Venu

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Carnatic Music
Concepts
Sruti • Swara • Raga • Tala • Melakarta
Compositions
Varnam • Kriti • Geetham • Swarajati • Ragam Thanam Pallavi • Thillana
Instruments
Veena • Mridangam • Ghatam • Morsing • Kanjira • Pullankuzhal • Violin • Tamboura
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List of Carnatic composers

The venu (Sanskrit: वेणु; veṇu) is a bamboo transverse flute used in the Carnatic music of South India. Although it is often called Carnatic flute or simply flute in English, venu is the instrument's ancient Sanskrit name. It is also called by various other names in the languages of South India, including pullankuzhal (புல்லாங்குழல்) in Tamil and also in Malayalam), and koLalu in Kannada. It is known as venu in Telugu (Andhra Pradesh).

One of the oldest musical instruments of India, the instrument is a keyless transverse flute made of bamboo. The fingers of both hands are used to close and open the holes. It has a blowing hole near one end, and eight closely placed finger holes. The instrument comes in various sizes.

The venu is associated with the Hindu god Krishna, who is often depicted playing it. This kind of flute is mainly used in South India, and also goes by the name Venu.

The venu is capable of producing two and half octaves with the help of blowing - overblowing and cross fingering. The flute is like the human voice in that it is monophonous and also has the two and half octaves sound reproduction. Sliding the fingers on and off the holes allows for a great degree of ornamentation, important in the performance of raga-based music.

The venu's north Indian counterpart is called bansuri.

[edit] Famous venu players of the past

Sarabha Sastry
Palladam Sanjeeva Rao
Kalaimamani Sri H. Ramachandra Shastry - A disciple of Sri Palladam Sanjeeva Rao.
The late T. R. Mahalingam - A child prodigy who started playing the flute at the age of five years. He is most popularly known as "Mali" or sometimes "Flute Mali."

[edit] Famous contemporary venu players

Sangeeta Kalaratna Vidwan B.Shankar rao [1]- disciple of T. R. Mahalingam
Kalaimamani Prof. Prapancham Sita Ram
Padmashree Sikkil Sisters - Kunjumani & Neela
Sangeetha Kalanidhi Dr. N. Ramani [2] - disciple of T. R. Mahalingam
Sikkil Mala Chandrasekar
S. Shashank - A child prodigy who started to play the flute at the age of six years and give his first concert performance at the age of twelve years.
Late B. N. Suresh
Late T. Viswanathan - Grandson of Veena Dhanammal and brother of Balasaraswati
K. S. Gopalakrishnan (Different from the 'famous' Malayalam glamour movie producer.)
Flute Raman
BV Bala Sai

The venu is similar to the bansuri, a bamboo flute used in the Hindustani classical music of North India.

Venu is also a nickname for the Hindu god Krishna. Because Krishna plays a venuvu, so his name has become Venu.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

Bansuri - The bansuri from the Hindustani music tradition is a 7/8 holed flute. Lord Krishna was also known as Venu-gopala (Gopala playing the Venu) and the music from his flute was called as Venu Naadham.^{[citation needed]}
Carnatic Music
Hindustani Music