If your Bansuri is producing sound now,
then, now we will see how the natural scale is played (on Bansuri).
Holding the flute
if we temporarily consider this our keynote (Sa),
then flute naturally plays Shudh Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni (from here).
Meaning after Shadaj (Sa), Tivar Rishava, Tivar Gandhar, Komal Madhyam
Pancham, Dhaivat Tivar and Nishad Tivar
Which we call Bilaval (Thaat or Scale),
Flute naturally plays these notes from here.
It is also called the 'Natural Scale' in English.
This would be your Sa, closing all holes
Re, Ga
Ma, Pa , Dha, Ni,
Closing all holes and blowing a little tighter, (will produce) Upper Sa.
I'll play these for you.
Play these notes slow, very slow.
Slow and long and first completely straight (without vibrato)
As I'll show you the first two or three notes:
[Plays Sa]
[Plays Re]
[Plays Ga]
Ma
[Plays Ma]
Pa
[Plays Pa]
Dha
[Plays Dha]
Nishad (Ni)
[Plays Ni]
Upper Sa
[Plays upper Sa]
And in the same manner, its descending I'll play it a bit faster.
[Plays]
Practice it in that manner.
First play it slow and eventually speed it up
[Plays]
Here I would also like to explain that a note can be reached in two ways
one way is the direct approach, snap, snap.
As:
[Plays]
And the second is the flute (bansuri's) way,
That is that move from one note to the other with tenderness.
It means don't lift your finger like this but like this.
Look at this finger, like this.
Bring this motion to your hand.
Hand must be loose.
If your finger is tightened, then you won't be able to achieve this.
Loose, it must be loose.
This way, as:
[Plays]
Our ultimate goal on Bansuri is that we learn to slide the notes
for example, if your are going to play Sa-Ga
[Plays]
That is not right we want to play:
[Plays Sliding notes]
This way. So the whole flute (octave) plays smoothly.
We'll explore that further later.
For now work on Sa-Re-Ga-Ma.
And eventually acquiring speed.
As mentioned earlier there are two types of notes, legato and staccato.
We can play the staccato notes this way
[Plays]
Work on different speeds with these as:
[Plays]
etc. etc.
Practice this and
in the next video we'll see that what excersices can be used on the Bansuri.
