Talk:Sitar in popular music

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I believe it is a tanpura not a sitar on Tomorrow Neven Knows. But I digress. Also, it is an electric sitar used on legal man by belle and sebastian, not a real sitar. R

This article is riddled with incorrect information. This talk page is full of misinformation as well. Please consult the following scholarly articles regarding the use of the sitār in popular music.

Reflecting Surfaces: The Use of Elements from Indian Music in Popular Music and Jazz Author(s): Gerry Farrell Source: Popular Music, Vol. 7, No. 2, The South Asia/West Crossover (May, 1988), pp. 189-205 Published by: Cambridge University Press

and

Indian Resonances in the British Invasion, 1965-1968 Author(s): Jonathan Bellman Source: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1997), pp. 116-136 Published by: University of California Press —Preceding unsigned comment added by WageYourOwnWar (talk • contribs) 05:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Early use
You might want to start the 2nd paragraph with the Beatles references, since they used it before the Rolling Stones.

"The Inner Light" doesn't feature any sitar. It uses harmonium, shenai, sarod, tabla, pakavaj and flute, so I guess it should be removed from the list. It is not Ravi Shankar who plays sitar in Across the Universe. In fact, I don't think there's sitar on Across The Universe, just tamboura.

The same thing happens on "Tomorrow Never Knows". There's no sitar, only a tamboura.

The "Capitol Albums" reference should now be updated, as "Another Hard Day's Night" is included on Vol. 2 of the series.

George Harrion wasn't introduced to sitar by the Byrds, but rather while filming "Help!", there's a scene on an Indian restaurant, with musicians playing in the background. That's how George first saw the instrument and picked it up. Around the same time he started hearing of Ravi Shankar, bought one of his albums and got interested in indian music and culture. The wikipedia article for "Norwegian Wood" has the story in details, citing as its source The Beatles Anthology video documentary.

Max Mismetti (talk) 11:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

"Norwegian Wood" and its exoticism confirmed by George Harrison's twanging sitar riffs, the first use of that Indian instrument on a rock record. [1] Its first known use in a western pop song was in 1965, when The Yardbirds hired a sitar player to provide the main riff of their "Heart Full Of Soul" single. The band's original take however not released at the time. Norwegian Wood is notable as the first example of a rock band actually playing the sitar in one of their songs; it was played by George Harrison[2]: Although both the Yardbirds and the Kinks had used Indian influences in their music, this track is generally credited as being the first pop recording to use an actual sitar, an Indian stringed instrument, and "Norwegian Wood" sparked a musical craze for the sound of the novel instrument in the mid-1960s. Rolling Stone Magazine 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Also The Beatles used the sitar and tamboura before the Stones and George Harrison knew about the sitar on Help. Tidy up this article. Byrdsnix (talk) 03:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)Byrdsnix

Video Games
Souldn't there be a section for any notable uses of the sitar in video game music? As video games have defenently become a large art form as of this current generation, or precisely, something quite big. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.142.244.150 (talk) 20:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Response: For example what, precisely? Aside from the Beatles Rockband game I am unaware of the instrument's implementation in anything else. And I am not sure of the point in bringing up the Beatles videogame when it's based on their real music. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WageYourOwnWar (talk • contribs) 05:52, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Demyx from Kingdom Hearts franchise had a Sitar named 'Arpeggio' as weapon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shiroyasha47 (talk • contribs) 09:54, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Song about the sitar
I ran across a song "My Sitar" by an artist Jonny Jakobsen (aka Dr. Bombay) where the artist sings about playing the sitar but I have no idea whether or not it contains any sitar and this am not sure where it would be mentioned in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.167.237.89 (talk) 21:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Misleading article title?
The title of the article is "Sitar in popular music", but the article itself is only about the use of sitar in western popular music. What about indian and pakistani popular music? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.189.113.128 (talk) 17:19, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Jon Mark's album "Sally Free and Easy" inspired the Sitarlike sounds of See My Friends
Shel Talmy who was the producer of the record "See My Friends" states in more than one interview that the song had been inspired by Jon Mark:

1.) Shel Talmy: Jon Mark "was absolutely a folk singer. It was only later on that he started getting into jazz and Indian. He's the first person that introduced me to sort of Indian music, and ragas and things like that, which is how [the Kinks'] "See My Friends" came about." SHEL TALMY INTERVIEW

2.) Shel Talmy: "In fact I did try early on [to record acoustic music], with a duo called Jon and Alan, and Jon became Jon Mark of the Mark-Almond Band. [Jon] was a great innovator.  He's the first person, come to think of it, who ever told me about Bob Dylan.  He said, "Watch--this guy's going to be sensational."  Jon was the first guy that ever brought Indian music to my attention, and in fact wrote a song that was sort of based on a drone, a folkish type song, that I recorded with him.  I played that to Ray Davies, who was so enamored with it that he went out and wrote "See My Friends" [one of the first Indian-influenced rock songs]." SHEL TALMY INTERVIEW: PART TWO.

3.) Shel Talmy: "'See My Friends' was a real groundbreaker! The evolution of that came about as I was recording Jon Mark, who eventually became part of Mark-Almond. He was a very good songwriter and turned me on to Indian music - ragas and all that kind of stuff. He wrote a song that incorporated an Indian drone, which I loved! I asked him if he'd mind if I played it for Ray Davies, and he said, "Be my guest." I did … and Ray came back the next day with 'See My Friends'. There weren't any sitars available at that time, so we re-tuned the guitars and double-tracked it to get the drone effect. It was the first record on the charts to have a sitar type sound on it. I heard it recently and it really holds up!" SHEL TALMY INTERVIEWED BY ARTIE WAYNE, PART TWO.

After more than fifty years Mark's album "Sally Free and Easy" is going to be released in September 2017 so (every)one can hear that he was the one who was at the start: Cherry Red Records: Jon Mark's Sally Free and Easy. --Popmuseum (talk) 13:30, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Sitar in popular music
I can only note what I read : Donovan, in his autobiography, claims to be the first to use a sitar in popular music. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:642:4600:8A50:508:F77B:1DE0:19FA (talk) 02:55, 19 December 2018 (UTC)