I also have the following three bansuri, purchased from the Ali Akbar school of music in the bay area:
Western key of B (Sa = E, the big concert size) by Lorenzo Squillari of Italy. Sounds awesome, and the holes are ok if you have moderately-sized fingers like myself. The stretch is still big, but the holes don’t require huge fingers. Six finger holes. $95 includes shipping in the US.
Western key of E (Sa = A) by Jeff Whittier. Also great sound. Six holes. $50 includes shipping in the US.
Western key of G# (Sa = C#) by Jeff Whittier. Small and sweet, with the added 7th hole. $50 includes shipping in the US.
Cheers! Please PM me if interested or if you have questions.
I have some images from when the flute was still in my hands:
BTW, Jon C. could make a wood head for it, although it does play well as is. It’s maybe a little odd to turn the HJ in to dig into that ebonite wave, but it’s actually pretty effective at focusing the air down into the HJ for Irish style playing.
North Indian classical flute tradition describes the flute by the tonic
at the three fingers down position XXX OOO whereas
western tradition describes the flute by the 6 finger tonic.
BTW your E flute would be Sa=A and not E as you have it
the E XXX XXX = the A XXX OOO.
There is no need to thank me.
Going by this site it would probably be uncool.
Well, a friend of mine in Oakland recommended I check out the Ali Akbar school for bansuri. Turns out they stock many instruments by both Jeff Whittier and Lorenzo now. I don’t think they’ve been carrying them for long, but I don’t remember exactly what they told me. And I loved the sound of one of his the most. Though, it’s sadly not practical for me to keep it at the moment.
I don’t really think there are any rules related to kind behavior in general. And, I probably initially learned where Sa resided on bansuri thanks to this site! So thank you for the clarification, and for pointing out my typo on that flute. It’s been corrected.
