Tuning your Sarod: You should remember that, outside of the western-world traditions, standardized tuning is an aberration. It is not a part of most of the world's musical traditions. The Indian approach to tuning musical instruments is basically similar to "open tuning." The artist may use any tuning that is appropriate to the piece he/she is going to play. The sympathetic strings of the sitar, sarod and sarangi will be tuned according to the rag (piece) that is being played. As a general rule, as long as you adhere to the notes of the rag almost any approach to tuning these the sympathetic strings will work.