My Thoughts

Long time since i have been able to pen anything.. my apologies..

Her are some of my thoughts. Some of which will feature as part of my talk in the 2nd world flutes festival in Argentina later this month.

Yeah!! i am leaving on 18th Sept to Mendoza, Argentina for the flutes festival www.worldflutesfestival.org . Hope to have a great time there with some lec-dems and fusion concerts with musicians from other countries. I am representing BANSURI and India for this prestigious event.

More of the festival in my next. In the meanwhile ponder over my thoughts..

ROLE OF BANSURI IN INDIAN MUSIC

In Indian mythology, Lord Krishna – the god with the flute, was supposed to have mesmerized humans and animals alike with his melodious music from the bamboo flute. Although we don’t have any records of how his music might have been, experts opine that his flute music had magic embedded in it. Therefore, flute in Indian music holds a special place.

Indian Classical Music consists of 2 forms of music, North Indian or the Hindustani Music and South Indian or Carnatic music. Bansuri or the bamboo flute is a major instrument in both these forms of music. The size of the flute is different though. Whereas Hindustani musicians use a longer bamboo flute of around 2 – 2 ½ feet in length, Carnatic musicians use flutes of very small lengths of around a feet or so. Thus Carnatic flutes are shrill and of high pitch whereas Hindustani flutes are of lower pitch. Another way of looking at it would be, Hindustani bansuri represents a male voice and the Carnatic flute represents a female voice. The Hindustani flautist generally performs as a soloist or in a duet with other instrumentalists. But the Carnatic flute is also popular used as an accompanying instrument. The Carnatic system of music is taught and followed by all the instrumentalists, vocalists as well as the percussionists. This helps them perform in huge ensembles. But in Hindustani music each instrumentalist is playing impromptu to a great extent and hence it is difficult to play collective/group music.

A typical Hindustani bansuri has 6 playing holes and a blowing hole. But due to some constant research work done by maestros like Pandit Pannalal Ghosh, Pandit Raghunath Seth and my father Pandit Venkatesh Godkhindi, today, flautists in India are playing flutes which have 8 or 9 playing holes. All these maestros wanted to ‘sing through the flute’. In other words, they all wanted to reproduce whatever the vocalist sings thus leading to these wonderful innovations. With these extra holes we are able to reproduce some difficult glides and movements which were hitherto impossible. Also, the addition of some extra notes enhances the beauty of a particular Raga or a scale. Some flautists have also tried to imbibe the ‘key-flute’ techniques on the bamboo flute, attaching bamboo keys to the flutes to facilitate closing of holes, those beyond reach.

The basic difference in the construction of flutes for Indian music as compared to other forms of music world over is that we play the entire chromatic scale (12 notes) using the half-hole closing methods for semitone differences. Unlike the recorder fingering, we produce notes by opening the holes either fully or partially. The reason behind this practice of playing all the notes through half-hole technique probably was generated because of the rather complicated scales that Indian music deals with. Although each flute is designed for a specific pitch we can transpose and produce different scales in different pitches with the same flute. This transposing technique is commonly used by flautists who perform for commercial recordings, orchestras or fusion ensembles. This gives them the flexibility to produce desired glides or fast movements avoiding the half-hole closing method.

As far as standardization/calibration of pitch is concerned, it is preferred by most flautists to have the flutes custom made according to his/her blowing, position of the lips and the contour of the chin. It is generally believed that irrespective of who manufactures the flute, it is the performer who has to redesign or make minor pitching adjustments to the flute according to his requirements. So, we see that most of the flautists are flute makers themselves. At least some basic knowledge of corrective measures as far as pitch and tone are concerned have to be learnt by the flautist.

The modern day flautist of India is so innovative as far as technique is concerned that they are managing to play jazz, rock etc on the bamboo flute. This development is of vital importance for future flautists because some techniques like the power blow, fast paced staccato, beat-boxing etc, have begun to give a new dimension to the traditional classical music apart from the collaborative fusion genre.

All in all its a wonderful time for flute lovers - performers or listeners, classical or folk, Indian or western, it indeed is a golden period for open minds n souls

God Bless,
pravin gods
www.pravingodkhindi.in
www.worldflutesfestival.org