Sitar tuner

Sitar tuning chart: the playing strings in Hz

Ravi Shankar's layout (the Maihar style), at A4 = 440 Hz. The switch above moves the tuner, not the table.

Other layouts

How to tune a sitar with this tuner

Set the switch to your Sa first, C♯ or D, whichever your sitar is strung for: C♯ is the commonest for the Ravi Shankar style, and many Vilayat Khan-style sitars sit on D. Tap the 2nd string's chip and tune the jod to Sa, as most teachers start; the tuner then asks for the pancham, the kharaj and the three chikari, and last the main string on Ma. Tap Start tuning, pluck with the mizrab and let the string ring: the needle settles a moment after the jawari's buzz, and at five cents or closer a tick comes and the next string is asked for. Octaves fold onto the chip, so a string that speaks an octave up still reads. With the microphone off, a tap on a chip sounds its note; on a phone speaker the lowest strings sound an octave up.

Turn the big pegs in small movements while pushing them into the neck; a peg that slips wants pushing in, not more turning. For the last few cents, slide the bead (manka) threaded on the string between the bridge and the tailpiece instead of the peg. Then go back to the jod: the main bridge stands loose on the gourd, held only by the strings, so every string you tune moves the others a little. The tarafs ringing along while you tune is normal; the needle follows the string you pluck.

The tarafs: tuning the sympathetic strings

The eleven to thirteen tarafs run under the frets and are rarely plucked; they ring when the main string plays their note. That gives the way to tune them: fret a note on the main string, pluck it, and turn that taraf's small peg until it rings back on its own after you stop the main string. A narika, a small key, usually metal and lined with leather, that grips the peg, helps with pegs that are stiff or hard to reach. The notes follow the raga. A common start, given by Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan's academy for an eleven-taraf sitar at Sa = D, is the major scale, raga Alhaiya Bilawal: Ni Dha Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa Re, that is C♯ B D E F♯ G A B C♯ D E. For Yaman the Ma tarafs go up a semitone to tivra Ma (G♯ at Sa = D); for Bhairavi, Re, Ga, Dha and Ni go down to their komal notes.

Can you tune a sitar with a guitar tuner?

Yes, for the playing strings, if the tuner is in chromatic mode; in guitar mode it waits for E A D G B E and pulls toward the wrong string. Sa, Ma and Pa land within 2 cents of the equal-tempered notes a tuner reads, inside its tick. The other notes, tuned by ear as pure intervals over the Sa drone, sit noticeably off a tuner's zero, which is why a tuner gets the playing strings right and the tarafs only close. This is where one common set of pure ratios falls; teachers and ragas shade some notes differently.

A tuner for sitar: app, electronic tuner or this page

For the playing strings any tuner with a chromatic mode will do. SPK Academy, Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan's school, suggests the ClearTune app and adds that any electronic tuner does as well (2023); gStrings and Pano Tuner are free apps that work the same way. On iPhone, Indian Tuner is a free app made for the sitar, which its maker posted on Reddit's r/icm in 2026; PitchLab is another chromatic tuner app that works the same way for the playing strings. Some apps name swaras instead of letters: set their Sa to the note your sitar is pitched to and they read Sa, Ma and Pa directly. A clip-on fixed to the pegbox reads the wood and ignores a noisy room, but it also feels the tarafs ringing, so its reading can jump. This page needs nothing installed: hold the phone near the main bridge and pluck one string at a time. Self-tuning heads are made for guitars; a sitar's friction pegs, loose bridge and beads are still set by hand.

The Vilayat Khan layout, the frets and the Sa

A sitar in the Vilayat Khan style has six playing strings, Ma Sa Ga Pa Sa Sa: where the Ravi Shankar sitar has its low Pa and kharaj Sa, it has Ga and Pa, and one chikari fewer. On this page set Sa = D: the main string reads on the G chip, the jod on the D3 chip, the Pa on either A chip and the two chikari on the D4 and D5 chips. The Ga string has no chip: read it on the chromatic tuner, where a pure third over Sa shows as F♯ about 14 cents low, or tune it by ear against the jod. A sitar's frets (pardas) are tied on and can be moved: once the open strings are right, play Sa on the main string's Sa fret and check it rings an octave above the jod; if it doesn't, move the fret, not the string. Keep to the Sa the sitar is strung for: strings made for C♯ pushed up to D carry about 12 % more tension.

Making a guitar sound like a sitar

Tuning alone won't do it. The sitar's sound comes from the jawari, the wide, flat bridge the string brushes as it vibrates, and from the drone of the chikari and the tarafs. On a guitar a drone tuning, open D (D A D F♯ A D) or DADGAD, both on the guitar tuner, with the melody on one string gets you the drone; the buzz needs a different bridge, as on the electric sitars of the late 1960s.

The notes you tuned go into Brumm as a short melody over a beat.