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Re: what are you (not) looping Tim wrote > Sitar. Likewise. Despite 20 years of training in sitar and surbahar, these are the instruments I loop the least! Perhaps it's the accumulated baggage of thinking of these instruments very strictly in terms of Indian classical music, or the fact that after just a layer or two the loops tend to get very muddy and indistinct. So I'm more likely to loop other stringed instruments (in which I don't have formal training) like Uzbek dutar and tanbur, Iranian tar and sehtar, Afghan rabab, Uyghur satar and rewap, Greek tzouras and baghlama, Turkish saz and yayli tanbur - combining these (plucked and e-bowed) with hand percussion. Since these are more my "fun" instruments [as opposed to the "work" involved with sitar/surbahar -- not that these aren't fun also ;-) ] I think I often feel freer to experiment with them than I would with the sitar. But every now and again I do get the urge to add sitar or surbahar to a loop, but usually in small doses, only after the other parts have been established.