Long internode `bansuri' bamboo for cold climates?

[tubbo]

Hello all!
Where can I find bamboo for making bansuris?
I live in Sweden and the only bamboo you´ll find are imported garden specimens and none of them are suitable for flutes. The bansuri is practically unknown. Are there maybe some species that can deal with hard winters such as ours and be used for flutemaking that hasn´t been introduced yet?
I´m very grateful to have found this forum! This is my first time so a few words about myself might be in order. 31 years old, family father, landscape gardener and devotee of music and Bansuri. Since I found it( bansuri), I know which path to walk down in life.
Thanks!!
Tubbo

[Mark Meckes]

Hi Tubbo, and thanks for writing in!
I've never played or made a bansuri, but I love the sound of this instrument!

Unfortunately I have not had success at finding bamboo with long enough internodes , suited for bansuri making, growing in cool temperate regions of the USA (yet).
I will be taking a bamboo materials collection trip across the eastern half of the US in about a month, and will be visiting numerous bamboo species.
I will be taking measurements and getting samples of the longest internoded bamboo that I can find.
From what I have already observed, I doubt if I will find any internode longer then 20 to 24 inches (50 to 60 cm).
The internode wall thickness will be an important consideration.

Here's another thread about...
Bansuri Flutes / Bamboo with long internodes (http://www.bamboocraft.net/forums/showthread.php?t=469)

What is your average minimum temperature?

Mark

[tubbo]

Hi Mark.
Where I live the average minimum temperature is around 21 degrees Fahrenheit(-6 degrees Celsius), but it´s not rare that tempearature plunges down to -4 degrees F.(-20 degrees C.) or lower. The south of Sweden is slightly milder, around 28-32 degrees fahrenheit. Average year temperature is 43 degrees F.( 6 degrees C.).

Tubbo

[Mark Meckes]

Ah, well, not as cold as I thought, but still in the `fringe zone' for many bamboos.
Alas, impossible to grow the tropicals bamboos, which comprise the greatest possible long internode choices.

Cold-tolerance of bamboo species can be roughly divided into four zones:
- cold-temperate, warm temperate, sub-tropical and tropical.

Some species of each group over-lap slightly, with a few degrees of tolerance
For example, some tropical species can tolerate a few degrees below freezing, and some sub-tropical bamboos can handle teens F , - 10 C , even colder, for brief periods.
In the past I've measured a few subtropical Bambusa internodes at 16 - 20" (40 to 50cm), but the walls didn't seem particularly thin.
I have dampened hopes that I will find a subtropical or temperate perfect bansuri bamboo species ... but you never know in the world of bamboo.

What I'm also uncertain of is, when is a flute not a bansuri flute?
In other words... how specific or similar will all the bamboo characteristics need to be?
Is any variation in the standard wall thickness and density be acceptable?

The biggest obstacle in growing your own cold climate bansuri bamboo is the required, `nodeless' internode length.

Can a noded flute that has been reamed out be a bansuri, or is it then not considered a bansuri flute?

Mark

[tubbo]

Well, the word bansuri is composite of bans(bamboo) and swar( musical note)and is the hindustani name for the traditional shepherds flute, and is also the instrument of Krishna. It was made out of a single piece of bamboo free from nodes.
Today it is also considered an instrument for the north indian concert stage, rendering the complex ragas of indian music. I suppose that the nodeless piece of bamboo has to do with tradition as well as the sound.
The length, diameter and thickness of the walls has great importance for the instruments ability to clearly sound the 2½-3 octaves required for Indian ragas.
I have never played any other kind of bamboo flute, but i guess that the theory of placing the toneholes is the same for all flutes and I don´t mind experimenting with other kinds of bamboo. If you know other useable species, please let me know.

Tubbo

[TribalWind]

ahhh, a thread after my own heart :)

i've been unsuccessful at even obtaining the botanical name for the indian bansuri bamboo variety,let alone obtaining muhc of it(got a few pieces from an indian friend who visited home)

what makes a bansuri a bansuri is basically the way it looks..the scale is a plain old diatonic do-re-mi,but theres an awful lot of bending notes by letting fingers slip off here and there a bit.pretty tricky :)

really you can make a bansuri from Any good flutemaking bamboo.but having no nodes makes it that much easier..if it has nodes on it then the inside MUST be completely sanded FLUSH,cause it really will affect the tone and other parameters..
if you look at erik samsons flutes(www.eriktheflutemaker.com) he only makes flutes without having to break out nodes,at least with any ive got from him. his grove/home is in davie florida,
whoops.lunch!
i'll write back another time :)

[Mark Meckes]

This is the only bansuri flute I have seen, which Nilendu played the most incredible music from...
http://www.bamboocraft.net/gallery/data/527/thumbs/809Bansuri_Flute-NJ.jpg
Bansuri Flutes: Courtesy - Nilendu Jani (http://www.bamboocraft.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=700)

I forgot to measure the flute wall thickness, but the thin walls are what surprised me when I saw the flute...
I am interested if there is a maximum thickness before it effects the bansuri sound.

Do you have pics of your bansuri flutes Tubbo?, TW?
Do you have a mp3 clip to upload?
We are still waiting for a bamboo musican to entertain us!

One cold hardy species with potential is Sinobambusa intermedia which can have internodes up to 2ft (60cm) long.
I will provide more specifics after returning from my bamboo materials collection trip at the end of February.

Mark

[tubbo]

I don´t have any pictures of my flutes, nor a digital camera or a scanner so I won´t be able to provide any images at the moment.
I could recommend a visit to Harsh Wardhans homepage for pictures of beautiful concert flutes. My own flutes are made by Jeff Whittier in Palo Alto CA, master craftsman who has made flutes for the great masters of bansuri, such as Hariprasad Chaurasia, Vijay Raghav Rao, G.S. Sachdev and others. His flutes are miracles of sound and accuracy. I don´t think he would mind if you contacted him for information.
I got in contact with a fan of bamboo in India who told me that the scientific name of the bamboo species used for bansuri is Ochlandra, and that the were 3 varieties used for flute making, 2 of them were suited for large bansuris.

Tubbo

[Mark Meckes]

Tubbo, thanks very much for all the bansuri info!
I have the (2004) American Bamboo Society (http://www.americanbamboo.org) source list which is an excellent compilation of over 450 kinds of bamboo currently in the US (species, subspecies, varieties and cultivars), and it list only one Ochlandra here, (and only available from 3 sources).
This is the info provided...
Ochlandra - A group of shrubby gregarious reed-like bamboos, native to southern India and Sri Lanka, with persistent culm sheaths.

Ochlandra stridula REED BAMBOO - Native to Sri Lanka, where it is used extensively for basketry and for paper pulp.
Good for craft work.
May be misidentified Semiarundinaria species.

Note that I am unsure if this means that the species in the US may be mis-identified, or if O. stridula is being debated by taxonomists as possibly belonging to the Genus Semiarundinaria.(??)

Max. height: 18 ft / 5.5 meters
Max. diameter: 0.8 inches / 1.9 cm
Min. temperature: 0 oF / -18 oC
Sun/Shade: 5 (= full sun)

Mark

[tubbo]

The most commonly used bamboo species in Swedish gardens are: Sinarundinaria, Fargesia and Phyllostachys. It seems though that the Ochlandra( Semiarundinaria) you mentioned might be able to deal with the climate, it´s worth a try at least. Even though the diameter is rather unsatisfying for large flutes it will be exellent for smaller ones.
Next problem, I haven´t been able to find it in Sweden at all, even including our botanical gardens. That´s maybe a not-so-good sign, but I´ll do some more research..
Thank you.

Tubbo

[tubbo]

Just want to clearify; "the most commonly used garden species are of the genuses; sinaru...."

[Angel]

Mark asked:

"I am interested if there is a maximum thickness before it effects the bansuri sound."

Tube walls in a flute have some influence in a way that is different as the common sense dictates.
First of all, remember that a flute -and any wind- is a aerophone, where sound is governed by the vibrations of the air column and not by the material of what the tube is made.
Material doesn't "resonate" in a traditional way, and has non direct but secondary influence in sound.
Wall thickness afects several things:

*toneholes height: this is a kind of resistance opposite to air molecules movement. Each tonehole is an air body by itself that has an inerce, that the main vibrant air column must move. The height of the tonehole
-say, the wall thickness- increases this air body volume and thus the resistance, making the air molecules to move more distance at the same time required by the frequency. The result is that, other things equal, the thicker the lower the frequency.
here, almost the same acoustical effect is obtained by bevel and undercut the toneholes.

*embouchure height: there are some interesting things here, related to aerodinamics of the air jet, that are very subtle. The real thing is that a thin wall at the embouchure gives (other things equal) more harmonics than a thick wall.This is a thing that contributes to the belief that the material is "resonating" because the flute has a more brillant sound...but look at the embouchure and not at the rest of the tube!
Anyway, is an oversimplification, since there are several facts acting here.
A thin walled embouchure has also a similar effect in frequency as described for toneholes.

I'm sure that thin walls of bansuri contributes to its sound, but one must see more at the regularity of inner walls and geometry of the bamboo used to make them.


About that, here are made some low bansuri with Bolivian bamboos originally used to make "toyos". The toyo is a low pitched panflute, sometimes made with joined sections of bamboo, and sometimes with a single one. This is a really long internode thing, man. I saw in La Paz a single pieced toyo with the longest tube of 1,60meters and about 3 cm diameter, perfectly cylindrical and no nodes except the far end.And very very thin walls
Also some traditional moseños are made in really long internoded bamboo. I think that are Rhypidocladum harmonicum and Aulonemia queko respectivelly. Yes, I know that are hard to find...(I didn't buy this toyo because I had much travell ahead)

Allow me here to remember some Richard Waters' comment at the old bamboonet. He is an instrument maker and bamboo lover who lives in Hawaii. He reffered to Schizostachyum species as long internoded and thin walled useful for flutes -more specivically the yellow and green striped one, the S. glaucifolium. At the Am Bamb Soc Sourcelist I read that S. sp "Murray Island" is used in Solomon islands to make panflutes (the same as Bolivian bamboos)
Never tried them personally but just an idea.

If I have to make a bansuri and imitate the thin walls and perfect geometry, I would look for a young culm, inmature, Ph aurea or better, Ph. nigra, using the middle part (between the base and the branches) where Ph are the most cylindrical.
...Sometimes...sometimes...a young Ph aurea that no colapse -means that dries without cracking or implode- has weak septums and perfect inner walls surface. Anyway, the elimination of the septums must be perfect.

I make a kind of quenas with these bamboo when I got them - very thin walled but strong enough to have an excellent sound. I normally laquer them inside.

Phyllostachys nigra uses to have the same characteristics described above.

Well, just some ideas

Angel