Bansuri
(the Indian Bamboo Flute) …
Flutes and Drums are among the most primitive and most commonly found instruments all around the world. The earliest known musical instruments come from the Upper Paleolithic where flutes made from long bones and whistles made from deer foot bones have been found at a number of sites. It is also said, especially in Asia, that in some parts of the world the idea of flute originated from the whistle-like sound generated by wind passing through bamboo forests.
The bamboo flute is equally popular among the rural as well as the urban populace. Whether it is the various African, Indian or other tribes around the world, everywhere tribesmen have taken to making and playing various different kinds of bamboo flutes, both transverse and end-blown. Whether it is the Shakuhachi Bamboo Flutes of Japan with four finger holes and one thumb hole, the ancient bamboo flutes of China or the end-blown bamboo flutes popular in the Arab nations, the bamboo flutes are found all around the world.
While the ancestor of the Japanese Shakuhachi is said to be imported from China in the 8th century, and was used in the 15th century in the form of hitoyogiri, a small end-blown flute that eventually developed into the modern shakuhachi which grew to be popular around 18th century, the origin of the Western transverse concert flute is also traced back to China around 900 BC, which reached Europe around AD 1100 where it took the form of the German Flute (military flute) and eventually gave rise to families of flutes from soprano to bass around 16th and 17th century to be played as part of Chamber music ensambles. This transverse flute was entirely redesigned in the late 1600 by the Hottetere family of French woodwind flute makers who added keys, and by the 19th century the western flute had eight keys from the four keys common in the 1800s.
In India, although the bamboo flute Bansuri (or Bansri) (Bans=bamboo, Sur=melody or notes, the bamboo instrument which plays melody) has been immensely popular from time immemorial, being associated to god Lord Krishna as his favourite musical instrument, this was more of a folk and orchestral instrument as depicted in numerous temple sculptures all across the country. In Southern India though, the version of flute called Venu was used extensively both as an orchestral as well as a lead instrument.
Pannalal Ghosh [ 31 July, 1911 - 20 April, 1960], was the first person to bring Bansuri to the North-Indian Hindustani classical music stage. He found the then existing short high-pitched Bansuri, which was popular in Indian folk and orchestral music, to be lacking in tonal depth required to perform North-Indian Classical ragas (melodic forms). He started making longer bass flutes himself out of Bamboo and perfected the tonal quality as well as the technique to play in all three octaves. With unparalleled perfection, he presented and recorded various ragas on his flute, and tried to cover almost all the ground that a Hindustani classical vocalist would cover, from Ati-Vilambit (very slow compositions) to Drut (fast compositions), from Aalap (slow introduction of raga) to Bol-Baant and Layakari (rhythmic improvisations as an intermediate phase of development) to Tayyar-taan (very fast patterns of notes woven by using the specific ascending and descending notes of a raga). His renditions of ragas became very popular. Pannalal Ghosh and his mesmerising Bansuri was overwhelmingly accepted by both the audiences and musicians of India. His success inspired a number of brilliant young musicians to take to this instrument to express their creativity and maintain its popularity.