A cylinder full of life...and bamboo. Six holes. No keys, reeds, or metal anywhere.

The flute that
breaths like
a voice

There is actually nothing inside a bansuri. It is a piece of bamboo that comes in all shapes and sizes. And it is closed at one end with the holes of it burned throughout it on its surface by hand. Everything else comes out of a player's fingers and breath.

Play one below? Scroll down.
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What even is a Bansuri?

A bansuri is a piece of bamboo and it is closed at one end with a blowing hole cut a few centimeters from the end thats closed and that are around 6 to 7 finger holes running down the body of it (the bamboo). That is basically the entire design, so no mechnical keys or any kind of mechanism is added.

Flutists or flautists hold it sideways and they angle it slightly down to the right, and blow across the edge of the hole instead of actually into it. The length of the bamboo decides the pitch of the sound.

6 to 7 holes instead of keys for your fingers
2.5the octaves from six different holes
30, 75the range of the flute
1piece of bamboo
A bamboo flute with holes

The same exact instrument turns up across the subcontinent under dozens of names for example bansi, marali, pullankuzhal, and venuvu and in the south its called venu which is basically a type of bansuri and it has I think eight holes and it plays with a bright tone in my opinion.

From being a cow herdler to performing in a concert hall.

The bamboo flute (bansuri) is so old that nobody can actuall date it. And it is carved into various religious temple walls like Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain. It is super important for Krishna, who is a Hindu god that is depicted for playing the most beautiful flute scales EVER.

Honestly for most of the history it pretty much stayed as a folk instrument. It was small and played in villages and it did not appear on atleast one Hindustani conert stage at all and that all changed one lifetime.

1911-1960

Pannalal Ghosh

He was born in Barisal and he rebuilt the instrument to make it fit for classical music. And it was much more longer than any other flute that time, around 32 inches I believe. It dropped the pitch and gave it the sustain effect a raga needs. He popularized the seventh hole and studied under someone named Allauddin Khan. Before him the bansuri was not even a concert instrument, it was used only for village songs. But he made such a big change that after him it was.

Born on 1938

Hariprasad Chaurasia

He is still alive today and one of my favourite flute players in the world. He carried it out of India. Fifty years of recordings across most of the major ragas. He taught gurukul in Vrindavan, and collabed with Western musicians and he gave the bansuri a profile thats comparable with the sitar.

Lord Krishna playing the bansuri

In a performance the bansuri is usually joined by another Indian instrument called the Tabla, which many of you have heard. It is used for rhythm and a tanpura droning underneath, holding the tonic of the bansuri so the never loses its pitch. You can switch that drone on in the studio below. Try it.

Why having no keys is basically the whole point!

A western flute gives you a key per every note. Press it and you get the note and the pitch between two keys does not exist (some of you may not understand what I am saying here but thats fine). The bansuri has nothing buton open holes and the pads of your fingers, which sounds super good for bansuri because you can add sounds that are not even possible on the western flute by sliding and gliding your fingers. (I'll show you a audio recording of me playing in the very bottom).

Because a finger can cover a hole halfway, or a third of the way, or roll slowly off it, the player has every pitch between the notes. That is how the flats and sharps of different ragas are found on an instrument with holes that are fixed and it is how a bansuri slides from one note into the next into a single breath.

The seven swaras are Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni, and Sa is not a fixed frequency surprisingly. It is wherever the flute of the player sits.

साSaरेReगGa मMaपPaधDha निNi

The studio

Play it without blowing

Press the swara pads or use the row of your keyboard ASDFGHJK. Hold a note to keep it sustained and the flute above will show you which holes a real player would be covering (as an example).

resting

Raga Colour

Length of the bamboo

Tanpura

It has real fingering and it is super simplified: the lower four swaras are created by uncovering the holes one at a time at any speed you want, and the upper four repeat those shapes while the player blows harder with more embochure to jump an octave (I will show you that later). The flats and sharps that seperate one raga from another are actually found by covering half the hole, which a mouse, cursor or whatever you are using to test will not be able to imitate. So you need a real one for that.

My Bansuri/Flute

Hear me Play

A few recordings of me playing the bamboo flute.

My Bansuri

This is a short audio of my playing the flute.

Another Performance

One of my fav recordings in my life.

Bollywood Flute

Another audio of me playing