In the dark theater of Knuth Hall, the high and low sounds of the flute along with Hindustani beats, accompanied the whistle of a flute, created a relaxing scene for the audience.
On Tuesday, flutist Sunil Kant Gupta gave a free hour-long concert to showcase his talent playing the bansuri, a type of Indian flute.
Gupta is the father of Sanika Doolani, a computer science professor at San Francisco State University. Ever since Doolani moved from Mumbai to the U.S. in 2014, she had been wanting to invite her family.
“This was the first time that they visited me, so it was a very special visit,” Doolani said. “Since now with my new job at SF State, I just wanted him to come and play something for my students.”
Doolani planned to have her father play in one of her classrooms. When she asked permission from the computer science department, they recommended she go to Hafez Modirzadeh, the director of the SFSU School of Music.
“The initial idea was just doing something small, maybe in the classroom or my lab here at SF State,” Doolani said. “ I reached out to him, and then things just got bigger, and then this became a university-wide event.”
The venue of Knuth Hall elevated Gupta’s performance.
“The artist is best showcased in Knuth Hall, which has better acoustics and audience accommodations than a classroom,” said Modirzadeh.
Gupta said there are several materials that are used to make a bansuri, but bamboo is the best material for the sound.
“I found the bamboo flute is the superior one among all these because bamboo is very close to nature,” said Gupta. “If I make 10 bamboo flutes, 10 will sound differently and if I make 10 other material flutes, they will sound the same. There is no difference.”
Gupta talked in depth about the flute and how it is supposed to sound. If the audience does not watch the flute, they may not be able to differentiate the sound.
There are two types of Indian classical music –- Hindustani and Karnataka — and there needs to be five notes in raga music. The music is supposed to represent peace, love and harmony along with other types of positive messages.
“And it’s what we need now more than ever and brings ancestral blessings to all of us,” Modirzadeh said.
Gupta then showed how he can identify the number of beats in the music through some recorded tracks. He counted the beats, demonstrated the Hindustani basic rhythmic pattern and performed a demonstration with his bansuri, playing a fast melody and a melody called Rajdeep Bhimpalasi.
“The Teentaal Theka (basic rhythmic pattern) is one of the most popular and commonly used taals in Indian classical music,” said Gupta. “It has 16 beats, divided into 4 equal sections of 4 beats each.”
Computer science professor Zainab Agha said the music that Gupta played reminds her of Pakistan, since Gupta used phrases in Urdu or Hindi.
“Some of the words he was saying, for instance, like aman jaana, mean something to us in our language, which are often not translated very well. So it was a nostalgic experience,” Agha said. “It means basically, if someone’s mad at you, to convince them to please make things okay or please agree in a way.”
Agha continued, saying the composition variation itself is a form of art because he shows off different types of moods, such as romantic, through his instrument.
“I liked the different moods and different emotions depicted through the flute,” Agha said. “That was really awesome.”
Thien Lam, a grant development specialist, said the concert would have been better if there were some tablas and drums that come from the Indian subcontinent present with the music.
“It would just round it out, especially like the tablas,” Lam said. “Having that in person would have made it much more dynamic.”
Music student Amanda Roran learned about all types of Indian music from Gupta’s performance.
“I really like that each part of each moment of the day has its own melody, its own feel,” Roran said. “That really spoke to me. I don’t have that many opportunities to listen to Indian music live.”
