The A to the Zitar of Contemporary.

The "Zitar" is not the electric Sitar. "Don't call it an electric sitar; you'll disrespect what is a 300 year old science perfected by guys who figured out the supreme art of playing" says it's creator Niladri Kumar,who loves his pair of union jack socks and has also designed the "T-shirt Kurta" which according to him is "More comfortable to play in than silk, and fits in beautifully" .

Now, My knowledge of Indian classical music is limited to playing the tabla, live concerts where most people are dozing off and playing around with The Taanpura and Sitar downstairs. I have tried a number of alternative tunings on the guitar, which played the right way often churns out something amazing, provided my distortion levels and the reverb are set right not to mention the "High Med and Low and FDD"..... (you get the point)

The Zitar looks like a toy version of the woman's Sitar(Yes they come in different sizes). Its loaded with a Seymour Duncan Double humbucking Electric Guitar pickup, Run through a Boss GT6 or a Line6 Pod XT live Digital guitar effects processor. The tones generated are unique,abstract, strange and beautiful. The 5 stringed instrument has a steel Gauge 3 string for the first, and unwound Brass string for the second, a second steel Gauge 3 for the third, a gauge 1 on the fourth and fifth strings all which (i assume) are tuned to the natural scale and its played in the usual sitar position. Perfect Fusion."Z is the last letter of the alphabet, right? Well, A Sitar can't get any smaller or any louder than this" and I Believe him.

His latest album Priority is something for which my fingers have a terrible itch to get hold on. A video for the track "Priority" is being aired on Vh1 and hopefully elsewhere as well. He seems to be playing the Zitar like a fusion artist would shred on the guitar. But what makes him different is unlike the others, he has finally come up with something that's normally alien (from a 16 year old's point of view) to Indian classical strings, something that's.........cool.

And he is the one who got me to start fiddling around with a real Sitar(much to my family's dismay, who would rather have me doing trigonometry among other exciting things)

Definitely someone to watch out for.

Dissapointment.

How many times has it been, that I've heard " you seem to nice to be a metal head" or "Trance is the music they play at doped rave parties" , or the fact that being alternative is being alien.
Quite a few times actually.
The sad part of it all is when people listening to Symphonic Black metal are dismissed as Baby raping, Satan worshipping freaks, while those swearing by hip-hop, which is normally associated with drug abuse,gang- violence, materialism is perfectly normal. Electronic music producers,and followers are accepted to be rave party going freaks, and Classical music listeners as plain boring and goth rock lovers as depressed and suicidal.
Its only the musically educated sect , that understands the technicalities involved in every composition,that can truly accept music for what it is, irrespective of all Genres and Sub- Genres.

The sad thing is , this sect is very small, and dwindling.
So very unlike that sect, i have decided to give up educating people and getting them to accept music. Its easier to believe the world is going to end on the 22 of December 2008.