Bansuri

The Indian bamboo flute, also called bansuri, is a flute made from a single piece of bamboo. The bansuri has 6 or 7 holes. All half notes, accidentals and microtones are obtained by a unique finger technique. The bansuri is one of the oldest musical instruments. Mention of the bansuri was already made in the Vedas. The bansuri is associated with the god of dance and music: Krishna.

The bansuri - ‘bans’ means bamboo and ‘swar, shruti, shri, suri’ means tone - is a bass flute made of bamboo with 6 or 7 open finger holes. The bansuri is a simple wind instrument without valves, with a tone about an octave lower than the European classical flute and it is much more resonant and flexible in‘ tonal quality’. It has no valves for ‘b’ or ‘#’ but the half and quarter notes are obtained by carefully opening just a particle of the hole with the finger.