Flautist who chose music over NASA

Born in Sydney to a Sri Lankan father and an Indian mother, brought up in London, graduated with a degree in science but a full-time musician now — it’s safe to say Praveen Prathapan has lived quite a life. He’s better known as ‘The Flute Guy’ on YouTube and Instagram. His father, also a flautist, gave him his first traditional wooden flute at the age of five, so though music chose him as opposed to him choosing music, he has no complaints, says the jovial Praveen.

For the past year, he has been a musician full-time but fate took its own course to bring him here. “After high school, I was selected to go to Oxford University, where I pursued a degree in biochemistry for four years. After that, I had the opportunity to work with Harvard University, through which came the chance to work for NASA’s Ames Research Center,” explains Praveen. Though his time there was a life-changing experience, he knew his heart was still with music. “Since I knew my resume was good enough to fall back on in case an alternative career didn’t take off, I quit and took up music,” he says.

Some of his collaborations with artistes like Mahesh Raghavan among others, have gone on to receive a million-plus views online, and so have his solo videos. Ask him if he prefers working alone or with someone else — he says, “It’s challenging to work alone because I constantly need to find new ways to keep the viewers’ attention. I keep experimenting with Acapella, konnakol, fusions of Western and classical music and more. As for collaborations, though coordinating ideas and timings with others can get a bit tricky, it takes the upper hand for me because I get to meet and perform with some amazing people across the world.”

The flute he uses is a traditional Indian bamboo model made in Delhi. “Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia uses similar ones,” he grins. “While I have worked with metal flutes that are common in the West, I prefer Indian flutes because they have a unique tonal sound. By partially or fully closing the holes, I can create curvatures in notes that allow me to replicate the voice of a singer. Silver flutes (made in the West) are great too as they can hit really high or low notes without me having to change instruments, but the drawback is that it has keys on it so I can play only discreet notes,” he says.

Will he continue to play music full-time even in the future? “At times, I contemplate finding another job as a consultant because unfortunately, societal pressures are high. Sticking to the arts may not pay bills so I know people may desert their passion for a job. However, if Steve Jobs or JK Rowling hadn’t taken the leap, the world wouldn’t have known who they are, right? So I would appeal to people that they take the risk to do what they love the most,” he concludes.