Bamboo musical instruments

Last updated
Wind instruments made of bamboo played by students in Talaud, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Bamboo wind instruments.jpg
Wind instruments made of bamboo played by students in Talaud, North Sulawesi, Indonesia.
An example of a slit drum or scraper from the Philippines known as a kagul by the Maguindanaon people Kagul.jpg
An example of a slit drum or scraper from the Philippines known as a kagul by the Maguindanaon people

Bamboo 's natural hollow form makes it an obvious choice for many musical instruments. In South and South East Asia, traditional uses of bamboo the instrument include various types of woodwind instruments, such as flutes, and devices like xylophones and organs, which require resonating sections. In some traditional instruments bamboo is the primary material, while others combine bamboo with other materials such as wood and leather.

Contents

Overview

Bamboo has been used to create a variety of instruments including flutes, mouth organs, saxophones, trumpets, drums and xylophones.

Flutes

There are numerous types of bamboo flutes made all over the world, such as the dizi, xiao, shakuhachi , palendag and jinghu . In the Indian subcontinent, it is a very popular and highly respected musical instrument, available even to the poorest and the choice of many highly venerated maestros of classical music. It is known and revered above all as the divine flute forever associated with Lord Krishna, who is always portrayed holding a bansuri in sculptures and paintings. Four of the instruments used in Polynesia for traditional hula are made of bamboo: nose flute, rattle, stamping pipes and the jaw harp. Bamboo may be used in the construction of the Australian didgeridoo instead of the more traditional eucalyptus wood.

Other bamboo instruments

In Indonesia and the Philippines, bamboo has been used for making various kinds of musical instruments, including the kolintang , angklung and bumbong . Bamboo is also used to make slit drums. Traditional Philippine banda kawayan (bamboo bands) use a variety of bamboo musical instruments, including the marimba, angklung, panpipes and bumbong, as well as bamboo versions of western instruments, such as clarinets, saxophones, and tubas. [2] The Las Piñas Bamboo Organ in the Philippines has pipes made of bamboo culms. The modern amplified string instrument, the Chapman stick, is also constructed using bamboo. The khene (also spelled khaen, kaen and khen; Lao: ແຄນ, Thai : แคน) is a mouth organ of Lao origin whose pipes, which are usually made of bamboo, are connected with a small, hollowed-out hardwood reservoir into which air is blown, creating a sound similar to that of the cello. In the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, the valiha , a long tube zither made of a single bamboo stalk, is considered the national instrument.

Bamboo has also recently been used for the manufacture of guitars and ukuleles. Bamboo Ukuleles are constructed of solid cross laminated bamboo strips not plywood. The bamboo solid wood strips are similar to bamboo manufactured flooring.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woodwind instrument</span> Family of musical wind instruments

Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed instruments. The main distinction between these instruments and other wind instruments is the way in which they produce sound. All woodwinds produce sound by splitting the air blown into them on a sharp edge, such as a reed or a fipple. Despite the name, a woodwind may be made of any material, not just wood. Common examples of other materials include brass, silver, cane, and other metals such as gold and platinum. The saxophone, for example, though made of brass, is considered a woodwind because it requires a reed to produce sound. Occasionally, woodwinds are made of earthen materials, especially ocarinas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical instrument classification</span> Grouping musical instruments

In organology, the study of musical instruments, many methods of classifying instruments exist. Most methods are specific to a particular cultural group and were developed to serve that culture's musical needs. Culture-based classification methods sometimes break down when applied outside that culture. For example, a classification based on instrument use may fail when applied to another culture that uses the same instrument differently.

Hornbostel–Sachs or Sachs–Hornbostel is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. It is the most widely used system for classifying musical instruments by ethnomusicologists and organologists. The system was updated in 2011 as part of the work of the Musical Instrument Museums Online (MIMO) Project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aerophone</span> Musical instruments that are played by vibration of air

An aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes, and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music of Indonesia</span> Music and musical traditions of Indonesia

As it is a country with many different tribes and ethnic groups, the music of Indonesia itself is also very diverse, coming in hundreds of different forms and styles. Every region has its own culture and art, and as a result traditional music from area to area also uniquely differs from one another. For example, each traditional music are often accompanied by their very own dance and theatre. Contemporary music scene have also been heavily shaped by various foreign influences, such as America, Britain, Japan, Korea, and India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angklung</span> Indonesian musical instrument made of bamboo

The angklung is a musical instrument from the Sundanese in Indonesia that is made of a varying number of bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved to produce a resonant pitch when struck and are tuned to octaves, similar to Western handbells. The base of the frame is held in one hand, while the other hand shakes the instrument, causing a repeating note to sound. Each performer in an angklung ensemble is typically responsible for just one pitch, sounding their individual angklung at the appropriate times to produce complete melodies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Folk instrument</span> Musical instrument

A folk instrument is a traditional musical instrument that has remained largely restricted to traditional folk music, and is not usually used in the classical music or other elite and formal musical genres of the culture concerned, though related intruments may be.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Traditional Korean musical instruments</span>

Traditional Korean musical instruments comprise a wide range of string, wind, and percussion instruments. Many traditional Korean musical instruments derive from Chinese musical instruments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Traditional Japanese musical instruments</span> Aspect of Japanese music

Traditional Japanese musical instruments, known as wagakki (和楽器) in Japanese, are musical instruments used in the traditional folk music of Japan. They comprise a range of string, wind, and percussion instruments.

Traditional Vietnamese musical instruments are the musical instruments used in the traditional and classical musics of Vietnam. They comprise a wide range of string, wind, and percussion instruments, used by both the Viet majority as well as the nation's ethnic minorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gourd mouth organ</span> Asian woodwind instrument

The gourd mouth organ is a free reed mouth organ played across East and Southeast Asia. It consists of a gourd wind chest with several bamboo or bronze pipes inserted on top of it, the numbers of pipes differing from region to region.

Traditional Thai musical instruments are the musical instruments used in the traditional and classical music of Thailand. They comprise a wide range of wind, string, and percussion instruments played by both the Thai majority as well as the nation's ethnic minorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Traditional Cambodian musical instruments</span>

Traditional Cambodian musical instruments are the musical instruments used in the traditional and classical music of Cambodia. They comprise a wide range of wind, string, and percussion instruments, used by both the Khmer majority as well as the nation's ethnic minorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Traditional Philippine musical instruments</span>

Philippine traditional musical instruments are commonly grouped into four categories: aerophones, chordophones, membranophones, and idiophones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical instrument</span> Device for making musical sounds

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sompoton</span>

Sompoton or Sumpotan, is a mouth organ made from a gourd with bamboo pipes in northern Borneo. It originated in the state of Sabah and is played by indigenous men and women in Sabah, especially by the Kadazan-Dusun and Murut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banda Kawayan Pilipinas</span>

Banda Kawayan Pilipinas is an orchestra based in the Philippines that uses musical instruments made from bamboo and other indigenous materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tube zither</span> Musical instrument

The tube zither is a stringed musical instrument in which a tube functions both as an instrument's neck and its soundbox. As the neck, it holds strings taut and allows them to vibrate. As a soundbox, it modifies the sound and transfers it to the open air. The instruments are among the oldest of chordophones, being "a very early stage" in the development of chordophones, and predate some of the oldest chordophones, such as the Chinese Se, zithers built on a tube split in half. Most tube zithers are made of bamboo, played today in Madagascar, India, Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Tube zithers made from other materials have been found in Europe and the United States, made from materials such as cornstalks and cactus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundanese music</span> Sundanese traditional music, Indonesia

Sundanese Music is an umbrella term that encompasses diverse musical traditions of the West Java and Banten in western part of Java, Indonesia. The term of "West Java" is preferred by scholars in this field. The word "Sundanese" originally referred to western part of Java Island and has a strong association with the highly centralized Sunda Kingdom based on Java Island and its high culture practiced by the nobleman class in its capital Parahyangan. By contrast, scholars who cover a much broader region lay emphasis on folk culture.

References

  1. Mercurio, Philip Dominguez (2006). "Traditional Music of the Southern Philippines". PnoyAndTheCity: A center for Kulintang – A home for Pasikings. Retrieved June 12, 2006.
  2. "Origins and development of bamboo music". bbc.co.uk. 2011. Retrieved March 27, 2011.