11. TEACHERS, styles and tradition - bansuri past, present and future

Once a bansuri has been purchased and the decision to learn has been made, the next obvious step is to find a teacher, preferably to travel to India, settle in one of the big cities and become the shishya of one of the great bansuri pandits. This is fine if it can be done, but it not necessarily the best option.
The student should realise that there is no such thing as flute music, there is simply music, Hindustani classical music, which is played by all musicians in the tradition, singers and instrumentalists alike, so the student can just as easily learn the ragas and their elaboration from a vocalist, sitarist or any other instrumentalist. Of course it is highly desirable, if not essential, that some initial instruction should come from a bansuri player, but after the basic techniques have been learnt, many more learning possibilities can be sought out.
The history of the bansuri is quite different to that of long-established instruments such as the sitar, which has a long tradition, established styles of playing, where students learn only from other sitar players, the gurus who rigorously maintain the purity of their style and pass it on to their students. For the bansuri, there is no purity of style, not even any tradition. Since the time of Pannalal Ghosh, the great pioneer, who had to teach himself, create his own style from zero, and even make his own flutes, the tradition, if it can be called as such, is to learn from players of other instruments or vocalists. In those days, in any case, they had little choice in the matter. Thus, Pannalal Ghosh studied with Alauddin Khan of Maihar, Hariprasad Chaurasia with the sitarist Annapurna Devi, and Raghunath Seth from the vocalist Ratanjankar, Vijay Rhagav Rao from Ravi Shankar etc. There is much to be recommended from this. When one learns from a different source than the flute, one has to find one’s own individual way to produce the music on the bansuri, thus laying the foundation for one’s own individual style of playing.
One could say that the bansuri is still at an evolutionary stage. It just has not been long enough on the classical stage, or had the input of enough players for a definitive style or styles to be created. It is open to both vocal and instrumental approach to raga, and both styles have been successfully realized, but there must certainly remain many areas of musical expression and technical innovation to explore.
One deficit is very evident: the limited range of raags that form the bansuri players repertoire. All players have, up to now, restricted their range of raags to a handful of the easier options.. Bhupali, Yaman, Jog, Chandrakauns, Desh, Bageshri and a few others. It is very rare to hear any bansuri present in concert those more difficult and challenging raags that are the basis of the Hindustani classical repertoire... such as raags Asavari, Bahar, Bhimpalasi, Bilaskhani Todi, Deshi, Gaud Malhar, Hamir, Jaunpuri, Jogya, Kedar, Hamir, Multani, Nayaki Kanada, Puriya, Puriya Dhanashri, Purbi, Shahana, Shankara,, Shri, Tilak Kamod, and many others.
No doubt these raags present a formidable musical and technical challenge, but only when this challenge is met, hopefully by the next generation of bansuri players , that the bansuri will able take its place alongside the older established instruments like the sarod and sitar with equal authority and prestige.


All bansuri players should have have basic skills in maintenance and tuning. It is not only that shop flutes are usually out of tune -- but even the best professionally made instruments can sometimes over a period or time slowly drift out of tune and need to be corrected. If a bansuri is to be completely stable, the bamboo from which it is made needs to be well seasoned, and not all bansuri makers, under pressure to produce instruments are willing or able to wait the required time.

1. Adjusting and tuning flutes
Pitch can be altered in two ways: by altering the position or the size of a hole. Making the hole larger will raise the pitch, and this can be done either by burning, carving or sandpapering the hole, but by far the easiest and quickest is to burn with a hot iron, which will also make a perfectly round hole (very difficult to achieve by carving). Drilling is also possible, but it carries the risk of cracking the bamboo. Holes can be made smaller by lining the circumference of the hole with glue, filler or resin. These adjustments are suitable only for small adjustments of pitch. For larger adjustments the hole has to be moved further up or down the flute. The simplest way to do this is to draw a rectangle around the hole, with the difference in the distances between the hole and the two ends of the rectangle being equivalent to the distance the hole is required to move up or down the flute. The rectangle is then cut out and reversed and glued back into place.
For example, supposing that one needed to move a hole three millimetres up or down the flute it would look like this:
The cross cuts should be made first, with a fine blade hacksaw, and the long cuts along the grain of the bamboo can be made by inserting a sharp knife (Stanley knife) and the bamboo should split fairly easily. The rectangle is then reversed and replaced with a wood glue. It may be necessary to mix the glue with a little bamboo sawdust to fill up any smail gaps.
An alternative method to moving a hole is to fill the existing hole with patch of bamboo and make a new hole where required, but this demands considerably more advanced carpentry skills.
These procedures are for putting individual notes in tune, but if the flute is already in tune with itself and the aim is to tune the instrument to a certain note of concert pitch, this can only be done by moving the blowing hole. This in a very limited operation, where only small adjustments can be made. If the blowing hole is moved more than a small amount, say 2 mm. the entire flute is affected, higher and lower notes lose their pitch, tonal quality and volume is affected.
2. Making flutes
It is essential is to get good bamboo, which is not easy. The bamboo used to make a bansuri should well seasoned (with no green streaks or patches showing) hard, even, regular and with the bamboo wall not too thin or too thick. There are too many variables to design a flute by calculations; it is best to use an existing flute as a model, and even this poses problems as it is not just the length that counts but also the diameter of the bamboo and the thickness of the bamboo wall. As no two pieces of bamboo are identical, when marking the places where the holes are to be made, small adjustments have to be made by intuition, guesswork and eventually by experience. The beginner will have to accept that mistakes will probably be made, holes wrongly placed, which then can only be corrected by the surgical procedures described above.
Generally, it is easier to tune and adjust existing flute than starting from scratch.
3. The stopper.
The stopper, or whatever means is used to stop the air escaping from the other side of the blowing hole, is usually a cork. However, in many flutes that are made in India, they are often made from other materials, sometimes soft spongy materials. It is better to replace them with a cork, suitably trimmed to the diameter of the flute, then sealed by holding a lighted candle over the end until the cork is completely covered with molten wax.
The placing of the cork is critical to the tuning of the flute. There in general tendency in most flutes for the top notes, from top Sa upwards to sound progressively flatter as one advances towards the top notes of the flute. This can be corrected by placing the cork close to the blowing hole; with many flutes it is necessary to push the cork right up to the edge of the blowing hole.
4 The Blowing hole
There are many variables in the blowing hole that will affect tonal quality and volume: the size, shape, whether the edge of the bamboo wall is vertical or cut away to leave a sharper edge, and if the bansuri is made of particularly thin or poor bamboo, the blowing hole can be cut out and replaced by a piece of thicker, harder bamboo. The bansuri player needs to experiment with these possibilities to discover what kind of blowing hole produces the particular tonal quality the he/she is striving for.


Paltas are the exercises that develop both technical skills and the create the foundation that allows a the Indian musician to elaborate, to improvise and create the variations and permutations that are an essential part of raag delineation. They are much more than the equivalent of the scales and arpeggios that form the technical basis of western classical musical practice. They are repeated patterns, ranging from the simplest to the most complex, in twos threes fours fives sixes sevens etc and the idea is not only to create technique but to stock the mind of the student with a great fund of musical material which the player can draw upon when playing and performing.
The question is, at what stage of studies should paltas be introduced? The traditional response is, at the very beginning, and many teachers still follow this tradition, making their students begin with weeks or months of paltas, the argument being that one should have an adequately developed technique before playing any piece of music. This was also the approach followd in the west many years ago, but now, the general perception is that the student should begin with music, with melody from the very beginning, not only because it is more enjoyable and less alienating, because it encourages an immediate engagement with musical expression and values,
Following this line, the student of indian music should not then begin with an emphasis on technicalities, With the bansuri, that starting point ishould be just to able to produce a sound and cover and uncover the holes with sufficient ease, a stage usually reaches after a few weeks at most, sometimes a few days. Then immediately begin to play music,... not necessarily just raags, but also bhajans, folk songs and for children, the popular childrens songs that every child learns at school.
Learning indian music is invariably of two stages, first where the student plays and memorises materials given to him by the teacher and the second stage is the gradual substitution of the given material by the student’s own variations and the development of his/her improvising ability. It is at this point that the study and playing of
paltas becomes an essential part of the student’s practice.
Large amounts of mechanical repetition are less useful than a following a progam of palta practice with the challenge of a continuous change of palta type--- shape, notes, articulation, speed etc. Paltas should span the full range of the flute, and the player should develop the discipline to reproduce in every segment of the palta with the exact reproduction of every detail of pitch, speed, expression, speed, tonguing etc This is as much an exercise of concentration and mental focus as a physical exercise. The student will find that this palta material can then by incorporated into all areas of playing and performance which involve a rhythmic pulse, whether, jhor, jhalla or tanas.


The use of the tongue in articulating notes is as much an integral part of bansuri playing as it is in the western concert flute. The frequency of its use does vary considerably from one musician to another, for some tonguing is scarcely noticeable, while for others such as HP Chaurasia, passages of rapid tonguing, and the very rapid repeated notes of Jhalla are one of the hallmarks of his style.
The use of the tongue is important for an instrument that has no other form of percussive approach to its notes. the use of tongue at regular intervals such as every four notes while playing tanas helps both the rhythmic consistency as well as a way of counting the number of beats, an essential ability for improvisation. Apart from playing in the basic fours of teental, practice should also include phrases of different length---, twos, threes. fours, fives , sixes.
For example:
It is important also not to break the tonguing pattern, especially in the higher
register in order to articulate notes more clearly, or facilitate the move from low to high register but to keep rigorously to the patterns so that practice of regular pattern-making becomes second nature, whatever notes or scales played. Once this discipline is established it will be possible to make spontaneous tanas and sequences using a great variety of note combinations.


Half notes is the term usually applied to the finger positions used to produce the komal notes and shuddh Ma.
It is something of a misnomer, as the amount of space that is open above the hole is considerably less than half, more like a quarter, down to as little as perhaps, five percent. It is for this reason these notes are difficult to play; the beginner has a tendency to play these notes too sharp. With the finger so close over the hole there are other problems as well; with less air passing through, both volume and tonal quality will suffer, until the player learns to compensate with stronger and more focussed blowing.
There is no mechanical formula for producing these notes; different fingers of the hand have different flexibility and response, each komal note has its own and different aperture, which will even vary slightly from one flute to another. The ear is the only guide. The player must have a very clear picture of the intonation required if these notes are to be produced accurately.
The bansuri player will find that komal Dha and Re are more difficult than komal Ni and Ga; the aperture needs to be smaller, and moving from one komal note to another is generally more difficult than moving from a komal note to a shuddha note. Every note combination has its own particulars and dynamics, and the bansuri player needs to know exactly what is needed to, for instance, move from from Komal Ga to Re, From Komal Ga to Komal Re, or to Sa, to Ma , to tivra Ma, to Pa etc. It is important for the bansuri player to play a range of raags wide enough to cover all possible melodic combinations if there are not to be gaps in the player’s technique. The relationship between embouchure and finger work is not always obvious, but a player will find that only when all melodic combinations are mastered with all the adjustments of embouchure that are needed to produce them, that a full maturity of tonal quality and expression can be realized.


The bansuri has six (sometimes seven ) holes for the fingers, which produce an octave when from hole six the fingers are opened one after the other. There are no cross-fingerings that could inhibit the smooth transition from one note to another. Sa, the starting note, is produced with the first three holes closed, to allow at least three notes below Sa to be played. When and how this was decided is not known, but with the Carnatic flute Sa is made with two hloes closed, thus allowing extra notes in the bass. It is difficult not consider that this as a better choice; to sacrifice one note on the top to be able to play Ma or Tivra MA in the bass would add a great deal to the full expression of many of the raags of Hidustani music. However Sa at three holes it is, and is unlikely to change.
Half of the third register can also be played on certain flutes, depending on the diameter of he instrument. Generally, the smaller diameter in relation to length, the easier it is to reach and sustain the higher notes. Bansuri players rarely venture into this area, as it is unstable and unpredictable, there being no consistency of pitch, volume or tonal quality, as well as having no smooth transition from one note to another.


There are two distinct finger techniques for the bansuri. One, from Pannalal Ghosh and his disciple Devendra Murdeshwar, is to place the fingertips over the holes, in a technique similar to the way western concert flute players place their fingers on the keys. It is a difficult and demanding technique that creates its own inimical style of playing, with its own dynamic with clarity and precision in the tans, but it is rarely to be heard these days.
The other technique, by far the most common, is to keep the fingers straight, and close the holes from the middle of the first joint of the fingers, the joint itself resting on the flute, just at the edge of the hole. The fingers are not curved or bent in any way, but lie flat over the instrument, the left hand (i.e. nearest the blowing hole more in a vertical position so that the fingers open outward, whereas the right hand is in a more horizontal position so that the fingers open upwards,. This is only a generality, of course. Every bansuri player needs to make adjustments according to the size and shape of his/her hands. Hopefully, no aspiring player will have to manage these initial stages without the help of a teacher or an experienced player to help position the hands in the best and most effective playing position.
Not everyone’s fingers are ideal for the bansuri; sometimes the little finger of the right hand cannot reach the instrument, sometimes the thumb cannot bend sufficiently for it be placed under the flute. Compromises have to be made; but the most important point to remember is that in finding the right position for stability of the flute and ease of movement for the fingers, that the hand and fingers need to remain as relaxed and tension-free as possible. Even small areas of tension can accumulate to produce stiffness and pain.
Economy of finger movement
Economy of finger movement will aid the player in finger responsiveness, fluency. precision and general ease of expression. Beginners often lift their fingers off the holes far more than necessary. Fingers should not have to lift more then 2 cm off the holes, except for the index finger on the first hole when playing Tivra Ma, when it must point directly upwards or lift off the flute altogether, in order for that note to be played in tune.
There are actually two finger techniques; one for playing slow and another for playing fast. When playing slow, all proper finger positions need to be maintained for reasons of intonation and tonal quality. When playing fast, especially in tanas, various short cuts in fingering can be made to aid fluency. (Not to be confused with the adjustments made to the ascending-descending scale of complex raags to facilitate fluency in fast passages... altogether a more controversial practice) Some examples of faster tempo abbreviations...
(Reference: holes number from one to six, first hole nearest the blowing hole)
Pa Ma Pa - When moving from Pa to Ma and back again keep holes 4,5,6 covered all the time, and keep hole 1 fixed in Ma or tivra M position throughout, so that the only fingers that move are over holes 2 and 3.
Dha Ma Dha or Dha Pa Ma Dha - Keep holes 4 and 5 covered during the whole
movement, so that the movement from Ma to Dha only three holes, 1, 2 &3 need to be closed.
When moving from fully closed hole two notes up to a half hole such as from Re to Ma, Sa to Komal Ga, Pa to Komal Ni and back, open both holes to the same half hole position, instead of taking the finger on hole two off the flute altogether. Two fingers moving together facilitates an easier operation, and also helps to keep Ma in tune.
Ma to Komal Dha. As Komal Dha is difficult to reach effectively [for the lower register], prepare by keeping sixth hole on Dha still playing Ma.
Ma Dha Ma - keep 6th hole fixed in Dha position