Chiff and Fipple Forums

SudeepAudio.com are selling flutes made from PVC as imitations for bansuri flutes for low prices.
Sound sample sounds good.
Has anyone had any dealings with this company or can comment on those flutes?
Talagasi you perhaps, being the bansuri expert on this board?
Here is the link: http://www.sudeepaudio.com/instruments/flutes.htm

thanks,
Hans

interesting... 2150 rupees for a set of 8 comes to US$47.57. probably costs more than that to ship it.

How about bansuri flute made by one of great bansuri player, Harsh Wardhan?

http://www.wardhan.com/

Tchie wrote:How about bansuri flute made by one of great bansuri player, Harsh Wardhan?

http://www.wardhan.com/

Ooh, I'm going to be in Delhi in January, I'm gonna go to his shop.

hans wrote:SudeepAudio.com are selling bansuri flutes made from PVC for low prices.
Sound sample sounds good.
Has anyone had any dealings with this company or can comment on those flutes?
Talagasi you perhaps, being the bansuri expert on this board?
Here is the link: http://www.sudeepaudio.com/instruments/flutes.htm

thanks,
Hans

I don't know about Talagasi but I, myself, am no expert if we use the calibre of flute playing in that site as a yardstick.

You will notice the Indian company thats doing this does not call their flute a bansuri but refers to it as a PVC flute. I am glad they are doing this because bansuri (or "bansi") specifically refers to bamboo flute. PVC bansuri is an oxymoron. Please revise your topic title to "PVC East Indian Flutes".

Just a suggestion.

It scares me when I see India making flutes and whistles. The only whistle that I ordered that was made in India was not bad, but it had a strange smell that I couldn't live with. I don't think that the PVC was anything like the PVC that I am use to. It looked more like phenolic resin pipe to me.

Currently, the Pakistani flutes are my biggest competition. However, if you try to play them, you soon realize that, while they may look beautiful in the ebay photo, they don't play that well. In fact, most of them that I have seen are awful in terms of performance.

But China is another story. With one billion people working for low wages, we have a problem here in the USA. When I go through Walmart and see a microwave oven for $35, I am shocked. My thought is, how could they possibly produce a microwave oven and market it for $35?

Likewise with musical instruments. I use to buy, repair, and sell violins. That was before Chinese violins began to appear on the market. Most of the violins that I worked on and had for sale were made in Germany or Eastern Europe. Now, everything has changed. I have a Chinese pernabuco bow that I bought for a fraction of what an equivalent German bow would have cost. I have a very nice European viola that is now worth less than half of what I paid for it, mainly because there are beautiful, well-made Chinese violas selling for less than half as much as I paid for mine.

So far, I haven't heard of a Chinese Irish flute, but that reality may be just weeks away. Trying to live and work in the USA, that prospect scares me, like I said before.

Doug_Tipple wrote:It scares me when I see India making flutes and whistles. The only whistle that I ordered that was made in India was not bad, but it had a strange smell that I couldn't live with. I don't think that the PVC was anything like the PVC that I am use to. It looked more like phenolic resin pipe to me.
....

Doug, I think you are OT generalising on the basis of some negative experiences. Some of humankind's earliest graphic records of the simple system transverse flute are found in the cave paintings at Ajanta-Ellora in India and spans from before the Christian era to about the Dark Ages in Europe. That was before the transverse flute was introduced into Europe from the East.

I cannot see why Indians and other South Asians making simple system flutes scares you. There are both good and bad. They have long history of it and a good one. A good one at making according to their tradition and perhaps a bad one at making imitations. India is not so standardised as the West so you need to hunt about for the good stuff.

The PVC flutes in this topic sound pretty good. It seems the same flautist plays the bamboo flute (bansuri) for comparison in that link. Sounds good too. I would like to hear that flautist play one of your PVC flutes. I betcha it would sound great also.

There is a famous Breton flautist who plays Indian bansuri. Hariprasad Chaurasia and Harsh Wardhan and hundreds of other professional musos play Indian bansuris. They do not smell. They are in tune and they are good.

Do not be scared my friend. You have made a unique niche with your quality of PVC flutes. Your ingenuity with the lip plate tuning system is notable. They cannot compete with you.


BTW Doug, where is your website? Do you make Eb flutes with a movable lip plate? How much? and waiting time?

Sorry talasiga for getting your name wrong! I changed the topic title as you suggested, thanks for pointing this out. I did not mean to frighten any flute maker by drawing attention to what appears as cheap Indian made PVC flutes. I just like to know more about them.

To be wary of low quality PVC piping is a fair comment, Doug. Like I would not like to use electrical conduit PVC for flute making, since it has a different standard than the PVC used for drinking water pipes, which is again different than that used for drain pipes. The information on the site I mentioned is pretty slim and does say nothing about the quality of PVC.

I agree that the quality of Pakistani made wooden flutes is poor and those flutes better avoided. It is sad to see them for sale in music shops. But that says nothing about the quality of these cheap PVC flutes, we can only know if we try them.

hans wrote:Sorry talasiga for getting your name wrong! I changed the topic title as you suggested, thanks for pointing this out.
.........

Dear Swan,
because you're from Findhorn you are forgiven

Those PVC flutes sound Okay, don't they? However the main reasons I won't go for em are:-

1. They don't seem to have the keys that I need to complement what I already have. I need Bb and Eb.
2. it is not absolutely clear whether they are tunable (only implied)
3. I think trying to make PVC look like bamboo flute (and with all that thread binding as part of the illusion) is a bit kitsch. Its a personal aesthetic I have.

talasiga, in an earlier post you mention that the bansuri is not different from the "irish" flute. so, it is tuned to a major scale (if beginning with all the fingers down on a 6-holed instrument)? I'm also wondering about the typical size of the tone holes. It's hard to tell from pictures. I assume they must be relatively large to facilitate the glissando techniques.

cheers!

mcdafydd wrote:talasiga, in an earlier post you mention that the bansuri is not different from the "irish" flute. so, it is tuned to a major scale (if beginning with all the fingers down on a 6-holed instrument)? I'm also wondering about the typical size of the tone holes. It's hard to tell from pictures. I assume they must be relatively large to facilitate the glissando techniques.

cheers!

my response in this other topic

I would definitely go with bamboo or cane for an East Indian
flute. There are awful instruments that get to the USA, but
good ones are available too. Tchie's post above
looks promising.

I'm interested in the fellow mentioned above playing ITM
on one of these, I think. My impression is that, while these
flutes are great for Indian music, they aren't going to
ornament crisply. But I would be delighted to find myself
mistaken.

Indian music is perhaps the most sublime music on
earth--but I will have to wait till I'm reborn to train
to play it. The difficulty with my plan is that, given the
life I've led, I probably will return as a frog.

Well, I will sing.

jim stone wrote:........
My impression is that, while these
flutes are great for Indian music, they aren't going to
ornament crisply. But I would be delighted to find myself
mistaken.

......

Well you're a cheeky fella arent you? Trying to goad me into posting an audio clip on bansuri? I dont have the audio recording equipment on my PC yet. Until I do, which ITM air would you like me to practise for your possible delight?

Anything you would like, please.
I know that when I was in Ireland,
ITM oriented music stores were selling
East Indian bamboo whistles,
which were doubtless used for
ITM. I'd be grateful for anything
you might play. Jim

Jim, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I have heard that a reincarnation as a frog is really not all that bad, once you get used to a diet of flys, spiders and the like.

Also, I am impressed by the account of your two years in India and Nepal. I seem to be able to climb right into your story and sit with you on the rooftops tops in Nepal looking at the kites flying in the wind. In reality, however, I didn't make it that far. I spent my two years as a refugee in a one horse town in southern Arizona a few miles from the Mexican border. In some ways it was the best years of my life. I didn't play flutes on the rooftops, but I drank and sang with the locals in the La Gitana saloon, and Ramon, the Yaqui cowboy, always gave me a ride back to my trailer when, in the early morning I needed a little extra help.