Behind the blow hole this hollow, continuous tube is stopped with a cork, which can either be made from real cork or some substitute, like hardened rubber. It is made from a long, continuous tube of nodeless bamboo, which is usually of the botanical genus Schizostachyum, usually found growing in the cool, misty Himalayan foothills of the Assam region of northeast India. It has six finger holes and one embouchure or blowing hole. The Bansuri is essentially nothing more than a side-blown or transverse flute made from bamboo. The Basic Form and Structure of the Bansuri I do have pieces of bamboo in my collection that I am in the process of making my own Bansuris from which, although they may not be of the authentic variety of Assam bamboo, I am fairly sure that I can make a better quality instrument from than the usual tourist quality flutes that I bought in India. Among the tourist quality flutes that I now have in my own personal collection, many are made from bamboo tubes that are majorly bowed, bent or deformed others are made from substandard bamboo, with fungal infestations and lesions, or the like and by far the single greatest shortcoming that they have is that their finger holes are not well placed for optimum acoustical and tuning considerations. And so, if you are really serious about learning to play the Bansuri, seek out a qualified and classically trained master of that flute for instruction he will usually have the right connections to a reputable maker of concert quality Bansuri flutes. I have a few different Bansuri flutes in my collection, which I bought during my travels in India, and, frankly speaking, all of them have major flaws, musically speaking, and would not really qualify as being adequate for the serious musician. And so, many Bansuri maestros in recent years have come out trying to clean up this problem area, and raise the overall standards of the industry of Bansuri making.
“Good enough for rock ‘n’ roll” – that is, good enough for the idle tourist who just wants something he can doodle around on musically, is still a long ways away from being good enough to play serious music on. I myself can attest to this fact from my travels in India, where Bansuri flutes of questionable tuning and quality are for sale, even in otherwise reputable music stores in Delhi. Add to this the fact that tourism forms a large part of India’s economy, which invites the business model of street side vendors hawking cheap – and cheaply made – flutes to tourists, and you have a scenario that encourages the mass production of flutes of shoddy or questionable musical tuning and quality. The north Indian Bansuri is undoubtedly one of the simplest of flutes in overall form and structure it is a simple nodeless tube of bamboo, with seven holes burned into it, one blow hole and six finger holes, and a cork shoved into the top of the blowing end, right behind the blow hole. Introduction: A Relative Dearth of Quality Flutes The Tourist Version, the Classical Versions, and the Hippie Version
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