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My name is Michael Winkler (born in 1975), and besides teaching and playing music (Hindustani, Jazz and others on Bansuri and Guitar), I am also a practitioner and teacher for Martial & Healing Arts from Asia (“Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method”, “Qigong” and “Zen-Shiatsu”)
Together with my wife we take care of two sons, born in 2013 and 2020, exploring the possibilities to create a holistic way of live, including “natural learning”.
The core principles of all these activities have a lot in common, asking for the same kind of paradigm shift, which reflects in my teachings and presentation of material in several ways.
Musical Backdrop
When I was a teenager I started to play the guitar. 60ies and 70ies Rock Music were my favorite styles, but soon I discovered the Jazz-Rock Music by John McLaughlin, and next the Jazz Master John Coltrane.
For the next decade of my life I will go to learn Jazz Music on the guitar.
1997 I moved to Berlin to learn more about Jazz. Not in school but rather in “real life”, because Berlin had a lot of opportunities, like venues with weekly Jam-Sessions and lot’s of musicians of all kind.
2003 Beside the music I needed to start taking care of my health conditions more and more, and as I was always interested in holistic things and the yogic practices from Asia, I came into touch with the Chinese martial and healing arts “Qigong” and “Taijiquan” (Tai Chi). Later I also learned the treatment method “Shiatsu”, and those three disciplines eventually became a profession.
2007 on my second trip to China (learning more about Taijiquan, Qigong and Daoism from the lineage holder masters) I first touched some bamboo flutes. In China they have the smaller horizontal “Dizi” and the bigger vertical “Xiao”. The last one, which is a little similar to the Indian Bansuri, became my favorite.
A while later I did hear the Indian Classical Music on the Bansuri. After listening to Pt. Rupak Kulkarni’s “Ahir Bhairav” (a morning raag) it was clear to me that this was exactly the sound I was looking for, and within the next years the Bansuri and the Indian Music became even more important for me than the Jazz Guitar.
2014 I had the great luck to meet the one who produces my very favorite sound on the Bansuri, Maestro Rupak Kulkarni. He is one of the main disciples of the living legendary Bansuri player Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia. We hosted him at our home of that time in Berlin, and we organized a concert and a small workshop.
2017 on my first trip to India, I met Pt. Rupak Kulkarni again. He made contact for me to other great players from the Hindustani Music tradition in Mumbai (Bombay), like Pt. Bhanuprakash Barot, who became a very good friend of mine, and the flute player Pt. Anand Kashikar.
2018 my wife and I decided to move to India, to join the international township of Auroville. We joined this project as “Newcomers”.
2020 my wife and myself officially became Aurovillians to be part of the international township of Auroville in Tamil Nadu, South India. Also we did start our own activity called “Divine Arts”. With this we can legally organize not only our own teachings, but also events and collaborations with other artists and teachers who resonate with the ideals of Auroville.
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The Raag (Raga) system of the Indian Classic appeared to me like a “Road back to Nature”, as it does not use temperated scales and intervals, and each of the Hindustani Raags does pronounce the mood of specific times a day.
The Bansuri offers a very musical approach to playing music. Less work in the brain, but closer ear-training needed, and more effort to produce sound. All quite opposite to the guitar, where you can end up very easily just learning visual patterns on the fretboard, without truly being able to hear all of that in your aural imagination.
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On this website I want to share all I learned on this journey, maybe helping you to make a decision and use some of this knowledge for yourself. Especially for beginners this website will be very useful, so check it out.
May the music always be with you!
Kind regards,
Michael Winkler
Picture Gallery & Certificates
