Lecture 1: Anatomy of the Carnatic Flute

Lecture 1: Anatomy of the Carnatic Flute

Origins Music has always been the fascination of early man. The reverberating sounds of the woods, the ever rushing rapids of streams, t... 17:49

Origins

Music has always been the fascination of early man. The reverberating sounds of the woods, the ever rushing rapids of streams, the chirping of the birds, the howling of the gales, are some of the common examples that could have surely fascinated him. His growing curiosity only made him develop methods & more specifically instruments to produce music or at least to re-produce the already existing sounds of nature around him.

Fortunately, hollow tubes, initially made from animal bones are found to produce sounds that varied with different lengths. Later on, after further experimentation, holes were bored in the body of this bones to produce a flute like device that can produce a series of sounds or notes on a single piece of bone.

Strangely, most early men from different cultures across the planet had a penchant for this device & similarities were found in cave drawings in many cultures in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia & Oceania. Undisputedly, this device became the first musical instrument of humankind.

The evolution of his culture & his civilization saw wood as the most suitable instrument for the production of sound. Coincidentally, many ancient civilizations ranging from the Egyptians, Indians, Assyrians, Israelites & the Chinese developed almost similar way to produce these instruments. While some held the instrument in a tilted sideway posture, some held it perpendicular to the mouth.  The basic logic of closing a certain number of holes in the instrument to produce the sound of a specific note remained the same throughout all these cultures.

Of late, recent underwater archaeological findings of massive buildings in Dwaraka (city of Lord Krishna, an expert flute player) & Poompuhar (the place where the epic of Silappathikaram supposedly happened & where the protagonist, Kovalan was also stated to be an expert flute player) prove that classical music existed over tens of thousands of years before the common era, further suggesting that this instrument is the first of its kind that mankind could have behold in music production. These recent findings has also thrown new light in re-dating the civilized history of mankind up to the beginning of the last Ice Age when massive meltdowns of colossal glaciers swallowed low-lying (below sea-level) landmasses across the world.

Material

In the East, bamboo became a preferred choice, due to the homogeneity of the bamboo plant that made it easier to predict the note when holes are bored. The tone of the sound is also found to be soothing. As such, ancient cultures like the Chinese, Japanese & Indians extensively used bamboo for the production of flutes.

The bamboo is by nature, a type of grass that belongs to the Poaceae family of grasses with over 1400 species in all 3 tropics. This family of grass develop almost tree like features when fully grown often deceiving the unlearned observer into thinking that it is a tree.

While the Japanese & Chinese modified their original designs with other materials with metal mouth pieces & sometimes even glass parts, & with the West adopting brass & steel tubes, its quite surprising, why the Indians retained the original design; that is a single, unjoined piece of bamboo with holes bored at various distances from each other. One hole became the blowing hole, while the rest became the fingering holes. The primary reason is the music. While the West adopted the counterpoint method of sound production which required harmonic principles and thereby "harmonized notes", the Indians on the other hand, retained the melodic nature of their music. As such the keyless bamboo flute is still used today in Indian classical music, using the 16 natural musical notes (as in Carnatic Music) in sound production.

Design & Construction

The earliest reference of flute in classical music came from the South, in the ancient Tamil literary text of Silappathikaaram (Tale of The Anklet), where the protagonist, Kovalan is mentioned to be an expert flautist. Incidentally, this ancient Tamil text also mentioned many aspects of ragas used in ancient Tamil classical music that are still practiced today including the playing posture of the instrument. The 16-note system of Carnatic music was also mentioned in these ragas. There are however later references to the instrument in the North like in the musical treatise of Sarangadeva, the Sangitaratnakara (Jewel Mine of Music) who mentions 15 different types of flutes based on the distance, known as angula (1.9cm) between the mouth-hole & the first finger hole chiefly Ekavira, Umapathi, Tripurusha, Chaturmukha, Panchavaktra, Shanmukha, Muni, Vasu, Nathendra, Mahananda, Rudra, Aditya, Manu, Kalanidhi & Ashtadasangula. Of which, the Ashtadasangula has the widest seperation of 17 & 18 angulas, thereby the longest in the list.

The Shanmukha type is widely in use in the Carnatic flute today due to the flexibility of this design to handle Indian classical music as well as other forms of music pretty well. According to Sarangadeva, the other types are either too long or not practical to be practiced in classical music, while all of which are found to be used in other forms of music like folk, drama & dance where the demands of performing classical music are significantly reduced. 

The type of bamboo used in the North is structurally different from the South. The South Indian bamboo is only available plentiful in a forest in the southwestern state of Kerala in a place known as Nilambur where the climate & elevation is just right for the cultivation of this type of bamboo. The bamboo grown here has a thick reed & normally cut in a way that one end is naturally knotted. In the North, the bamboo used to make flutes are grown in the forests of Assam & generally possess a very thin reed. The color of the bamboo is also lighter as compared to the the South Indian bamboos. The selection of suitable bamboos for flute making is either done by a flute maker or a flautist himself. 

The Silappathikaram, from South India specifically mentions bamboo as the best material for flute making & details the dimensions of the making a flute. Though it mentions that both ends of the bamboo must be hollow with one end stopped by wax preferably or some other material, it's design ratio of hole placements is still followed as a guideline by flute makers in South India, with the exception that most South Indian flute makers use a knotted end bamboo on one side. It remains the earliest & most detailed authority on the design & construction of Carnatic flute. The boring process of heating a metal disc red-hot & burning the bamboo by pressing it against the designated area is also mentioned in this literature. As easy as it may seem, it takes immense skill on the part of the flute maker to make the right holes at the right places depending on the length & reed thickness of the bamboo, else he has to start all over again. In ancient times, many of the flute makers are actually flautists themselves.

There are of course some differences in using each flute. While the Assamese bamboo produces a shrill tone, the South Indian bamboo produces a sharp tone. While not much have been said of exchanges of each flute types among the North & South Indian flautists in the past, today, the distinction has almost blurred, as all Indian flautists generally accept & use both types of bamboos in flute playing, depending on their preference & type of ragas to which  some flutes produce better feel or musical effect. This confluence has also fortunately brought closer, with it the musical cultures of the North & South to interact seamlessly.

Variety

Nevertheless, there exist numerous varieties of flutes in India itself. In the Silappadikaram alone, there exist 3 types; Kondraikuzhal (z pronounced as l for lull), Ambarkuzhal & Mullaikuzhal all of which are end blown, like the beak-flute or the modern-day recorder in Western music. There also exist another type known as the Veynkuzhal which is technically an ordinary bamboo pipe. Double-flute was also played in India like the ancient Assyrians with striking similarities in design all of which use the bamboo as the default material. Double-flutes are challenging to be played as both are held by the mouth & played simultaneously, one is the drone & the other is the tune pipe. The drone pipe has a similar design to the shenai with a bell-shaped opening in the end. They are found in Tibet & Rajasthan with a sculpture in Sanchi.

Design Challenges

The most daunting yet most important aspect of the Carnatic flute that it has a highly-developed, complex fingering to produce the kind of music comparable to the vocal form of the music given the simple design of the instrument. Some of which can be plainly put down on paper & shown, but the most of the which, cannot be written down as to how much a finger is need to close that hole to produce that "special note" or to shake that finger over that hole to produce that "fluid effect". Only a competent flautist can impart such subtle yet very significant knowledge to the student. Even the brightest students, take years of practice and acclimatization to the same instrument to get the desired music. There is also a common myth due to the design of the Carnatic flute, there are many limitations as opposed to the vocal form, which on many accounts, highly-skilled professionals would beg to differ.

Professionals train for several hours every other day to upkeep their competency, while amateurs who occasionally perform don't usually develop the quality that professionals create. Therefore many highlight of the great rift between the quality of music from an amateur flautist to that of a professional as compared to other instruments. The main reason for this rift is not the instrument but the level of fingering that the flautist has to take pains to develop. As such many budding students of music often turn away from this instrument, knowing that mastering the finger work alone is a gargantuan task & that is before understanding the intricacies of the music.

Another most important task of the budding flautist is to understand the vocal form of the music very well, or better still, extremely well to the extent of producing it. The flautist or the nadaswaram artiste is a parallel to the vocalist in terms of music production, as both performers (wood wind instrumentalists & vocalists) use the vocal chords to produce music. While there is has been claims by reputed artistes, that the flautist will strain the vocal chords & therefore has to sacrifice the vocal asset of his music, it has not been scientifically proven. Vocal music, especially for the budding flautist is an important asset to understand at least so as to aptly reproduce the music on the instrument. All these efforts will eventually culminate in improving the blowing techniques of the flautists to an impressive quality. In addition, the know how of vocal knowledge will aid in better improving the fingering of unknown, difficult & rare ragas, giving an advantage of venturing into uncommon territory.

Much of the above challenges will be discussed appropriately in detail in the later chapters.