--- url: 'https://kalasudha.com/en-int/article/breath-of-the-raga-indian-wind-instruments-north-and-south' title: 'Breath of the raga: Indian wind instruments, North and South' author: name: rajeevk url: 'https://kalasudha.com/en-int/user/4add8741a490747f' date: '2026-11-05T22:49:43+00:00' type: article summary: 'The bansuri and shehnai of the North, the venu and nadaswaram of the South: how Indian wind instruments reached the concert hall, and who played them. Part 5…' tags: - 'Ragas and traditions' image: 'https://files.kalasudha.com/styles/d12_standard/public/2026-11/director-series-part-5-bansuri-1920x1080.jpg?VersionId=4_zf58621fa0f456059ae110919_f106667733aed094e_d20261105_m232204_c003_v0312049_t0019_u01793920924349&h=d1cb525d&itok=AUUpThCU' published: true og: site_name: KalaSudha 'image:url': 'https://files.kalasudha.com/styles/d12_standard/public/2026-11/director-series-part-5-bansuri-1920x1080.jpg?VersionId=4_zf58621fa0f456059ae110919_f106667733aed094e_d20261105_m232204_c003_v0312049_t0019_u01793920924349&h=d1cb525d&itok=AUUpThCU' 'image:secure_url': 'https://files.kalasudha.com/styles/d12_standard/public/2026-11/director-series-part-5-bansuri-1920x1080.jpg?VersionId=4_zf58621fa0f456059ae110919_f106667733aed094e_d20261105_m232204_c003_v0312049_t0019_u01793920924349&h=d1cb525d&itok=AUUpThCU' 'image:type': image/jpeg 'image:width': '1200' 'image:height': '675' 'image:alt': 'Bansuri flutes laid on embroidered cloth, in teal and ivory' --- 7 min read # Breath of the raga: Indian wind instruments, North and South The bansuri and shehnai of the North, the venu and nadaswaram of the South: how Indian wind instruments reached the concert hall, and who played them. Part 5 of seven. [ Image ](/en-int/profile/rajeev-kumar) [ Rajeev Kumar ](/en-int/profile/rajeev-kumar) Director of Art, KalaSudha November 5, 2026 Share [ ](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fkalasudha.com%2Fen-int%2Farticle%2Fbreath-of-the-raga-indian-wind-instruments-north-and-south "Share on Facebook") [ ](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fkalasudha.com%2Fen-int%2Farticle%2Fbreath-of-the-raga-indian-wind-instruments-north-and-south&text=Breath+of+the+raga%3A+Indian+wind+instruments%2C+North+and+South "Share on X") In This Article [ Bamboo in the early texts ](#section-0) [ The hollow instruments ](#section-1) [ Krishna's flute ](#section-2) [ The bansuri reaches the concert stage ](#section-3) [ Pannalal Ghosh ](#section-4) [ A bass flute and a national orchestra ](#section-5) [ A Benares family of flautists ](#section-6) [ The venu of the South ](#section-7) [ A different flute ](#section-8) [ How the venu went solo ](#section-9) [ Reeds for the temple and the wedding ](#section-10) [ The shehnai ](#section-11) [ Bismillah Khan ](#section-12) [ The nadaswaram ](#section-13) [ Bending a note with breath ](#section-14) [ Lips, tongue and air ](#section-15) [ The meend on a flute ](#section-16) [ Instruments and lessons ](#section-17) [ Our instruments ](#section-18) [ Learning to breathe a raga ](#section-19) [ The breath of the raga ](#section-20) **Indian wind instruments** ask the whole body to play: breath, lips and fingers. A bansuri player draws a slow breath and lays three fingers of each hand over a length of bamboo. Then the first notes of the alap open out over the tanpura. Every shade of pitch comes from the fingers and the breath. To my ear, of all the instruments in this series, the winds stand closest to the singing voice. In this fifth article, I turn from the drums to the breath. [The third article](/en-int/article/the-mastery-of-the-sitar-and-the-indian-violin) showed how the sitar and the violin borrow the glide and the oscillation of the voice. The fourth followed the tabla and the mridangam, the drums that keep the tala in tune. Here I look at four instruments, two from each tradition: the bansuri and the shehnai of the North, the venu and the nadaswaram of the South. Two are bamboo flutes. The other two are reed instruments that served the temple and the wedding, and later found their way to the concert hall. ## Bamboo in the early texts ### The hollow instruments The Natyashastra, the ancient Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts, sorts instruments into four classes. Flutes belong to the *susira* class, the hollow instruments, and the text says they are made of bamboo, *vamsa*. It also gives the flute the same rules for its notes as the vina, the stringed instrument of the time. So from the start, the flute was held to the same melodic grammar as the strings. The material has not changed. A Hindustani bansuri is still cut from a single length of bamboo between two nodes. The bansuri in the Horniman Museum's collection in London, made in New Delhi, shows the plan: one tube, a blow hole, and a line of finger holes. The player holds it across the lips, angled down to the right, with three fingers of each hand on the holes. ### Krishna's flute In Indian culture the flute belongs to Krishna. C. A. Sreedhara, in a lecture paper for the Music Academy, Madras, writes that the flute is associated with Krishna and with spiritual experience. He also lists the sources that record its long history in India: excavations, Vedic literature, the Tamil epic Silappatikaram, the Natyashastra, later treatises, sculpture and painting. Sreedhara adds that ancient flutes had fewer finger holes and a narrow range, and served folk music, theatre and dance as accompaniment. The flute in Krishna's hands belongs to story and devotion. The flute of a raga recital, able to carry an alap for an hour, is a later achievement, and in both traditions it has names attached to it. ## The bansuri reaches the concert stage ### Pannalal Ghosh Carl Clements, writing in the journal *Analytical Approaches to World Music*, finds no Hindustani classical bansuri tradition in the 1930s and 1940s. Pannalal Ghosh (1911 to 1960) changed that. Born in Barisal, in present-day Bangladesh, he studied in Calcutta with the harmonium player Khushi Mohammed Khan and the singer Girija Shankar Chakravarty, and later with Allauddin Khan of Maihar. To make the flute carry a full raga, Ghosh lengthened it and added a seventh finger hole, played with the little finger. His circle calls it the Dhruva Madhyam hole and uses it for tivra Ma, the sharp fourth, in the lower octave. Clements explains that it also let players avoid the break between registers, the point where the flute jumps to its first overtone, in some passages. ### A bass flute and a national orchestra Ghosh did not stop at one flute. He also built a bass flute, reported at about 40 to 42 inches with four holes, for the lower octave of deep ragas such as Darbari. In 1956 he became music director of the All India Radio National Orchestra in Delhi, and he held the post until his death in 1960. His students included Devendra Murdeshwar and Nityanand Haldipur, and his followers still speak of a Pannalal Ghosh school. The six-hole bansuri remains the common form. The seventh hole marks his line. ### A Benares family of flautists Hariprasad Chaurasia, born in 1938, studied the flute with Bholanath Prasanna of Varanasi and later with Annapurna Devi. Scroll's report of her death in 2018 names him among her famous students. The Sangeet Natak Akademi elected him a Fellow in 2011. The Prasanna line continues with the artists KalaSudha works with. [Pandit Ajay Prasanna](/en-int/artist/ajay-prasanna), a flautist based in New Delhi who plays in the tradition of the Benares gharana, is the son of Bholanath Prasanna. He has performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. [Dr Shanish Kumar](/en-int/artist/shanish-kumar), a bansuri player from Varanasi in the same Benares tradition, studied under Vinod Prasanna and Prahalad Nath and holds a PhD in musicology from Banaras Hindu University. ## The venu of the South ### A different flute The Carnatic flute, the **venu**, is a cousin of the bansuri: bamboo, played across the lips. It is fingered differently and serves a different music. A venu player renders the kritis and varnams of the Carnatic repertoire, and the *gamaka*, the oscillation [the third article](/en-int/article/the-mastery-of-the-sitar-and-the-indian-violin) described on the violin, governs how the fingers move. Both flutes rely on the same resource. A half-covered hole gives a flat note or a microtonal shade, and the breath and the lips choose the octave. The difference lies in what the music asks of those holes: the long glides of a Hindustani alap, or the oscillations of a Carnatic kriti. ### How the venu went solo Sreedhara's paper sets out how the venu reached the concert stage. Sharabha Shastry of Kumbakonam played an important role in the flute's development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Palladam Sanjeeva Rao then made it a successful Carnatic concert instrument. T. R. Mahalingam, known as Mali (1926 to 1986), changed the technique, built a style of his own and insisted on *shruti shuddhata*, purity of pitch. In Sreedhara's words, his innovations played a significant role in establishing the flute as a solo Carnatic concert instrument. Later flautists such as N. Ramani, K. S. Gopalakrishnan and T. Viswanathan widened the repertoire. Viswanathan carried the venu to the United States, and his story belongs to the next article. ## Reeds for the temple and the wedding ### The shehnai The **shehnai** is a double-reed instrument with a conical wooden body and a metal bell, related to the oboe. Its small cane reed sits on a metal staple. The player holds it between the lips. Jeremy Montagu, in *Shawms Around the World*, links that grip to finer control of tone colour and tuning. The Grinnell College musical instrument collection describes the shehnai as auspicious. It is played at weddings, at Hindu temples and at the shrines of Muslim saints. In concert, Grinnell lists a supporting ensemble around the soloist: further shehnai players who follow the melody, a drone shehnai and the tabla. Montagu adds that the drone is essential in North and South alike. It gives the melody a constant pitch to tune against. ### Bismillah Khan Bismillah Khan (1916 to 2006) learned the shehnai from his maternal uncle, Ali Bux, who played it at the Vishwanath temple in Varanasi. In A. P. J. Abdul Kalam's tribute, reported by The Tribune, Bismillah Khan is credited with taking the shehnai from the marriage mandap to the concert hall. He played the shehnai at the Red Fort on 15 August 1947, as India became independent. Sruti credits him with a cross-fingering method that gave the instrument gamakas, tonal shading and a wider range. The Sangeet Natak Akademi elected him a Fellow in 1994, and in 2001 he received the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour. The Akademi now names its award for young artists after him. ### The nadaswaram In the South, the great reed is the **nadaswaram**. Montagu describes it as a larger relative of the shehnai, and his specimen has seven finger holes and five vents. It is one of the *mangala vadya*, the auspicious instruments, and the Hartenberger World Musical Instrument Collection records its place at weddings and in temple ritual. With the [tavil](/en-int/instrument/tavil) drum, the nadaswaram leads the *periya melam*, the great ensemble of the South Indian temple. Its double reed, the *seevali* in Tamil, is cut from a grass or cane that grows on the banks of the Kaveri. The maker soaks it and shaves it to the pitch the player needs. ## Bending a note with breath ### Lips, tongue and air On every instrument in this article, the ornaments come from between the holes: half-covered, slid off or shaded by the breath. On the shehnai, Grinnell notes, the airstream and lip pressure shape intonation and ornament. The fingers and the tongue add the rest. Montagu writes that shawm players in general use continuous breathing, drawing air in through the nose while the cheeks keep the sound going. A long phrase on a reed need not stop for breath. The flute player has no reed to shape the sound, only the edge of the blow hole. The angle of the lips and the speed of the air choose the octave. ### The meend on a flute The third article described the meend, the slow glide a sitar player draws by pulling a string across a fret. A flute player reaches the same line with a finger. It slides off the hole bit by bit while the breath holds steady. The aim is the same as on the sitar: a note that travels to the next one without a break, as a singer's voice would. The reed instruments reach for it by lip and breath. Sruti's account of Bismillah Khan's cross-fingering shows another route: new fingerings that gave the shehnai its gamakas. ## Instruments and lessons ### Our instruments KalaSudha's flutes, venu and nadaswaram are built by makers who work in close collaboration with us. We deliver worldwide. We also service and repair every instrument we sell, wherever it was bought. You can ask us for a quote on the [bansuri](/en-int/instrument/flute), [venu](/en-int/instrument/venu) and [nadaswaram](/en-int/instrument/nadaswaram) pages. ### Learning to breathe a raga The KalaSudha Academy teaches the bansuri, the venu, the shehnai and the nadaswaram online, in structured courses and live one-to-one lessons with a teacher, from foundation to advanced. Dr Shanish Kumar has taught the bansuri for more than fifteen years. You can read more about the [bansuri](/en-int/instrumental/hindustani-classical/bansuri-flute) and the [shehnai](/en-int/instrumental/hindustani-classical/shehnai) as disciplines, or begin at the [KalaSudha Academy](/en-int/academy). ## The breath of the raga The drums of the last article gave the raga its cycle. The winds give it breath. The Natyashastra held a length of bamboo to the same melodic rules as the vina. That bamboo became a concert instrument in the hands of Pannalal Ghosh in the North and Mali in the South. The reeds of the temple and the wedding reached the concert hall through Bismillah Khan's shehnai and the nadaswaram of the periya melam. All four are taught as the [first article](/en-int/article/the-eternal-heartbeat-discovering-the-soul-of-indian-classical-music) described: from teacher to student, phrase by phrase. Next, I will follow these sounds out of India, to the musicians who carried the raga into the concert halls of Europe and America. [ ](/en-int/profile/rajeev-kumar) #### [Rajeev Kumar ](/en-int/profile/rajeev-kumar) Director of Art, KalaSudha Rajeev Kumar is Co-founder and Director of Art at KalaSudha. Since establishing the organisation in 2023, he has focused on building the future of classical heritage at the intersection of digital technology and Indian Classical Music, Arts, and Dance. 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A mandolin plays a Carnatic kriti. An alto saxophone carries the gamakas of the South. A guitar laid flat across a musici... Rajeev Kumar November 5, 2026 9 min Read More ](/en-int/article/the-living-raga-indian-classical-music-today) [ ### Ambassadors of the raga: Indian classical music in the West The story of Indian classical music in the West has many beginnings, and one of them is a boy of ten arriving in Paris. In 1930 Ravi Shankar left India to join his elder brother, the dancer Uday Shank... Rajeev Kumar November 5, 2026 9 min Read More ](/en-int/article/ambassadors-of-the-raga-indian-classical-music-in-the-west) [ ### Beat of the Earth: the tabla and mridangam The tabla and mridangam are tuned before a single composition begins. A tabla player taps the braided rim of the right-hand drum with a small, heavy hammer, listens and taps again. In a Carnatic conce... 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