 170 with many failed attempts. Here are the last three minutes of my practice where I struggle with and eventually hit the 170 goal.

…180 is the next milestone. My teacher wants me to eventually play all taans for this gat at 200bpm.

A taan is sort of similar to playing a riff in western music.

I took my first sitar lesson on January 27th, 2012.

Sitar Practice: Paltas and Alap 5.28.2016

In this video practicing paltas and the opening to Alap. I’m planning to document my sitar practice on a regular basis.

Paltas are melodic patterns to train your left and right hand using the notes of the Raga you are practicing. I’m working on raga Yaman.

Later I practice my opening to the Alap portion of Raga Yaman.

I took my first sitar lesson on January 27th, 2012.