What theory and resources to learn Indian flute
Hello!
I really like the sound of flute and I can play notes. I have been practicing to blow well and get the notes to be good. I used FMIT to make sure variations are low.
I want to know what theory I should know and what resources I should use to go further. I am absolutely new to music. I cannot read music (I don't even know what it means to read music other than knowing that there are symbols just like other languages), I only know about "sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni" from Indian theory.
I want to start from basics so that I don't miss things, but you guys are the ones to decide what I should do, so I will follow the advises.
Help would be awesome.
Posted Jun 17, 2017, 3:48 PM UTC
35
I have literally no idea how Indian music is taught. My recommendation would be that you should figure out some tunes by ear. Like, figure out the fingerings for each note (there must be a resource online somewhere) and start playing some songs that you know can be played on the instrument (I have no idea how it's tuned either).
The other thing you ought to do, I think, is find some method books for the instrument that explain technique, etc. (I mean, I assume you've already ruled out finding a teacher, because that's obviously the best thing you can do.) Hopefully you can learn from the book?
The reason I am currently not thinking about a teacher is time availability. My schedules are very irregular. Sometimes I get time at 11pm and sometimes at 6am. Even weekends are not very regular. I will for sure search a teacher to moment I feel things getting stable.
As a kid I used to learn tabla for ~2months. During that time, my teacher had said "Learn this set of tala first. And don't think about songs till you learn this". I'm not sure if that is applicable to flute.
About books, I think I will search a teacher, and ask them for recommendations. May be they'll be able to help with more things as well.
Since you don't know how is Indian music is taught, it is not much of use to ask, but I also wanted to know if western music theory will help me in some way.
Hi! I work with music theory teachers to produce videos and content for my company.
Are you intending to play Indian music with a western flute or play a traditional Indian woodwind instrument (eg. a bansuri)?
In any case, learning the basics of Western music theory will definitely help! A good deal of music resources available online are written using western terminology. For example, learning how to read music notes in western notations will help you adapt songs (written in western notations) to play on your flute. We have a video on our Youtube channel that might be of use to you.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wlz0ca4hbs&index=2&list=PLTEsNox3-4RpGlzYvSx0k-P8OW-QY_Ytp)
Hope this helps! Happy learning! :)
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[deleted]
I'm learning bansuri :)
I like the point you made that if I learn to read western music, I will be able to play. Should I start reading the music in parallel? As I said, I've just begun and let alone replicating others, I cannot play the notes in various sequences :P
Thanks for the link!