sa in flute
excuse...@yahoo.co.uk
have learnt vocal carnatic music as well as guitar..
having heard from many persons and sites im in a confusion as to what
is considered the basic sa in flute as per the carnatic sysytem,,>??
is it by closing two holes from top or three holes from top??
actually i was playing with 3 holes..and it was ok..but i saw from
shashank's page that it is by closing 2 holes..??
can anyone help out>..??
John Wright
news:1127313561.2...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
For a proper Carnatic flute (8-hole), sa must be produced by closing the top
2 holes.
It is for a Hindusthani flute (6 playing holes) that sa is produced closing
the top 3 holes; it has a different tuning and hence fingering system. Some
Carnatic performers (including Shashank) play the longer flute for low
(bass) notes, these will have a sa as per the design of the flute - hence it
may be closing top 3 holes, or something else.
You say "actually i was playing with 3 holes..and it was ok". It might
appear OK to you but it isn't; your ears perhaps cannot distinguish the
"apaswaram" (bad tuning). Someone with good ears will quickly spot that with
this fingering some holes might produce somewhat close to correct shruti,
but most holes will produce the wrong shruti. This is because the interval
ratio between the frequencies of all touching notes are not the same in the
Carnatic system, hence shifting a scale on the flute distorts the scale
(unlike in a western metal flute, which is tuned to an equi-tempered scale)
producing "apaswaram".
The traditional advice - that one must learn ANY musical instrument only
from an experienced teacher, at least at the early stages - has very sound
reasons. Learning by yourself without a teacher, you are bound to pick up
many bad habits unknowingly, which will be hard to undo later once your
finger muscles get reinforced playing that way.
Regards - JW
excuse...@yahoo.co.uk
thank u sir for ur reply and suggestions.
But indeed i was playing a SIX holed flute in which i was producing sa
by closing 3 holes.
And concerning the production of apaswaras,i use a computer program
(Tune master)to know the note i play.
My mistake,as i understand now,was only in assuming that the same
fingering will be ok for 8 holed flutes as well.
However,I wish to buy and practise on an 8 holed flute since it
includes more lower notes.
Could u please help me out with the ideal fingering,ie progressing
through ,which holes go up by full and half notes?
thanking u
John Wright
>
> thank u sir for ur reply and suggestions.
> Could u please help me out with the ideal fingering,ie progressing
> through ,which holes go up by full and half notes?
The web page http://www.geocities.com/najibvirgo/flute_1.htm has some good
material that you may find useful - it has a graphical fingering chart and a
table for Carnatic flute.
There are a few inaccuracies there, though.
Regards - JW
excuse...@yahoo.co.uk
it is indeed wonderful.
excuse...@yahoo.co.uk
be downloaded or streamed??
John Wright
> could you suggest any link wherein keerthanas rendered using flute can
> be downloaded or streamed??
http://www.musicindiaonline.com has tons of music to stream - select
Carnatic Instrumental on left, then click Music Listing in the middle of the
page, and then select Ramani, Shashank, Mahalingam ... each have many kritis
there.
To capture the stream and store on your hard drive in mp3 or other format
you will need some software like Total Recorder.
JW
barend
> To capture the stream and store on your hard drive in mp3 or other format
> you will need some software like Total Recorder.
>
Total Recorder? is that a freeware programm? and how do you catch the
streams on your hard disc............I use the software Ripcast for
recording streaming audio but it does not work on
musicindiaonline...maybe I do something wrong??
naniwadekar
"barend" <baren...@hotmail.com> wrote :
>
> Total Recorder? is that a freeware programm?
>
I don't think TotalRecorder is available for free. But it
is quite inexpensive.
- dn
John Wright
> Total Recorder? is that a freeware programm? and how do you catch the
> streams on your hard disc............I use the software Ripcast for
> recording streaming audio but it does not work on
> musicindiaonline...maybe I do something wrong??
I use Total Recorder for capturing streams from MusicIndia, works very
reliably. It basically captures any audio stream (also any external input
from your microphone, or line input to the soundcard) and converts to one of
many formats (e.g. mp3) to store as a file. Simple to use too.
It is not free, but quite inexpensive at $11.95 USD. Visit
http://www.highcriteria.com for details. The full working version is
available for free download and trial - it adds an audible noise every 60
seconds until you purchase the license.
Regards - JW
John Wright
> ...
> Closing 7 holes except the first holes gives Shuddha Madhyamam.
> Closing first five holes and half closing the sixth gives Prathi
> Madhyamam.
I am curious as to why the Carnatic flute fingering is a little irregular
from Shudha ma onwards. What I mean is, what happened to the two positions
of closing 6 and half holes and closing 6 holes, what note do they produce?
These two positions seem unused, so why have 8 holes in the flute when they
are not all being fully used? Going from Shuddha ma (closing 7 holes) to
Prati Ma (closing 5 and half holes) is a big jump in fingering for just
going up a semitone - why?
> .. just closing the first 4 holes gives the higher Dhaivatham.
> First three holes fully closed gives lower nishadham.
> First two holes fully closed and the third half closed gives higher
> nishadham.
Again, closing three and half holes is missing and unused - no note
corresponds to it. The original designers had two choices here - as it is
now, or closing 3 and half holes for lower Ni and closing 3 holes for higher
Ni - with two and half hole closed position unused. Why was the current
position preferred? Playing a fully open hole is easier; so for some reason
the designers chose to make lower Ni easier than the higher Ni. The
Hindusthani flute designer chose the opposite, the higher Ni is played with
open hole.
The basic question is: for producing good music with the requirement for 12
notes in an octave, what is the best fingering design? Is there something in
Carnatic music that has a different requirement to Hindusthani music? Are
the current Hindusthani and Carnatic flute fingering designs the best that
can be achieved for fingering?
Only 6 holes are really needed to produce 12 notes (actually 6 notes can
produce up to 13 notes). The Hindusthani flute uses 6 holes to produce all
12 notes in the octave (one position - closing 3 and half holes - is
unused).
Just curious.
Regards - JW
SH
Er ... is it legal to capture and copy streaming audio?
Havanur
Vishal Thakkar
use any program like audiograbber, etc. To see if you have this
1. Start | Run | sndvol32
2. Option | Properties | Recording
3. If you see a bar called "Waveout Mix" along with "Microphone" and
others...
3a. Choose that line
3b. Use any free recording app like audiograbber of your choice
3c. After that revert your change by selecting "Microphone" line
Hope this helps those some who might want to capture IMC for practice,
reference, archiving, etc.
-Vishal
"SH" <anama...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1127675392....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
excuse...@yahoo.co.uk
I feel it a lot easier to play the hindustani flute than the carnatic
one(but of course iam new to it and that may be the reason)
Also , in the fingering suggested by T N Dasarathy sir,the link to
which i'd got from above,suggests closing the penulimate 3 holes along
with the top two to produce sa..
But on checking with tune master i see that both ways the frequencues
are the same.
Iam also curious about the last hole which was not used at all.
Is it there just to aid the production of other notes??
John Wright
> Iam also curious about the last hole which was not used at all.
>
> Is it there just to aid the production of other notes??
Actually the last hole (8th) in the Carnatic flute is indeed used,
SOMETIMES. The player lifts the right hand and shifts the 4 fingers by one
hole to the right; and also uses the small (pinky) finger of the left hand.
4 fingers in each hand are used to close the 8 holes, which then allows you
to produce one note lower than otherwise. Only played this way for a short
time during alaapana in the lowest notes.
But the more important reason is to enable better accuracy of the tuning of
the lowest note. It is very difficult for the flute maker to cut the bamboo
at precisely the right length so that when all holes are closed it is in
perfect tune. It is much easier to make the bamboo a few inches longer, make
an extra dummy hole and adjust its location and diameter to tune the
fingering position where all other holes are closed.
Both Carnatic and Hindusthani bamboo flutes made in India have this farthest
dummy hole. Not so in western metal flutes made by the well known companies
e.g. Yamaha. Their flutemaking process is precision-engineered in factories
and labs (unlike the craftsmen in India still using relatively primitive
tools and processes at home) with machines able to drill and cut at
tolerances better than hundredth of a millimetre. No need for the extra
dummy hole for them.
Regards - JW