How To Play Flute: Introduction

 Music is a very beautiful yet difficult subject. Most of the great musicians devoted their lives to learn music. That doesn't mean one cannot learn without devoting his/her life. Clearly, more the level of dedication, more the expertise on the field grows. Keeping that in mind, and as a student of music (flute) I will share with you the basic of playing flutes and how you can also fulfill your hidden desire.

There are generally two types of music - vocal and instrumental. Flute is one of so many musical instruments. It produces sound from flow of air inside a tube. The tube can be made of bamboo, glass, metal etc. Normally a flute has 7 holes. One is for blowing air and other six are for controlling pitch of the flute. 

Typical Indian Bamboo flute

One needs to blow air with his/her mouth through the blowing hole and use index finger, middle finger and ring finger of both hands to control the other six holes. 

All music has its own grammar and it is almost identical for both vocal and instrumental music. In Indian classical music there are 12 notes - 

1. Sa
2. Re (Komol / Flat note) 
3. Re (Shuddho / Original note)
4. Ga (Komol / Flat note) 
5. Ga (Shuddho / Original note)
6. Ma (Shuddho / Original note)
7. Ma  (Tibro / Sharp note)
8. Pa
9. Dha (Komol / Flat note) 
10. Dha (Shuddho / Original note)
11. Ni (Komol / Flat note) 
12. Ni (Shuddho / Original note)

These 12 notes are used in vocal music as well as in instrumental music. Combination (Composition) of these notes in various ways can produce sounds of very different flavors.

To learn how to play music with a flute, one should first learn how to play these basic notes on a flute. I will write another post in this topic very soon with some illustrations so that it becomes easy for you to learn! So keep an eye on this website.

Update: Second Post of this series - How To Play Flute: Playing Basic Notes

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