The flute is among the most natural instruments, requiring just one’s breath. According to legend, the flute was born when our ancestors first heard the wind whistling through the holes bored by insects in bamboo sticks.
To bore deeper into the soul and spirit of music, Pandit Ronu Majumdar fashioned a 3.5-foot-long flute that sounds like it could vibrate all the way to the core of the Earth (of course, he doesn't like to dwell too much on this; he prefers to talk of his new flute symphony, a collaboration with Pijush Dhar, a work of a lifetime, a tribute to Mozart with Indian classical influences). Majumdar was an inspiration for Chennai-based J.A. Jayanth, who debuted as a solo flautist as a mere 7-year-old, and who has begun to practise on a double-bass flute. Last evening, the two flautists collaborated in a fusion of Maihar and Mali at Bharat Kalachar . Even as they pulled off a successful jugalbandi, they answered questions about the history, status, technicalities, limitations, and potential of the flute as well as duets between flautists.
Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Sarabha Sastri and the lifetime work of greats such as T.R. Mahalingam, Sanjeeva Rao, Pannalal Ghosh, Hariprasad Chaurasia and Majumdar, among others, the flute has acquired the stature of a solo instrument capable of deep melodic exposition. But it is curiously underutilised as a vocal accompaniment or pakkavadya. After all, you can't get more organic than the flute. What better instrument to mirror and tail the human voice?
Ronu Majumdar, a student of his father Dr. Bhanu, concedes that the flute can never supplant the violin as main accompaniment. “If I am not to be blindly defensive of my instrument, I’d have to say the violin is closer to the human voice. Flute is folk. It has been classicalised but it doesn’t have the range of the violin. Gamakas are possible on the flute, of course, but you come to certain areas and it will get stuck.” Also, he notes, the range of the flute is limited; it would be inconvenient, to say the least, to keep rummaging for the appropriate flute as the vocalist traverses the gamut of his 3-octave range in one phrase. Majumdar, however, notes that he did accompany his guru Pt. Vijay Raghav Rao on the flute in the early 1980s.
Most of Majumdar’s earlier jugalbandis have been with vocalists or other instruments such as the mohan veena, violin, sitar, and saxophone. Two flautists sharing performance space is rarer, but Majumdar had a recent concert with Shashank, and has another one lined up for next week. As he admits, “Apart from the Sikkil Sisters, you don’t see many flute duos. So the combination creates freshness.”
Jayanth provides a curious insight into why this seemingly natural combination is so rare. “Flute is an imperfect instrument. Even a minutely misplaced hole can change the sruti or pitch. In old recordings you will see that flute duets are rare because of this mismatch in sruti between the two flautists.” And, of course, the flautists need to bring a totally different temperament for a duet. Majumdar speaks of subduing the ego or muscle power, and approaching the jugalbandi with a spirit of sacrifice and humility: “Krishna, the original flautist, sent a message of nature and love.” Mavens like Chaurasia and N. Ramani, have shared the stage successfully, which tells you of the expertise and wisdom required to pull a duet off. Jayanth recalls the advice Pt. Majumdar gave him: “Ronuji told me: ‘Let’s focus on melody, not gimmicks’.”
Jayanth’s instrument is custom-made. “I have seen Sanjeeva Rao’s thin flute, whereas Mali’s had a larger diameter for depth and resonance.” Jayanth used to play his grandfather T.S. Sankaran’s flute before acquiring his own flute eight years ago. Then, inspired by Majumdar, Jayanth had a Shankh Bansuri made eight months ago.
Capable of reaching notes three octaves below the human voice, this monster of a flute is ideal for Dhrupad-style meditative music, offering ample ‘thehrav’ (a restful abiding in each note) and depth. To import this into the gamaka-driven Carnatic music, Jayanth has had to change his technique. “You can't play a Thodi on it. The gap between the holes and the challenging blowing technique make it very hard to produce gamakas.” You need immense lung power to eke out a single sound from within the tubular hollow.
Given the level of discipline and virtuosity it takes, flute-playing is not given due recognition, says Jayanth. The flautist-to-vocalist ratio is about 1:10, he says, adding that it is an intimidating instrument to begin with, and only a natural can grasp the way air moves within bamboo to produce sound.
Two flutes can come together in unison. But the real magic happens when they sing in different accents. And that’s when you get the clash of styles, the battle of banis. The Hindustani style of melodic rendition involves ‘thehrav’ and a lot of ‘meend’ (the parabolic glides as though the melody is on a ski-slope).
The Carnatic oeuvre has gamaka (the oscillation of a note, which induces a tensile and weighty quality to the melody) and a complex grammar.
As Pt. Majumdar says, the mingling of two approaches can produce surprisingly interesting moments. And, to demonstrate, he sings a phrase in Basant with pure notes and alankars, and repeats it with kampita gamakas. You realise that the mixture can indeed be magical.
