Bansuri tunining
M Thakur
I bought some expensive bansuries while I was in california, but I am
not at very happy with them. I am not complaining, I know good
bansuris are very hard to come by, and also that they still might not
fit everyones description of a good bansuri.
I am thinking of trying to tune the bansuris to my comfortable
embochure and also widen the holes a little. I use 7 holes and these
bansuri's have a 7the hole that is really small and does not go well
with Murdeshwarjy type techniques. Also some of the flutes do not have
a 7th hole at all.
I am looking for any help, anyone can provide. The things to watch,
what to do and what not to do. I think tweaking a bansuri is a skill
necessary for anyone who wants to play it comfortably. I also remember
long time ago someone here mentioning a modification to make meends
between register breaks better, like Re/Pa or Pa\Re meends. I also saw
someone with an extremely large flute with 4 finger and 2 thumbholes,
instead of 6 fingerholes.
Please take some time to tell us (if you dont mind) anything you know
about tweaking, retuning, converting from 6 to 7 (I realize it will
change the scale of the bansuri) or 8 or X holes. If there is a book I
would buy it, but it is something very rare, and in US it is very
tough to find any information on the subject.
Any help would be really really appreciated.
Regards
MT
Lyon Leifer
1) there are limits to how much a bansuri can be "tweaked." You might
be able to enlarge an existing 7th hole that is too small. But unless
the note happens to be flat at present, you must be careful not to
move its position towards the top end of the flute or the pitch of the
note will definitely become sharp. I'd suggest trying to open it up a
bit on on the sides (meaning at a 90 degree angle to the longitudinal
axis of the instrument) or towards the lower end of the flute. Even
that may have a slight sharpening effect. Basically, any time you
enlarge a tone hole on a flute, you are making the note louder but
also sharpening it! So if you try to tweak the whole scale, you may
end up with an instrument that plays better but is also higher pitched
than it was before. Or, more likely, you'd end up with a flute that
was badly out of tune! I would say the project is very tricky.
To me, tweaking an instrument means improving the pitch or voicing of
a scale that is only slightly off, where the basic pattern has been
correctly implemented. The pattern of the flutes you bought in
California may not be at all correct.
2) to turn a six-hole bansuri into a seven-hole instrument, you would
have to plug up all the tone holes and start over with the pitch of
the closed tube amounting to tivra Ma of the new scale. In other
words, for the instrument to play in tune, you'd have to raise the
whole scale by one half-step. I would consider this highly inadvisable
unless you are rather crafty, truly hurting for a piece of bamboo, and
also know how to make bansuris. The first requirement is a viable
pattern for the size of flute you want to make. Then it's a matter of
good execution and careful final tuning.
3) regarding re-pa and pa-re meend, you are talking about something
that, in my opinion, can only be suggested or approximated on a
bansuri that takes three holes closed as Sa, since the register break
is a fact of life and you just have to cross it to play those
combinations. Still, the approximation or suggestion can be good,
moreso in the downward direction. It's a matter of careful, well
thought out fingering and a lot of "riaz". Upwards is even harder. It
gets to be a matter of more suggestion and less approximation.
4) my book, "How to Play the Bansuri" gives a lot of information on
playing but doesn't go into making or adjusting bansuris. That's a
pretty esoteric area that, so far at least, you really only learn from
a guru in the course of time as you study music and watch instruments
being made. At least, that's how I was able to learn. I saw
Murdeshwarji make quite a lot of flutes over the years, starting in
1965 and ending in 1999, a few months before he died. Some time or
other, I might write an article about that aspect of his work, which
was brilliant.
So I'd say try enlarging an existing seventh hole very carefully in
the manner I suggest above. Since the instruments are more or less
useless to you anyway, you could conceivably plug up all the holes and
start over from the other side. That might be more effective than
trying to tweak the tone holes on flutes that aren't really suitable
for the purposes of our approach. Still, the odds of success doing
that would also be pretty slight unless you had some guidance.
Feel free to e-mail me off list if you have further questions.
Good luck!
Lyon Leifer
tha...@news.icns.com (M Thakur) wrote in message news:<3725b568.02081...@posting.google.com>...
Chith Eshwaran
news:bdc14c26.02081...@posting.google.com...
> > .....
> 3) regarding re-pa and pa-re meend, you are talking about something
> that, in my opinion, can only be suggested or approximated on a
> bansuri that takes three holes closed as Sa, since the register break
> is a fact of life and you just have to cross it to play those
> combinations. Still, the approximation or suggestion can be good,
> moreso in the downward direction. It's a matter of careful, well
> thought out fingering and a lot of "riaz". Upwards is even harder. It
> gets to be a matter of more suggestion and less approximation.
>
Flutes can be made where there is an additional Pa hole at the bottom side
of the bansuri. It is closed using the left hand thumb (for a right handed
player). This thumb is largely unused otherwise, so this is indeed a useful
improvement. I play one such bansuri, which I got custom made some years
ago. I am very happy with what it can do and what I can do with it.
This hole produces true Pa, both middle and top octave. It allows smooth
meend across several notes down from Pa, or up to Pa, since there is no
register break. I find it quite useful for playing several ragas that
require such meends. The tonal quality is not quite as bright as the other
Pa, and the loudness level is also somewhat lesser. Therefore I don't use it
for playing a sustained Pa, I use it only for playing a meend from/to Pa. It
takes quite some practice and time to get used to using this hole, since the
left hand thumb is totally inactive for a bansuri player and doesn't move
freely. Besides, one has re-learn to balance the bansuri's weight on just
the tip of the thumb and not the whole thumb, otherwise when you open this
hole the bansuri falls off. But once the investment in learning is made, the
result is very rewarding. Indeed, the western Boehm flute not only uses this
thumb actively, but assigns it two jobs - to operate two levers.
For a 'tweaker", I would think that drilling this hole is fairly safe, more
so than tweaking other holes. Drilled at the right place (this is important
for playing comfort: my flutemaker noted my normal resting thumb position
before drilling) and with the right size, it must work. But if the tuning or
comfort turns out not right, one can simple close it back - it should have
no effect on the tuning or quality of other holes.
Regards - Chith Eshwaran
Lyon Leifer
enabling meend up to Pa, which is certainly a benefit. At the same
time, I see it as problematical when using the Ghosh-Murdeshwar grip,
since in that the palm of the left hand isn't in contact with the body
of the flute.
In the Boehm flute the grip has the point of the palm just below the
juncture with the index finger holding up much of the weight of the
instrument. That leaves the thumb quite free to operate both the B and
B-b levers while the grip of the instrument remains stable.
In the Ghosh-Murdeshwar grip, the support function is taken by the tip
of the thumb, itself. For relaxation purposes and for playing in
different scales, I tend to change the point of contact between the
thumb and the tube. So using such a tone hole as you describe sounds
like it would be rather problematical in my approach.
Also, the lighter tone quality of Pa produced with that tone hole
that you mention is no doubt due to the fact that the hole had to be
made on the small side, for tuning purposes and/or to enable to thumb
to cover it.
Despite the problems I can see, it seems like a great idea if it works
in your approach, in that one could do meend in chhaya nat, shuddh
kalyan, etc. with much more precision.
The bottom line may be that there are always tradeoffs in instrument
design and instrumental approaches. I believe that the
Ghosh-Murdeshwar approach maximizes overall flexibility for
manipulating the vast majority of required meends in the greatest
number of ragas, especially in large instruments.This is because all
the fingers are standing away from the tube (so they can work freely
from their full length). Thus all the normal tone holes can be opened
and closed with the greatest degree of flexibility.
This sort of rational discussion of concrete issues in music making
strikes me as one of the best possible functions of this group. I wish
we could see more of it. Thanks to M Thakur for starting this one off
and to you for continuing it!
Regards,
Lyon Leifer
"Chith Eshwaran" <chith_e...@bigpond.com> wrote in message news:<FIH59.4258$g9.1...@newsfeeds.bigpond.com>...
Shree
>
Can you please clarify the nomenclature of the two kinds of 'grips'
talked about? I am assuming :
Ghosh-Murdeshwar grip => holes closed with middle of the finger (1st
or 2nd segment from the tip of the finger)
Boehm grip => holes closed with the tips of the fingers (e.g. as in
playing the western flute)
Also, what do you think of bansuris made by Subraya Krishna Bhandari
(of Honnavara on the Karnataka coast)? I find them quite good and the
ones I bought needed little/no tweaking. I know they are used by many
flautists in Karnataka (Pravin Godkhindi, Abdulla Kaja, Rajendra
Kulkarni). The bamboo used for the bansuris is very light and
durable, needing almost no maintainance at all (I was specifically
instructed not to use any oil; just cleaning with a dry cloth was
sufficient).
Interestingly, a couple of them came in fresh green colour, and have
almost stayed that colour since 7 years with very little browning. I
wonder what goes into processing the bamboo reed.
--Shree
Sadashiva Bhat
Shree,
I live in US. How can I get a flute made by Subraya Krishna Bhandari?
Will appreciate any suggestion. Can you let me have the address and/ph
number of this person please? Thanks in advance,
Sadashiva Bhat
M Thakur
> This sort of rational discussion of concrete issues in music making
> strikes me as one of the best possible functions of this group. I wish
> we could see more of it. Thanks to M Thakur for starting this one off
> and to you for continuing it!
You are welcome, I am glad I got a couple of experts to comment on it.
In my understanding Mr. Leifer is an authority on both western flutes
and bansuris.
Now that I have your attention (Ganga is flowing, might as well wash
my hands in it). I could take up on Mr. Leifer's offer and email him
more questions, but I think posting them here will be much more
beneficial.
I have 2 more questions.
I)
For the tweaking practice, do you think it might be good practicing
with PVC, I have seen a lot of sites on the internet that cover making
very inexpensive flutes with PVC (google search on "Making PCV flute"
returns a lot of good hits), they have detailed instruction and
patterns for different sizes. Does anyone have any experience in
playing any of them as bansuris. I dont see any harm in trying though,
but wanted to see what you think of it.
II)
The bansuri that I more concerned about is a G (Sa = G) and its pa is
a little flat, and the 7th hole is really small. I think that flute
was not made for 7 hole Ghosh-Murdeshwar style playing. The maker of
the flute told me that it is possible to play exactly the same meends
with lipping up and down and he told me that is how Chaurasiaji plays
it. I am too used to playing the seventh hole and am not willing to
move to a different style if I can help it.
My problem is that the seventh hole is too far and my pinky cant reach
it once I cover all the holes. I have large hands but the 6 holes on
the flute are in a pattern that in order to cover them I have to
position my hand in a way that makes the seventh hole even more
impossible. The hole pattern is much more croked than I have seen in
most bansuri's, for example there is a big distance between dha and ni
holes and pa and dha holes are much closer. Is there much that can be
done here?. Is is possible to have such pattern and still stay in tune
(I think the lower notes are a little flatter but can call it out of
tune) and how are the holes plugged, because you mentioned that the
holes can be plugged and the bansuri be rebored.
Thanks you very much for the input.
Chith Eshwaran
> Can you please clarify the nomenclature of the two kinds of 'grips'
> talked about? I am assuming :
>
> Ghosh-Murdeshwar grip => holes closed with middle of the finger (1st
> or 2nd segment from the tip of the finger)
>
> Boehm grip => holes closed with the tips of the fingers (e.g. as in
> playing the western flute)
>
Let me describe the grip I use. A similar description of the
Ghosh-Murdeshwar grip - and other known grips - by other contributors to
this thread would be most welcome, we can all share the knowledge.
I hold the flute to my right side. Besides the usual 6 playing holes on the
top side, there is a 7th hole on the extreme right, not on the top but at
right angles facing me, and is not meant to be operated (it cannot be
reached by the fingers, it is just too far). Besides, in my bansuri I have
an additional hole on the underside; this is operated by the left hand thumb
and produces 'Pa' when open. I use it only to produce meend up to or down
from Pa. It is never partially opened.
My flute is based on the '3rd white' (E on the piano) pitch; the distance
between the centre of the blowing hole and of the farthest playing hole (the
'6th' hole, operated by the right hand ring finger) is 50 Cm exactly. Many
well known performers (eg. Chaurasia) play bansuris of this scale and
length. They sometimes play slightly longer flute, but this is just about
the limit for comfortable and sustained playing. [aside: there are bansuri
players who use a VERY much larger bansuri, but for a short 5-10 minutes
only during the early part of the alaap. They go right down to lower octave
Sa. These bansuris are also much larger in diameter, otherwise the holes
could not be reached].
Handling this length of bansuri causes problems. The fingers become
strained, as they have to be spread sufficiently to close three holes that
are about 9 Cm apart at the extremes. It is important - if one wants to
continue playing bansuri into later years in life, and for playing long
sessions without tiring - to minimise this strain on the hands, arms,
fingers and shoulders. And any strain also reduces the quality (sur, speed,
range, etc.) of what you play. The grip therefore plays an important role.
I close the rightmost (6th) hole with the central fleshy part of the topmost
segment of my right hand ring finger. The other two holes (4th and 5th) are
closed by the fleshy part of the middle segment of the middle and index
fingers. Since the middle finger is the longest for most people, these three
segments fall on a straight line and cover the three holes nicely, without
any strain. The right palm and arm is not perpendicular to the flute, it is
about 15-20% degrees to the perpendicular, to enable the above alignment.
The three fingers reach the holes at slightly different angles, the ring
finger having the sharpest (about 40 degrees to the perpendicular), the
index finger the least (just slightly off perpendicular). The right arm and
shoulders feel comfortable with the angle and the bend, and allow the player
to look almost straight (or just a little to the left) to the audience. The
palm and fingers are bent exactly as one would to shake another person's
hand. That is, I could shape my hand as though I am about to extend it
forward and shake someone's hand; this hand then can be positioned on top of
the bansuri to cover the three farthest holes. The fingers are only slightly
curved, and sit on the holes softly. Using only the fleshy parts of the
fingers minimises air leakage.
The three left hand fingers are positioned in a similar way; centre of
topmost segment of the ring finger on the 3rd hole, and the middle segment
of the two other fingers on the other two holes. These fingers, palm and arm
at a slightly sharper angle than for the right hand; this arm is almost 45
degrees to the perpendicular. These fingers are also only slightly curved,
and sit on the holes softly.
Normally, the entire fleshy part of my left thumb covers the bottom Pa hole,
and firmly supports the flute from below with its large contact area. When
this hole is opened for playing meend, the thumb is rotated off the bansuri
with its tip still in contact withe the body of the bansuri. The tip of the
thumb provides ample support at the bottom of the flute to prevent it from
falling off (after some practice), but needs care, the support from bottom
is not that solid any more. This hole has to be closed before long anyway,
as no note other than Pa can be produced with this hole open.
I make no claims about how this grip compares to others; I would be
delighted to understand other grips and borrow/incorporate other methods
into my playing if I see benefit.
Regarding the Boehm grip: as Lyon has pointed out, "the point of the palm
just below the juncture with the index finger is holding up much of the
weight of the instrument", which frees the left thumb to do its other job
of freely operating two levers, as well as to curl the three left hand
fingers so that the tips of the fingers can be used easily. The middle
fleshy segments of the fingers are not used, nor needed. The Indian bansuri
requires accurate partial closing of the holes to play the komal notes; and
the holes are relatively larger in size (13mm diameter for the largest
playing hole in my bansuri). The finger tips are therefore unsuitable.
Regards - Chith Eshwaran
Lyon Leifer
When I say "Ghosh-Murdeshwar" approach, I mean using the fleshy pad of
the top joint of all the seven fingers that cover tone holes. The
instrument is supported by the two thumbs which both sit under the
instrument. The palms don't touch the instrument at all. No middle or
lower joints of any fingers are used to cover tone holes (that's a
redundant statement put in for emphasis)! The position is very well
illustrated in the photo at
<http://music.calarts.edu/~bansuri/pannalal.html> on Dave Philipson's
website.
In contrast to this position, various bansuri players of various
schools use grips that involve one or both palms touching the tube of
the instrument and the use of some number of middle joints of fingers
to cover particular tone holes.
When I talk about "Boehm" flutes I mean the modern Western keyed flute
that is used widely for orchestral, chamber, jazz, etc.. It was
developed during the 1830's-1850's by the German, Theobald Boehm. The
normal grip of this flute has the left palm touching the tube of the
instrument just at the base of the index finger.
It might be worth noting that a lot of these instruments were once
built that could accept a "crutch" mounted on the bottom of the tube
at the position of the left hand. This allowed the instrument to be
played with the left hand standing away from it, more or less like the
Ghosh-Murdeshwar position, except with the crutch resting in the crook
between the thumb and the index finger. While I've seen such
instruments, I've never seen the crutch that originally went with one,
so I've never been able to try out the idea and see if I liked it.
Clearly, it's out of favor. I've never seen anyone use one. But this
could be relevant to the issue of adding a duplicate Pa tonehole at
the upper end of a bansuri. If using a crutch enabled the thumb to
more freely cover and uncover a well-placed tone hole that could be a
big gain for the bansuri. Experiments to build such instruments and
find the proper placement of the crutch could prove truly worthwhile!
Just along this line, another point worth mentioning is that
Murdeshwarji was extremely experimental in his flutemaking (as was,
obviously, Pannalalji who innovated the whole large bansuri concept).
During the 60's I gave Guruji a copy of Boehm's book describing the
whole process of development that led to the Boehm system and its wide
acceptance. Guruji became avidly interested in it and always later
described Boehm as one of his preceptors. In 1999, a few months
before his death, Guruji also fully approved of some notions I've been
able to incorporate into the bansuri I play. I picked those up from
both contemporary and older designs of Western flutes. So the point is
that experimentalism in bansuri making is good! And then it follows
that experimentalism in bansuri playing is also good, particularly if
it builds on established methods without detracting from them!
Now some comments on M Thakur's second posting:
> I)
> For the tweaking practice, do you think it might be good practicing
> with PVC, I have seen a lot of sites on the internet that cover making
> very inexpensive flutes with PVC (google search on "Making PCV flute"
> returns a lot of good hits), they have detailed instruction and
> patterns for different sizes. Does anyone have any experience in
> playing any of them as bansuris. I dont see any harm in trying though,
> but wanted to see what you think of it.
I've made a couple of PVC bansuris and they aren't bad. They sound a
little hollow. I wouldn't play one in concert. The principal value in
building one would probably be to give you practice learning where to
place the toneholes, what the results of tweaking them in one
direction or another might be, etc. without ruining a nice piece of
bamboo which is so hard to get ahold of anyway. The stuff is cheap and
works easily. Acoustically there is a problem with a PVC pipe's
totally cylindrical shape. The slight taper of a good bamboo piece
towards the node can be exploited for acoustical purposes if you know
what you are doing. There is a lot of discussion in the newsgroup
"flutetech" about overcoming these difficulties with PVC. However, I
haven't tried any of the suggestions.
> II)
> The bansuri that I more concerned about is a G (Sa = G) and its pa is
> a little flat, and the 7th hole is really small. I think that flute
> was not made for 7 hole Ghosh-Murdeshwar style playing. The maker of
> the flute told me that it is possible to play exactly the same meends
> with lipping up and down and he told me that is how Chaurasiaji plays
> it. I am too used to playing the seventh hole and am not willing to
> move to a different style if I can help it.
> My problem is that the seventh hole is too far and my pinky cant reach
> it once I cover all the holes. I have large hands but the 6 holes on
> the flute are in a pattern that in order to cover them I have to
> position my hand in a way that makes the seventh hole even more
> impossible. The hole pattern is much more croked than I have seen in
> most bansuri's, for example there is a big distance between dha and ni
> holes and pa and dha holes are much closer. Is there much that can be
> done here?. Is is possible to have such pattern and still stay in tune
> (I think the lower notes are a little flatter but can call it out of
> tune) and how are the holes plugged, because you mentioned that the
> holes can be plugged and the bansuri be rebored.
>
The problems you describe seem very typical of other large flutes I've
seen from California. If you really want to go to the trouble of
plugging up all or many of the holes, you could use one of these epoxy
formulations that incorporates fibre to make a substance that works
like modelling clay. I have some called "PowerPoxy" but don't know if
it's still on the market. There must be something like it though.
Anyway, you make up a reasonable amount of the active mixture and just
push a plug of it into the tone hole, trying to keep it from
protruding into the bore of the instrument. You might be able to
devise a device to fill up the bore such as a wide dowel covered with
clear plasticwrap. That might give you a surface on which the soft
material could rest that could then be pulled away after the stuff has
hardened. Otherwise, you could sand down the inside of the plugs after
hardening with sandpaper attached to that same wide dowel rod. Also
sand the outside of the plugs so that you end up with a smooth patch.
You might even be able to match the color of the bamboo with some wood
stain that you could either paint on after the plug had hardened or
else mix into the expoxy before it hardens. Voila!
Finally, about Chit's question whether I knew the instruments made by
Subraya Krishna Bhandari, I'm afraid I don't. However, I can easily
believe he has access to great bamboo. Murdeshwarji made me one of my
favorite instruments (with a tonic note of F) out of bamboo from
Karnataka which seems to be very much like the material he is
describing: light and strong. The instrument has a very bright and
powerful sound. I'd very much like to see some flutes by Mr. Bhandari.
Best regards to all,
Lyon
Shree
> Let me describe the grip I use. A similar description of the
> Ghosh-Murdeshwar grip - and other known grips - by other contributors to
> this thread would be most welcome, we can all share the knowledge.
>
I use a similar grip, but do not use the special hole used or Pa; I'll
try experimenting on my PVC bansuris (the bamboo ones are too dear to
me to meddle with!).
Additionally, I find it extremely helpful to support the bansuri with
the little fingers, especially towards the open end. I support the
bansuri with the tip of my left-hand little finger permanently (I hold
the bansuri towards my left). This frees up my left-hand ring finger
to play passages like "PDDP" or "PddP" faster, and also relatively
easier for playing "GGmmPPmm" without fumbling. Also helps playing
larger and heavier bansuris without straining my fingers.
I have seen Hariprasad Chaurasia use the ring finger for support. I
think, when not playing 'P' or 'd', he grips the flute with his ring
finger (left hand - he holds the bansuri to his left) between the 6th
and 5th hole. I tried this technique initially, but found it too
cumbersome, e.g. playing "ddnndmdPPm". This might probably due to the
fact that I don't know the technique in enough detail as I only got to
observe him from a distance and for a very short duration.
--Shree
Chith Eshwaran
only the top segments must give better playing control compared to using the
middle segments, as the tips move a lot more freely and accurately. It is
all a matter of tradeoff, I suppose. Using only the top segments requires
spreading the fingers a little more than using a combination of top and
middle segments; that perhaps explains why many (incorrectly) believed Panna
Babu must have had operation done to his hands!
On my flute, the distance between the 6th and 7th hole (always open), centre
to centre, is 8 cm. This large distance may be needed on this flute because
the 7th hole is 11 mm in dia, rather large. If it were meant to be closed
with the pinky finger, a smaller hole would be used, which would allow it to
be brought a little closer to the 6th. Still, I am curios to know how you
manage to close it. I have seen bansuri players using this whole, but only
with a little bamboo lever with a sort of soft pad to reach that distance. I
would appreciate if you could kindly describe your 7th hole - its distance
to the 6th, its dia, whether it is drilled in the same line as the other
holes, and how you close it. Seems to me that to accommodate the shorter
finger length of the pinky, this hole could be better located if moved down
a little towards the player.
An unrelated question. The website you mentioned has a Raga Shree played by
Panna babu where he effortlessly rides into the very top Sa and komal Re.
Does you flute produce these notes without excessive blowing effort, with
correct sur? What fingering do you use?
Regards - Chith
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lyon Leifer" <lle...@northpark.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.classical
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 12:21 AM
Subject: Re: Bansuri tunining
> I'll try to clarify a bit about gripping flutes:
>
> When I say "Ghosh-Murdeshwar" approach, I mean ......[truncated]
Chith Eshwaran
> > ...but do not use the special hole used or Pa; I'll
> try experimenting on my PVC bansuris (the bamboo ones are too dear to
> me to meddle with!).
>
This hole needs to be quite small, so that it can be closed with only a
small part of the thumb. On my bansuri it is somewhat elliptical in shape,
only about 7mm along the major axis and 6mm along the minor (this compares
with 12mm dia for the next 'Ma' hole). The major axis is aligned to the
length of the flute. Its centre is 3.2 cm from that of the next Ma hole.
The hole is not exactly at the bottom, it is about 30 degree position away
from the bottom point, and to the opposite side from the player's body. An
additional benefit of this position is, the pressure from the thumb in
closing this hole naturally pushes the flute just a little towards the lips,
and seems to give a better embouchure and tone.
Regards - Chith Eshwaran