Lesson #1: How to hold the Flute:



Indian Music can be basically classified as Carnatic Music and Hindustani Music. Based on this we have two forms of Flute; The Carnatic flute has eight holes and the Hindustani flute has six holes. Normally the young students develop interest towards learning flute whose intention is mainly to play and enjoy the film songs, which is a wrong intention, I must admit. Initially one should practice the traditional musical notes and after becoming expert in that, only then should try for the film songs. The basis of music is swaras(notes) which are seven in number. I have used the hindi letters below to write down the notes.

The above figure indicates the ascending order of the swaras and they form the set called Aarohanam. The set with descending order of the sawaras is called Avaraohanam. Both the Aarohanam and Avarohanam together form the Raaga (music).
However I am not going much into the theory of music as there are many other websites teaching about that. I thought of providing you with the basic knowledge of how to hold a flute and how to start playing the music in it and also the basic notes required for practicing the Carnatic music. Let me start with lesson #1

How to Hold a Carnatic Flute
Hold your Flute as shown in the diagram below. Your left hand should be at an angle of 45 degree to the horizontal direction of the Flute, with both of your thumbs underneath the flute acting as the support and all other right fingers simply resting just above the holes 4, 5, 6, 7. The 8th hole is left free. The little finger of the left hand is not used at all.