.

---

Nothing more than a drilled stick of bamboo, India’s classical flute is fabled as the favourite instrument of Lord Krishna

---

–Raga instruments (full list)–

• Home | Megalist | Search •

—Rakesh Chaurasia (Jog)—

---

“The bansuri is just a simple piece of bamboo. But it brings many benefits, not only for your ears, but for your entire body and soul. Pranayama [breathing meditation] happens automatically, so to play is to soothe the mind. It needs no maintenance – all you need is to be in tune internally.” (Rupak Kulkarni)

---

—Bansuri Basics—

---

In contrast to the sculptural intricacy of most Hindustani instruments, the bansuri is refreshingly simple. Just a stick of bamboo with six or seven holes bored through, it has no moving parts, and cannot be retuned. Its precise origins are lost to the winds of time – similar designs turn up across the world and throughout human history – in fact the modern bansuri differs little from the oldest musical instruments ever discovered (40,000 year-old bone flutes found in a Danube cave: read more in my Palaeolithic flutes writeup).

 

Lord Krishna, Hindu god of love and tenderness, is rarely depicted without a bansuri in hand. Krishna is fabled to have used his prowess on the instrument to curry favour with fellow deities – and also to seduce the gopi milkmaids of Braj, famously enticing them to leave their beds in the middle of the night to seek out the physical source of his irresistible melodies. Such scenes are dramatised in the lyrics of countless thumri (“Enough! Stop playing on your flute, dark lover; this Braja girl’s heart is aflutter…”) – with the affected women sometimes addressing the flute directly, seeking to lessen its unsubtly symbolic powers (“Flute, what kind of pride are you filled with? You’re not made of gold, nor silver, nor studded with gems…”).

 

But, despite its rich mythic status, the bansuri is a comparatively recent addition to Hindustani raga. Long considered a mere folk instrument, it found little acceptance on the classical stage until around the 1950s – when Bengali pioneer Pannalal Ghosh unveiled an exciting new style, replete with rhythmic unpredictability and florid melodic ornaments. In his youth, Ghosh had balanced music with pursuits including archery, stick fighting, literary journalism, and strident anti-colonial activism – coaching at a sports club to earn money and even becoming an All Bengal boxing champion at one point. He would later credit these athletic immersions with strengthening his lungs, allowing him to play flutes of unprecedented size and capture the gayaki (‘singing style’) of khayal.

 

(Pannalal with Geeta Dutt / a young Hariprasad)

Ghosh died suddenly in 1960, but bansuri progress did not abate. As a child, Hariprasad Chaurasia had to learn music in secret (…his father wanted him to become a wrestler instead), but he remained undeterred, going on to study under legendary Maihar guru Annapurna Devi and revolutionise the bansuri’s vocabulary over the latter half of the 20th century. His students continue to innovate into the 21st – notably including his nephew Rakesh Chaurasia and senior disciple Rupak Kulkarni – and the instrument remains wildly popular.

 

In contrast to the complex mechanics of many Indian instruments, a bansuri concert provides little in the way of visual intrigue. The crowd at a sitar recital cannot help but marvel at – and be distracted by – how far the strings bend, and how fast the artist’s hands traverse them. But the bansuri reveals few of its workings from a distance – the experience is all about the sound itself, lending a unique focus and purity. Indeed, there are few smoother sounds in the sparkle-heavy world of Hindustani raga. Its even tones can make it seem as if the air itself is exhaling. Melodies have rounded corners, with artists favouring in a ‘singing’ style, exploring the subtle shades between swara positions via partially covering the holes (impossible on the rigid, highly-mechanised Western flute).

 

It’s a primal, immediate satisfaction, which has both exhilarated and relaxed our species for untold millennia. There is profundity in the fact that today’s bansuris are so little changed from the oldest instruments we have yet unearthed: all that has really changed over the past 40,000-plus years is the perpetual development of our encultured musical imagination. The humble bamboo flute – likely one of humanity’s earliest melodic inventions – will doubtless continue to thrive.

 

---

• Notable performers: Pravin Godkhindi (1973-), Rakesh Chaurasia (1971-), Rupak Kulkarni (1968-), Ronu Majumdar (1963-), Rajendra Prasanna (1956-), Nityanand Haldipur (1948-), Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938-), Bholanath Prasanna (1930-1996), Pannalal Ghosh (1911-1960)

---

—Ronu Majumdar (Parameshwari)—

---

• Get started with learning raga! •

---

—Classifiers—

• Form: side-blown bamboo flute with 6 or 7 open holes
• Origin: prehistoric (bone/wooden flutes have been independently invented by multiple global cultures), although only adopted into raga from around the 1950s
• Range: ~24 semitones (~2 oct.)
• Sa pitch: Hariprasad Chaurasia and most other prominent bansuriyas prefer E, with others such as Nitanyand Haldipur going a shade lower to D# – although pitch varies by to instrument size: in particular, Pannalal Ghosh played some huge flutes [see my Survey of Sa Tunings for more].

---

—Setup—

• Tone production: The bansuri is a ‘transverse’ or ‘side-blown’ flute (i.e. air is pushed across it: in contrast to ‘end-blown‘ designs) – with different pitches being produced via specific combinations of blowing speeds and hole coverings (see below). The ‘Hariprasad’ style involves covering with the pads of the fingers, whereas the ‘Pannalal’ style favours the fingertips – with both approaches offering different advantages depending on stylistic preference and the artist’s individual physiology:

(Also see Anubodh’s more detailed interactive guide)

• More Info •

• The bansuri: Learn more about the life and outlook of a leading bansuriya in my interview with Rupak Kulkarni (“When I was about 19, there was a big music conference in Kolkata. I thought I played okay, but in the papers one critic wrote, ‘Rupak is skilful, but must develop his own style’. So from then, I decided that I should become different from the group. I looked at the patterns of sarod, and started to interpret the work of Shivkumar Sharma. Shiv-ji’s layakari is so unique: it looks simple, but is very difficult to properly learn. And apart from sarod and santoor I have used ideas from sitar and sarangi, all to find my own unique perspective…”).
• Pannalal Ghosh: Read about his extraordinary life in an excellent article from David Philipson, including his time with Allauddin Khan (“Initially, when Pannalal asked Baba to teach him, Khansaheb replied, ‘You are already well-known, you don’t need to study more’. Pannalal implored Baba to please teach him so that he could learn ‘authentic music’. In 1947, Pannalal’s lifelong yearning to learn music from a true guru was fulfilled when Khansaheb, convinced of Pannalal’s sincerity to learn, accepted Pannalal as his disciple…”), and a playful array of myths about his unearthly prowess (“Pannalal finally settled on a bansuri which was 32 inches long…As a flute of this size was hitherto unknown, a rumor arose that he had had surgery to cut the webbing between his fingers to facilitate the large span required to cover the finger holes. Of course, he had no such surgery: but through dedicated riyaz, Pannalal invented the technique to play the large instrument…”).

---

—G.S. Sachdev demo—

---

“Greek legend holds that the flute was fashioned by Pan, the god of shepherds and mountains, while the ancient Egyptians believed its pure tones channeled the voice of Isis, the goddess of healing and magic. Slavic myths venerate Snegurka, a snow maiden who melted after running into the sunlight to hear her lover’s flute, and German folk tales warn of invisible flautists who cause mischief by hiding in households and launching into song at inappropriate moments – while highland warriors from Papua New Guinea conduct elaborate flute ceremonies to communicate with ancestral spirits. Several Native American traditions worship Kokopelli, a fertility god who visits earth in the form of an antlered, feathered, and humpbacked flute player. The Tucano people, indigenous to the Colombian Amazon, tell the tale of Uakti, a creature with holes in his body such that he would produce alluring melodies by running through the wind. He used his music to seduce the local women, eventually leading their menfolk to kill him, burn his body, and bury his ashes in the soil – meaning that Uakti’s essence lives on in the palm trees from which they build their own flutes…” (from my Rupak Kulkarni interview)

---

• Hindustani Instruments: Anandi | Bansuri | Bass-Veena | Bazantar | Bulbul Tarang | Cello | Chaturangi | Dilruba | Electric Guitar | Esraj | Fretless Guitar | Harmonium | Jal Tarang | Jori | Mandolin | Mohan Veena | Nal Tarang | Pakhawaj | Piano | Rabab | Rudra Veena | Sagar Veena | Santoor | Sarangi | Sarod | Saxophone | Shehnai | Sitar | Surbahar | Sursagar | Sursingar | Swarmandal | Tabla | Tabla Tarang | Tanpura | Tar Shehnai | Taus | Vichtra Veena | Violin

–Survey of Sa tunings–