Alankars Technique for the Sitar

Video Transcript

"I will show you now, you already know the scale one Octave from the middle Octave. Now some Alankars, Alankars are combinations of notes that you practice to give you a fluidity with your left hand. Alankar means ornament and these can later be played as ornaments in performance. These are really the building blocks to both ornaments and improvisation. So it is very important to practice these so that you can do them very easily. The first is groups of three, succession of three notes. It is duh duh duh not duh duh duh duh so … always keep thinking duh duh duh. You have got to make your movement as efficient as possible. Don’t move your hand around a lot. It is going to require some stretching of your fingers. Don’t worry if you hit some of the other strings sometimes either. At the very beginning you may want to not start from this lower Sah until you get this first string under your hand so you can just start from Pah and go to Gah. And so on, and going up to here. Second finger at the beginning of each descending succession of notes. And so on."