Apologies in advance since this is not a mandolin nor a sitar for that matter. It is however a Bouzouki-sitar hybrid type of instrument and I think it is kind of an interesting animal. It does what it does quite well, which is to let me well-approximate an acoustic sitar sound using mandolin and guitar technique. It is designed closer to a sitar than a typical electric sitar, because only the top two strings are for melody with the rest serving as drone strings. As with a sitar, you can only really play in one "key" using a modal approach and you more or less forget about chords. With a capo I can play in other keys with ensembles, but it sounds best keeping the capo to a few of the lower frets. Unlike a sitar you cannot do a true "meend" or bending to get from one note to another, but with the scalloped fingerboard you can bend about one half step and get the rest of the way with U. Srinivas styled mando techniques. It has a built in piezo pickup which is handy because the instrument is not that loud as a pure acoustic.
This is serial number 132, crafted in England, received two weeks ago.
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