Review : An indian nose flute by Svaram

Svaram is a community enterprise which produces instruments, is involved in cultural, educational, research and social projects. Svaram was founded in 2003 in Auroville, and is linked to the Auroville experimental and spiritual community.

« The SVARAM team (...) may possibly be one of the few places on the Indian subcontinent experimenting in the field of creating new musical instruments. Its focus lies on instruments that should be accessible to everybody, independent of talent or predisposition, directly bringing the joy of music into one's hands and heart. »

Among lots of other intruments, Svaram produces wooden nose flutes.
Aurelio, the director, answered very gently my questions.
The company has been making nose flutes for 2 years, helped by a Austrian volunteer student in the work. « Shankar and his young helper Santosh have since made around 100 pieces, using yellow teak wood for it. »

I ordered a Svaram nose flute from the Auroville website for a decent price ($10), and added a few bucks for planting trees.

I think it was the first time I received a parcel from India. The flute was very well-packed in a linen pouch containing a nice cardboard box. I was surprised to find the flute inside a beautiful leather pocket (a bit "goaty" by the smell though :).

The flute itself is rather conventional. The shape is very near the wooden vietnamese flutes that can be found in lots of online shops, made in two parts with the air duct cover in frontal position. But the design is correct and the flute is made in yellow teak.

Well, I could not honestly say the Svaram flute is a hi-end flute... The details are not neat, and the construction is not precise, leading to a rather weak and flat sound. No comparison with a hi-end wooden flute, but not the same price neither. And it is not worse than any Ebay wooden nose flute of the same price.
But it may be of some interest for novices as it is cheap, and includes a very nice leather pouch.
More, prefering an Auroville flute to an Ebay one helps some nice social action done there in India, and for one supplementary buck, a tree will be planted for you.

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Click here to jump to the Svaram website
and here for the Auroville instruments webshop

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