Pocket Sitar On Your iPhone

via press release

VENTURA, Calif., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- MachCUBED today launches the Pocket Sitar, an application for iPhone and iPod Touch that gives both longtime lovers and newcomers to the fabled Indian string instrument the chance to learn and play a sitar on a mobile device.

From the makers of the Pocket Tabla, the Pocket Sitar lets anyone 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 Pocket Sitar is available for 99 cents on Apple's iTunes store.

Pocket Sitar developer MachCUBED enlisted sitar Maestro Aloke Dasgupta, the versatile, genre-jumping musician, to create the sounds on the application. The seasoned world music artist received the prestigious SOPAN Award, presented by leading intellectuals of Bengal, for creative excellence in music. He also played on the multimillion-selling disc "Tragic Kingdom," by No Doubt, and at the Hollywood Bowl as a part of "Sgt. Pepper's at 40 ... A Beatles Celebration," featuring Cheap Trick. Aloke has performed across the globe and for TV audiences on the Disney Channel ("The Suite Life on Deck"), NBC, CBS and ESPN.

"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 designer and Pocket Sitar developer Alonzo 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."

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 through both traditional ensembles and rock and jazz acts that 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.

"I'm thrilled to contribute the music to the Pocket Sitar," said Dasgupta. "I have long embraced the idea of 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."