Publication Date: Friday, October 28, 2005
Making music
Making music
(October 28, 2005) Playing and teaching Indian flute isn't enough for Jeff Whittier -- he's also crafted some 35,000 flutes by hand
by Suman Mudamula
Jeff Whittier is a rare musician. Not only does he play and teach flute in the Indian classical tradition, he also creates them.
Whittier estimates that he has made about 35,000 of the bansuri bamboo flutes used to play the traditional "Gayaki Ang," Hindustani classical music of North India. That includes the instruments he provided for the Broadway shows "Bombay Dreams," "The Lion King," "The King and I," and "Miss Saigon."
A former longtime resident of Palo Alto who recently moved to Mountain View, Whittier, 58, has been making flutes for 30 years. Interestingly, it took just one flute-making session taught by a friend to get him hooked on the process.
"My friend showed me how to burn a hole in bamboo with an iron poker to make a flute. The first 1,000 were not very good," he said, and he gave them away as gifts.
"So it took a thousand flutes to perfect the art," he said.
Whittier gets his supply of bamboo sticks from India and Hawaii. Whereas Indian bamboo is pre-cut to the required measurement, Whittier identifies, chops and sizes the Hawaiian bamboo.
He travels to Hawaii every year to collect the special bamboo, which is usually found uphill from a river, near boulders and flowing water. There, he said, "it's just a weed and no one has ever bothered to obstruct me for cutting it. Locals are actually grateful that somebody is using it for flutes."
The size and position of each hole in the flute determines how the music will sound, Whittier said. "Although there is a basic ratio, it has to be adapted to individual bamboo pieces," he said.
While 95 percent of the flute-making process is over in about an hour the last 5 percent go on for weeks, Whittier said. After doing most of the work, he sets the flute aside and then goes back to it several times, playing and checking the accuracy of tunes and making fine changes in the flute's structure using sandpaper.
The deliberate delay is important to get the tunes right, he said. Every time "you have to have a fresh lip to play and determine whether it is in tune or not," he said. Some of his best flutes are not ready to be sold for months.
Whittier generally makes about 300 flutes per year. He manufactures 25 different varieties of flutes with lengths ranging from 18 to 35 inches.
Born and raised in New England in a family with no interest in Indian culture, Whittier became fascinated with India during the Vietnam War. He was a member of the Committee for Non-Violent Action and greatly influenced by Gandhian principles of nonviolence, but became disenchanted with the protest movement when the anti-war protests turned violent. There was a great interest in Indian music in American society during the '60s, and Whittier joined it.
He received his formal initiation into music in 1971 when he started studying North Indian music at Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael under guru G.S. Sachdeva. He studied bansuri on and off for about 10 years and also enjoys playing the sarangi, a violin-like Indian instrument, for fun.
"As not many people play it there is an interesting consequence for picking up flute: I have virtually no competition," Whittier said. "When people think or talk about Indian music they only think of Pandit Ravi Shankar, the famous sitar player," he lamented.
As a teacher, Whittier has about 30 students learning flute in the Indian classical tradition. He teaches bansuri at Shruti Swaralaya music school in Fremont and at his home, and practices Indian classical music for at least two hours every day.
Whittier's older son, who lives in Los Angeles, also plays flute and the younger one, a student at Palo Alto High School, plays the Indian drum tabla . Both of them also play Western violin. "I got my knowledge of Western music from my kids," he said.
Whittier's students are also pleased with the knowledge they're getting from him. Ravi Narayan Swamy, a 27-year-old hardware engineer from San Jose, said Whittier lets his students have artistic freedom while learning flute. He became a fan of Whittier's flutes when he had trouble with the low-pitch tones of the instruments he had been using. "His flutes are more suited to the players," Swamy said.
Radhika Vullikanti, a 30-year-old software engineer, read about Whittier in an Indian-American magazine. "Besides teaching compositions he talks about many interesting things about music. I enjoy the way he teaches," she said.
Starting with small flutes, which are easier for beginners, she has moved on to longer flutes in the two years of attending Whittier's classes. She praises the high quality of sound in his instruments.
Whittier also gives lecture demonstrations at public schools from time to time. "It's wonderful that Palo Alto still has music programs in its public school system," he said.
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