Today (Feb. 2), MachCUBED (www.machcubed.com) launches the Pocket Sitar, a new application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that gives users a chance to learn and play a sitar on a mobile device.
The Pocket Sitar app allows anyone to strum away or create the distinctive sound of bending a sitar’s strings – known as a meend – on a multi-touch interface on the iPhone.
The app is available for 99 cents at Apple’s iTunes store at www.apple.com/itunes. The company also has a Pocket Tabla app, also available from the iTunes store, that allows users to play a virtual tabla.
(You can see pictures of the Pocket Sitar in the slideshow at the bottom of the page.)
Pocket Sitar developer Alonzo Machiraju of MachCUBED enlisted sitar Maestro Aloke Dasgupta to create the sounds on the application. Dasgupta has won the prestigious SOPAN Award, presented by leading intellectuals of Bengal, for creative excellence in music. He also played at the Hollywood Bowl as a part of "Sgt. Peppers at 40 . . . A Beatles Celebration,” featuring Cheap Trick.
"The Pocket Sitar lets anyone experience the thrill of playing the sitar, whether as a training program for the sitar or just for the fun of it,’’ said Machiraju. “I hope this can expose the sitar to an even larger audience and perhaps even inspire more people to pick up the actual instrument.”
“I’m thrilled to contribute the music to the Pocket Sitar,” said Aloke Dasgupta. “I have long embraced the idea exposing this wonderful art form to a wide range of audiences, whether by performing traditional concerts around the world or by playing the sitar on jazz or rock recordings. The Pocket Sitar continues this by making the application available to anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch.”
The modern day sitar, the most widely played instrument of its kind, has a history dating back to Middle Ages. A staple of Hindustani classical music, it was more recently embraced by Western audiences both through traditional ensembles and through rock and jazz acts who since the 1960s have adopted the instrument.
A sitar has 21 to 23 strings, with six to seven of them strung over frets. As a plucked string reverberates, its length changes slightly as its edge touches the instrument’s bridge, creating overtones and giving the sitar sound its distinctive tone. Anyone with a Pocket Sitar can learn to successfully create these effects by deftly touching the iPhone’s face.
For more information on the Pocket Sitar, go to http://www.machcubed.com.
Comments
WOW how neat!!!!! I WANT one!
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