Make your own bamboo flute
A bansuri is a tube of bamboo with holes: one to blow across, and most often six for your fingers. People have made flutes like it for thousands of years, and you can make one at home, with a grown-up doing the cutting and drilling.
What you need
A piece of dry bamboo or cane, straight, about 35 to 45 cm long, with a hollow inside about 1.5 to 2 cm across. One end should be closed by a natural joint (a node), or by a cork you push in.
A small hand drill or a heated metal rod (for a grown-up only), sandpaper or a round file, a pencil, a tape measure, and a little vegetable oil.
No bamboo? A tube of plastic pipe from a hardware shop works the same way and is easier to drill.
1. The blowing hole
About 2 to 3 cm from the closed end, a grown-up makes a round hole about 1 cm across. Smooth its edge with sandpaper: a clean, sharp edge is what makes the sound.
Try it now: hold the tube to the side, rest the hole against your lower lip, and blow gently across it, as across the top of a bottle. Keep trying until you hear a soft, clear note. This is the hardest part, and the most fun.
2. Six finger holes
Mark six holes in a row along the tube, in two groups of three, the lower group starting about two thirds of the way from the blowing hole to the open end. Space each group so your fingers rest on them comfortably.
Start every hole small (about 5 mm). A small hole is easy to make bigger, and impossible to make smaller.
3. Tune it, hole by hole
Cover all six holes and blow: that's your flute's lowest note. Then lift one finger at a time from the bottom. Each new note should climb a step of a scale.
If a note is too low, make its hole a little bigger, or file it a little toward the blowing hole. Go slowly and listen between each change.
Our free play helps: play a note on your new flute and it shows which note you're playing, so you can hear and see each hole come into tune.
4. Finish and look after it
Smooth every hole, rub a few drops of oil inside and out, and let it rest a day. Keep it out of hot sun and rain, and it will play for years.
Then come and learn it: choose the bansuri, tell it your flute's lowest note, and the lessons will follow your flute.