Recorded for Darbar on 24 Jun 2017, at Ravenna’s Teatro Alighieri

Musicians
- Pravin Godkhindi (bansuri)
- Subhankar Banerjee (tabla)

Raag Yaman; Thaat: Kalyan; Samay: Evening

Bansuri exponent Pravin Godkhindi showcases his unique style, exploring the versatile and ambiguous moods of Raag Yaman with Subhankar Banerjee on tabla live in Italy.

Pravin Godkhindi is a versatile flautist, performing Hindustani music on the bansuri. His instrument is essentially just a tube of bamboo with holes bored through it, with no moving parts. The sound is thicker, breathier, and more versatile than the Western flute, blending long sustained tones with percussive slaps and swooping microtonal inflections. Pravin studied under his father Venkatesh Godkhindi, an exponent of the Kirana gharana, as well as Carnatic mridangist Anoor Anantha Krishna Sharma. He incorporates Carnatic rhythm into his playing, and in 2015 became the first to perform Indian classical music on the 8-foot-long contrabass flute.

Yaman is one of North India’s most famous ragas. Often the first taught to students, it brings a distinctly balanced set of tensions, capable of producing a vast range of moods. It uses Kalyan thaat [SRGMPDNS], differing from the major scale in only one respect - it takes a tivra Ma [sharp 4th], disbalancing the centre of the scale and brightening the sound.

Sitarist Shujaat Khan says that Yaman “represents the very flux of life”. Music therapist Thomas Meisenheimer describes the raga as “sensitive and delicate. The augmented fourth [Ma] creates awareness of unresolved anger, disappointments and injuries. The major seventh [Ni] and major third [Ga] are very strong as well and light the fires of longing. Yaman is like an unsolvable Koan, an open question…”.

Subscribe to the Darbar Player to access the full, uncut performance.