Vajra Bansuri™ : Hold it like a Thunderbolt, Play it like a Bansuri
The world's first ever end-blown bansuri is here! Unique mouthpiece design makes it probably the easiest blowing end-blown flute out there. Relaxed arms position and rich harmonics are the distinctive features of Vajra Bansuri.
Bansuri is side-blown wind instrument. A variant of bansuri with a fipple mouthpiece based upon the western recorder mouthpiece design, is known by names like straight bansuri, seedhi/khadi bansuri and has been around for a while. Though easy to play because of its in-mouth mouthpiece and relaxed arms position, its range of playing and quality of tone is quite limited.
I have always loved the way of playing and sound of end blown flutes like the Persian Ney, Bulgarian Kaval. However, as enchanting as these flutes may sound, the embouchure required to blow these flutes is definitely not the easiest to develop and takes a beginner quite a bit of practice to even make a sustained sound.
Anyway, taking my inspiration from theses various flute styles, I conceptualized an end-blown flute which is rather straight forward to blow. And with a sound that is smooth and dense in contrast with the airy sound of most end-blown flutes. It took me a few years and several iterations to work out and finalize an optimized design. I have named this novel design of bansuri as Vajra Bansuri. Vajra is a Sanskrit word meaning thunderbolt - here signifying the playing orientation of the bansuri.
Vajra Bansuri comes equipped with a thumb hole for Pancham or Pa (the fifth note), opening up the meend (glissando) connection between the lower / middle register and the middle / high Pa. Apart from this, it is fingered like a normal bansuri.
Should you have any questions about Vajra Bansuri or would like to order one, please contact me.
