Odd fipple flute

[dspguru]

Can anyone identify this?

It turned up in a 'Brocki' (a Swiss Goodwill store) and I was struck by the quality of the whipping, so I bought it. I thought the leather sleeve was just decoration, but it is actually part of the fipple.

An extensive search using Google and Wikipedia turned up nothing quite like this, although it is obviously the same concept as a NAF, but without the carved external block. Someone had been playing it; they had stuck a piece of masking tape under the sleeve but it had dried out and fell off right away.

The holes are all burned, and very clean and neatly done.

[Thomas-Hastay]

Anthony Baines in "Woodwind Instruments and Their History" classifies this instrument as a "Suling". It also resembles a Southern Chinese "Bawu" with the reed missing and replaced with a leather strap(?)

http://www.patmissin.com/history/bawu.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suling

It seems to me that the tonehole fingering is similar to the Shakuhachi, not Bawu though (?). I would be fairly certain that it is a "Folk Flute" that comes from Southern China, Southeast Asia or (possibly) Indonesia.

Thomas Hastay.
thomashastay@yahoo.com

note: The leather band acts as a windway to direct the airstream at the labium edge of the voicing, like the N.A.Flute.

[dspguru]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for taking time to look into this. At first I thought this was a New World instrument, because of the fringed leather part, but that sort of heavy bamboo is more common in the far East, as you point out. It makes a surprisingly clear sonorous note, with a range of exactly one octave. To my astonishment, the open and fully-closed notes are concert-pitch A. It can be overblown, but I suspect it usually is not. The harmonics are rather wild.

I also suspect, from the bit of tape which was on it, that it originally had something like a stiff piece of dried leather (intestine would be best, but gross...) under the soft airway guide, to provide a more consistent tone.

Happy New Year to everyone.

Campbell.

[Daniel_Bingamon]

There are Asian instruments that are made in the likeness of Native American instruments for sold as tourist instruments. It probably is Asian origin.
There are Native American instruments sometimes made from rive cane found in some parts of the south-west or whereever river cane grows.

[mutepointe]

Well, what did you pay? Just curious. I frequent Goodwill type stores in hopes of finding such a treasure. I have found good sheet music.