The history of flageolets and tin whistles

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Re: The history of flageolets and tin whistles

Post by stringbed »

Nanohedron wrote: Mon Jun 13, 2022 12:07 pm How did the beeswax hold up?
It did just fine for the duration of the experiment. I have no idea how long beyond that it would have held up. Had that been a concern, a harder resin might have been a smarter choice without posing differing technical demands.
Last edited by stringbed on Mon Jun 13, 2022 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The history of flageolets and tin whistles

Post by david_h »

Nanohedron wrote: Mon Jun 13, 2022 11:28 amNot to split hairs, but I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth: I didn't say difficult. The fipple's a relatively simple concept, but in engineering terms it's a lot more complex than the simplicity of a quena's notch. I'm sure it dawned on early flute makers that splitting the wind jet was the operative principle - and you take it from there - but for as obvious as it is in retrospect, that's an angle that my poor brain would have taken a lifetime to arrive at, if at all. Now if that's the difficult part, I'll accept the projection up to a point, but it wasn't relevant to me; my interest lies in the sort of mind that was even able to get there in the first place, and seemingly out of the blue.
That was the projection. I also paraphrased stringbed.

I think it could have dawned on early notch flute players that aiming a jet at the edge was what they were doing. As I see it the lightbulb moment (or whatever the cartoonist would put in his cave man's thought bubble) would be realising one could 'cheat' by transferring the windway from the lips to the instrument. Given enough players - with the same minds as us - over enough centuries I am not amazed that one of them thought of it.

Similarly I can imagine that if enough people put enough stone in fires to cook with then someone might eventually see something shiny in the ashes. The R&D required to get from there to a bronze tool seems way different to refining a fipple. With a hollow cane the windway is almost at the right height. (can we have that image link back please Mr Gumby)
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Re: The history of flageolets and tin whistles

Post by Nanohedron »

david_h wrote: Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:12 pm Given enough players - with the same minds as us - over enough centuries I am not amazed that one of them thought of it.
And of course, under the circumstances one could agree with you - and I think rightly - that it's pretty much a foregone conclusion. But it's the ability to even conceive of such things and work them out - not so much the fact that they did it - that amazes me.
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Re: The history of flageolets and tin whistles

Post by paddler »

Trial and error can get you a long way, especially given a lot of people and a few thousand years to experiment!
I also think that early humans were much more intelligent, in certain specific ways, than modern humans are. In
evolutionary terms our brains haven't changed much over the last few thousand years, but our connection to the
natural world and natural processes has decreased drastically. Nowadays, most people tend to be quite disconnected
from "reality". We live in an environment that is largely artificial, and this changes the way we think and understand
the world.

Early humans had a lot more direct exposed to natural processes and probably spent a lot more time making things
than most people do today. Nowadays, most people purchase almost everything they need, rather than making things
themselves. So, it isn't so surprising to me that early people, in different parts of the world, worked out the physical
processes involved in flute sound production, and experimented with lots of different ways to utilize their local materials
for the desired effect. Given a thicket of bamboo and a sharp implement it probably wouldn't take that long to come
up with something that makes a sound.

The Papago flute (see link below) is an interesting example of what I think of as a transitional technology that illustrates
this kind of experimentation. I can imagine someone who perhaps struggles with the embouchure required
for rim-blown flutes, coming up with this solution to allow air to be directed at the blade using a finger instead of
the lips. Papago flutes work in a similar way to a conventional Native American Flute, but instead of having an
external block to direct air onto the blade, the player uses their finger. The mouth piece connects to a slow air
chamber which is separated from the main flute bore (in the case of bamboo, one of the natural internodes
creates the separation). There is a hole on top of the slow air chamber which allows air to exit, and this air
is redirected across the window on to the blade by the player's finger.

Papago flute (scroll down the page a bit)

It doesn't take much imagination to replace the finger with a specially constructed block, with a windway, strapped
on the outside. Similarly, it doesn't take much imagination to replace that with an integral windway.
Conceptually similar kinds of ideas occur in flutes such as the Bolivian moseno, and the Slovakian Fujara, in which
the air is blown into one tube, and then redirected from the exit of that tube onto a splitting edge.
There are lots of ways to redirect a mouth generated air stream onto a splitting edge to produce sound, and
people all of the world discovered many of them a very, very, long time ago.

As to the question of whether this kind of thing has any bearing on survival, there are well-established theories about
the role of music in strengthening social bonds. And strong social bonds were central to the survival of early humans.
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Re: The history of flageolets and tin whistles

Post by Nanohedron »

paddler wrote: Tue Jun 14, 2022 1:33 am Trial and error can get you a long way, especially given a lot of people and a few thousand years to experiment!
The Infinite Monkey Theorem springs to mind. Surely purpose would increase the odds.
"If you take music out of this world, you will have nothing but a ball of fire." - Tribal musician
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