Design

As an instrument, the SiGVee (formerly SiGui or SiVee) could be either acoustic or electric or both as the nature of its amplification DOES NOT define the instrument.

The significant difference between a Sitar and a SiGVee is in the construction of their respective fretboards (or neck).

In a Sitar, the height at both sides of the neck are the same. In a SiGVee, I have increased the height on the inner side (side where the right thumb is placed in a right-handed Sitar). This was done to accommodate the unique frets that I had designed and had made them myself. They are partially straight and partially curved (straight starting from the inner side and curving downwards from the middle to the outer side of the neck).

Reason behind this?
Playability in short. As it may not be seen readily, I’ll elaborate upon the aspects I desired to incorporate in the SiGVee:

• A More Complete Instrument
  As a Sitar player, I have always felt the need for also playing the higher/treble notes on the bass strings or a bigger range of notes like in runs (Taan). Unfortunately due to the semi-circular design of it’s frets it’s difficult to maintain the tuning of the frets on the higher/treble notes. Even the frets on the lower/bass notes we have to adjust the tuning somewhat by bending transversally (Meend). So, in the SiGVee, I seem to have solved this problem by removing the curvature in the region of the bass strings.
• Think Beyond Double Stops
  On Sitar I have witnessed double stops as musicians have tried to express harmony in between the single lines. While I could appreciate their musicality, I still desired to play chords/triads in a manner that required me to think out of the box. Naturally I proceeded in creating another approach, rather than merely settling for some double-stops as seen on most Sitars today (not mine!). In the end I’m obviously happy to acquire some new skills!

Perspective:
In theory, on the existing Sitar, it may be possible to adjust the tuning of frets for the bass strings by finely adjusting the height and choice of the wire (string) and also play chords/triads on it by tweaking the tuning (an experiment that I successfully tried out) and therefore my points (1 & 2) may not seem to be necessary.

But if I were to play chords or even single lines then it would be humanly impractical to reach downwards again towards the inner side to access the bass strings. Therefore my fret design and consequently the SiGVee’s neck design would logically be justified keeping in mind the playability concerned with both these points.

Important:
The good news is that keeping the frets straight at the region of the bass strings does not hamper the range in the transversal bend (Meend) on the bass string!
✓Bonus
However on the outer most string, like in the Sitar, the curvature on the fret helps us to achieve the desired range for the bends.
✓Straight frets/Veena frets can’t complete the trick!

I built the SiGVee, not to just add to my current set of Sitar playing skills, but also to encompass certain musical concepts that may not have been possible otherwise on my traditional Sitar, only in the best interest of music. It will be tested by time in the years to come. But if one is new to Sitar itself, I suggest that the student first learns the Sitar properly. It would help if one is sufficiently experienced/trained in Sitar to better understand the proportions that one might require. For those who are simply carried away by its novelty and are most likely not taking up the Sitar seriously, as much as I’d like to encourage them, I request them not to waste wood!
✓Save Trees

Acknowledgements:
Although I had independently designed the SiGui and modelled it to cater to my uniquely researched approach on the Sitar, I sincerely thank the following people for making it a smooth process at the time of building it:
Ambi
Imtiaz
Kabul (da)
Vaibhav