The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c11.145

c11.145

The frets are of wood, with an upper edge of metal, only about ¼-inch in width, and fixed to the finger-board; the strings cannot therefore be pulled so as to produce "rekhu" without their coming off the frets. The number of frets is usually fourteen, placed at the intervals of the diatonic major scale; occasionally there are two extra frets at semitonic intervals, placed between the third and fourth, and tenth and eleventh. Karnâtik sitars are sometimes found fretted throughout in semitonic intervals, the number of frets being the same as in a vina.