Jawaari

I've been looking into the term 'Jawaari' which refers both to the tone of the sitar and the bridge part of the instrument. I'm hoping to use this as the title for my new piece. Many thanks to Gaurav Mazumdar for helping me out with this info:

"The term 'Jawaari' or 'Javaari', refers to the bridge of the sitar where the melodic & sympathetic strings run and create the sound. The bridge is made traditionally of Deer Horn and is made in a certain shape, width, length & the surface is flat with slight semi-circle bend. It needs to be regularly sanded down to take away the mark of the strings after continuous and acheive the desired resonance and brightness" 

In some of my work so far on sitar sounds, I've been exploring some of the sonorities and subtleties from the instrument.  I have collected some prelimenary sound material from Roopa Panasar and I have started experimenting with enhancing the inherent pitch bends to bring out the quality and timbre of each gesture.

This initial work has taken place during my composition residency in Visby, Gotland at the Visby Centre for Composiers (VICC).

More information about the residency can be found here.