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I made an impulse buy. Yousuf Mirajkar Sitar. MELODIC INSTRUMENTS
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Member 76 posts Blind Lemon Mike Member 76 posts
Blind Lemon Mike
I saw this on Ebay, offered for 650 and just made a bold suggestion of 250 which to my big surprise got accepted. 

It is said that Shahid Parvez played these at some time. On the other hand i read (here on this forum) that he is just a "label" and the actual Instrument might be built by different craftsmen at different point in time.

One of my former teachers, who had himself lessons form Parvez und Budhaditya had one of this maker which sounded faboulus, but was also just set up really good + he was an excellent player. 

What can i expect from this Instrument? I guess the price is still good, Does any of you more involved people know who might have actually built this and what year/era it might be from? 

Sitar$.jpg  sitar1.jpg  Sitar2.jpg  Sitar3.jpg  Sitar5.jpg  Sitar6.jpg  Sitar7.jpg 
kind regards 
Michael
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Melodius Junior Member 7 posts
Melodius
Beautiful. Loved the ornaments
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barend Senior Member 1,426 posts
barend
Looks like a nice simple instrument. A bit strange that it has an upper tumba because it is a VK style sitar. 250 is a really good price.
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Blind Lemon Mike Member 76 posts
Blind Lemon Mike
barend wrote:
A bit strange that it has an upper tumba because it is a VK style sitar.


which is a little ironic, because my Kharaj Pancham Sitar is a Radhey Shyam Sharma who is known to build them without the upper tumba, so it's totally reverse now im my world. I will probably take it off though, it doesn't fit the look and I'm used to play without one anyway.

regards
Michael
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Sitar Fixer Senior Member 133 posts
Sitar Fixer
Made in Miraj by any one of the shops there. Yousefbhai would go there often, walk the streets going shop to shop, pick up stuff he liked and rework them at his shop in Pune. He also built instruments in his shop so this sitar could be from either location.  There is a pic of Vilayat Khansahib holding a double gourd "VK" type sitar. He might have actually giged with it. Who can say.
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desh Senior Member 271 posts
desh
When U. Shahid Parvez use to residence in Toronto part-time years back these were the sitars the sitar school supplied the students. The set-up and sound was pretty good. I don't know why, but those Miraj gourds seem to have a very nice tone to them. With a little elbow grease these polish up very nicely with just an old t-shirt and lemon pledge. I have one of these in my basement which I'm hoping to restore. When I put alcohol on it, it didn't melt the finish indicating that it wasn't shellac.

One thing I do remember, it was common for the trim around the gourd and on the neck of these sitars to start falling off after a few years. The other thing , and this is explained by Sitar-Fixer's comment above, is that no two sitars were ever the same; they all were different sizes and sounding. But nonetheless, the sitar you purchased could very well turn out to be a great sounding instrument. I heard at least 10 of these things and they never sounded less than very good.

Congratulations! BTW USPK still plays his Yousef Mirajkar sitar. Legend has it he spend a few weeks in Miraj while they made it to his specifications and liking.
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Blind Lemon Mike Member 76 posts
Blind Lemon Mike
thanks for your expertise @desh

The Instrument arrived yesterday and first of all: It survied the shipping, which is always a little worrysome. 

It is interestingly setup with just 3-Chikaris (Kharaj Pancham Style) and a low Pa-String but no low Sa. Stirngs are dead and Frets need polish. Also the Tuning Pegs need treatment, some are good others are very hard to turn or do slip... i can handle that. One Tuning peg is missing, which i knew beforehand and used as an argument to drop the price down. The seller was someone who sells all kinds of things (furniture, dishes..whatever...) probably sourced from household resultions....which is why i was able to get a good price, they just didn't know what to charge really. 

Jawari is fittingly rather closed, good, but not excellent, i may let somebody else do this, but i can do a little of that myself. 

The Instrument was not just a souvenir. You can tell it was really played from the wear, it has marks from the Mizrab from Tabli-Strokes etc. This was really used at some time. Judging from the Design of the Emiares "Fragile" sticker on the case it is at least 2000s or 90s. I would guess...

I have to check the finish...good tip with the alcohol test. As i said, a former teacher i took a few lessons from lived in Pune for a while and got pretty much the same design sitar (penwork etc all pretty much identical) allegedly commissioned through Parvez at the time. Still, i have never seen Parvez with one of them, he always seemed to have play his own designed black one on pretty much all videos of him that are out there. 

First Impression is, that I'm very pleased to have bought it for that price especially. It hast a rather big neck and big gourd compared to my other sitar (which is on generally on the smaller/lighter side though) and it has a rather dark and warm tendency to it i think. Meend range is very good and it feels significantly easier to pull a 5th troughout it's range than with my other one, what ever contributes to that... And it does have a lot of initial Thumb/Attack and a certain deep and heavy percussive thing to the start of the note that i really like. (more like, say,  Budhadityas Sound, his has that in spades....)

now i will clean/polish/setup this and then will post some pictures/maybe a little Demo. 

If anyone can contribute information to the possible year/builder etc i will highly appreciate that 

kind regards
Michael
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Blind Lemon Mike Member 76 posts
Blind Lemon Mike
I cleaned it and polished it and re-threaded the Frets and now it's ready to go.

It definitely has been played a lot, the frets also have some wear on them. 

This is my first try and I have to say I'm very pleased, it sounds good and I'm happy to have bought it, espevially for 250. 

Disclaimer: My main gig is guitar, unfortunatley I don't play much at all lately and have no option for lessons at the moment so please don't judge me,I I'm perfectly aware this is not intonated ver good. I figured you might be interested in roughly how it sounds though. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oXG2UVo2JE

merry christmas everyone.
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barend Senior Member 1,426 posts
barend
Sweet sound. Good catch!
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Urchin Junior Member 22 posts
Urchin
It sounds wonderful!  congrats!
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ragamaster Junior Member 13 posts
ragamaster
If you don't have access to a live instructor then you can purchase instructional DVDs by Indrajit Banerjee. They are available at Rain City Music for a very reasonable price. Well worth the money. Good luck.
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Craig Cowing Junior Member 20 posts
Craig Cowing
I've had experiences like that too, when I've offered what I knew was a lowball offer and it was accepted. Have fun with it!
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