playing half notes

[wmrajput]

Hi all,

great to find this forum. I've been following this forum for some time now. finally decided to post.

I have been learning for a a little more than a year now. One particular area that I find that I am least proficient is when I have to play more than one half notes with the fingers of the same hand.

like, when I try to play darbari aur charukeshi, I need to play the half notes with the two fingers of my bottom hand. I can play slow alaps, but the I really feel handicapped. I am unable to express myself as I would be able to in other ragas where I have to play no half notes or one half note per hand. Also playing in drut is almost impossible. I loose the ability do create murki and taan.

So how can I come over this?

[bibhas]

Rajput,
It's a common problem but there is light at the end of the tunnel. We have all been through this during the early stages of learning. There is only one answer - Riyaz! Practice, practice, practice, endless repetition but with attention. Since you can already play darbari and charukeshi in slow speeds, start there. Pick a phrase that you're having trouble with, play 10 times slowly and then slowly move to madhyalay, play 20 times and then play the same phrase now in drut and you'll see that you're able to play it. Ask your guruji to give you (or make some yourself) some raag-specific paltas that use consecutive komal swaras and play them everyday.

[Jeff Whittier]

Besides stating the obvious - practice more - which Bibhas has already covered, there is another possibility. Maybe your flute is too thick-walled. Thin-walled flutes are MUCH easier to get the half-hole notes on. Many amateur players like thick-walled flutes because they have a full sound on the open holes. However, they have a poor sound on the half-holes.

This is a hidden component of the concept "tone." Many thick-walled flutes have a nice tone on the open holes, but the tone suffers on the half-holes. Same thing for the lower & upper notes - the lower notes of a thick-walled flute may be very nice, but the upper notes may have a thin tone and go out of tune. So beware of the concept "tone" - it may mean different things for different notes, even on the same flute.

[wmrajput]

Thank you Jeff and bhibhas.

Jeff, as always, your input is both revealing and amusing. However, I tend to have the problem on flutes of all sorts of thickness and size.

It more of a problem with technique. Although I have a very good teacher, but he would never play Darbari aur Charukeshi or Raags that require similar placement of half notes from top three holes closed. He would always make his Sa at the top two holes closed.

I on the other hand feel that the octave change between ga and ma while playing with Sa as top two holes ruins it for me. So I can't really learn the technique from my teacher.

[wmrajput]

See the thing is. I dont fully understand the technique.
Should I keep the dha hole half open and lift the Ni finger at the same time, Or should I always lift the bottom finger up while playing half note with the middle finger. Or is the technique going to change while palying quickly or doing KaNs?

I appreciate you guys taking the time to help. I really do.

[Jeff Whittier]

You need a different teacher.

[wmrajput]

The problem is there is very few bansuri teachers who teach classical on bansuri in Pakistan.
Besides he has good understanding of music and and is also a very good teacher.
I see not harm in adjusting the Sa a little up and down to make it comfortable. I guess the end product is more important than how you produce is.
I'll leave this discussion for another thread and I think it has already been discussed in previous forums a little.

So, I was hoping I could have some insight from experienced players on how to make things better.

Can I get paltas or some links where they have paltas for practice?

[talasiga]

in my opinion Darbari k. and Charukeshi are hardly the sort of raagas one should attempt as a beginner when using Sa at XXX OOO. These are demanding raags with that Sa point.

My own schedule with bansuri (every time I progress to a larger bansuri) is something like this:-

1) a raaga like Yaman that only employs open holes
2) a raaga like Bhoop that uses only some of above

and then slowly introducing raagas that only require one half hole, eg
3) Maarva (half hole for komal ri)
4) Bihag (half hole for shudh ma)
5) Jansanmohini (no ma and half hole for komal ni)
6) Durga (half hole for shuddh ma, no ga or ni)

thats two years of beginner practice already .......

[wmrajput]

Hi Talasiga,

I have been learning for two years now and alteast think I am above the biginner level .

I can comfortably play the bottom half note and top two half notes.

It is when, I have to play half notes on bottom two, that I find the most problametic. But I am working on it. The progress is slow but satisfactory, as I am not getting much time for riyaz nowadays cuz of my job.

Thank you for replying.

[dexter74]

Hola a todos!
Hi everyone!
El Maestro Sachdev, en su video enseña la técnica de deslizar levemente, o mejor dicho rotar levemente el dedo hacia arriba o abajo para ejecutar los semitonos. En un video de Rupak Kulkarni, él dice que prefiere levantar lateralmente el dedo, ésto aparentemente da mayor precisión cuando uno toca a velocidad, es más difícil y lleva más práctica. En mi propia flauta es bien difícil tocar komal dha bajo con la técnica de Kulkarni pero suena bien con la técnica de Sachdev. En el registro medio y alto suenan todos los semitonos con las dos técnicas.
Supongo que la técnica que enseña Kulkarni es la del Maestro Chaurasia
Que opinion tienen, que técnica usar? Combinar según el momento?

Maestro Sachdev, in his learning video teaches to slide a little the finger, or better said, to rotate it a little up or down to play the half notes. On a learnin video by Rupak Kulkarni, he tells to prefer to move up laterally the finger, this gives more precision, accuracy, specially when you play fast, it´s more difficult, it takes more practice. On my own flute it's too difficult, almost impossible, to play bass komal dha with the Kulkarni techniques, but it sounds well the Sachdev way. On the middle and alto register it sounds the two ways.
I gess the techniques Kulkarni teaches are from Master Chaurasia.
What is yours opinion, which way you use? May one combine them?

[Jeff Whittier]

Dexter -

Sachdev got his technique from Vijay Raghav Rao. I believe exactly the opposite of what you quote - Sachdev's method of opening the hole on the far side of the finger hole from the blow hole gives much more command of the pitch than opening the hole by lifting the outer part of the finger as Kulkarni does. In fact, all of my students, without exception, who have learned the Kulkarni way of opening the holes before they started studying with me have inferior results in pitch command as compared to the students who have learned Sachdev's technique right from the beginning. The Kulkarni technique belongs in the class of "bad habits."

BTW, once I was playing tamboura for one of Hariji's concerts and sat 2 feet away from his playing hands. He opened the half-holes every which way, completely randomly, but was able to get the notes in tune by blowing them in tune no matter where his fingers were. It was really quite amazing. But no one else could do that, so it's not really instructional for the subject of correct technique.