Here is a two minute sample of me playing the bansuri, the Hindustani bamboo flute. I am playing a short, improvised alap in Rag Yaman, followed by a brief rendition of a fixed composition handed down to me by my teachers, maestro G.S. Sachdev and his long-time student Jeff Whittier.
In the background you can hear a drone sound that defines the key of the melody, played by my lovely little sruti box, a bellows reed instrument similar to a simple accordion with no keys.
The composition uses a scale very similar to what the European tradition calls the Lydian mode. This scale can be heard by playing a scale from F to F on the piano using only white notes. It is very similar to our standard Do Re Mi major scale, with one difference: the pitch of the fourth note of the scale is raised.
In the Hindustani tradition in Rag Yaman, the ascending scale typically passes by the first, fifth, and octave notes of the scale, and then uses all pitches in the descent. To hear an example of this, you can play the following ascending then descending scales, all white notes:
E G A B D E G F
F E D C B A G F