Venu: India musical instrument

The venu is a bamboo transverse flute that is used in the Carnatic music. The musical instrument is also known with many other name like pullankuzhal in tamil, it is called പുല്ലാങ്കുഴല്‍ in Malayalam, and also called ಕೊಳಲು (kūḷalu) in Kannada. The musical instruent is known as pillana grōvi (పిల్లన గ్రోవి) or Vēṇuvu (వేణువు) in Telugu.

source of picture: geoffreymulder.com

The musical instrument is one of the oldest musical instruments of India. The musical instrument is a key-less transverse flute that is constructed of bamboo. The fingers of both hands of the player are used to close and open the holes of the instrument. The musical instrument has a blowing hole near one extreme, and has eight closely placed finger hole on its body. The musical instrument comes in many different sizes.

The venu is capable of manufacturing two and half octaves with the assistance of over-blowing and cross fingering. The musical instrument is like human voice in that it is monophonous and also possesses a typical two and half octave sound creation. Sliding the finger on and off the holes of the instrument permits for a great degree of decoration, crucial in the performance of raga-based music.

The musical flute finds great mention in Indian mythology and folklore having been name as among the three original musical instrument meant for music together with the Saraswati veena and mridangam. Meanwhile, is it not normal that there is no name mentioned for the musical instrument that the Lord plays.

The musical instrument is linked with the Hindu god, Krishna, who normally is portrayed playing the musical instrument. This type of flute is primarily used in the southern part of India. The Lord Vishnu is depicted as Sri Venugopala – performing the flute of creation.