I've had the distinct pleasure of performing live looping gigs (where I was playing
mostly rhythm, percussion, beatboxing and support padss) with the amazing Bansuri
player, Deepak Ram.

One of the things that I really scoped about his playing is that he has really mastered
seemless sliding from any note to any note. One of the first things you might attempt to
learn is how to do this technique, by rolling your fingers smoothly off the holes all the way up
the flute.

Also, what ever Rag I picked to play in (and he and I settled on 6 quick Rags for me to learn in
5 of his favorite keys) he would pick out a separate instrument from a bag of what looked like
between 10 and 20 flutes.

In our concert he did one of the most amazing things I"ve ever seen done.

I started out a piece with an ambient loop, playing a long piece of corrugated plastic thin pipe. The harder you blow on this
pipe, the higher the overtones go so it is a very ethereal sound but tied to the natural harmonic series of the fundamental created
by the length of the pipe. I have not tuned these pipes and , indeed, use them more as random sound events in a piece rather than
a melodic basis for it.

Deepak cocked his head to the sound and listened really intensely and then bent over and picked out one Bansuri from hi bag and then
proceeded to play a 'found' Rag utiltizing ONLY the harmonics that I was playing.

It was so stunning and so musical and the amazing thing was that he HEARD exactly what I was playing and played immediately in perfect tune with the pipes.

I had known of him through his considerable reputation in this area (he has taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz and, sadly, no longer does) but he really got my attention in that improvisation. It was wonderful. We had only had coffee and we just walked onto stage and made really interested music for an hour without having ever played together. I"ll never forget it.

I now own a half a dozen Bansuri and am always looking for more.