Traditional flutes and reeds in Iberia

[GreenWood]

After taking up playing the flute and making some, and trying to understand its place in local Iberian music, I was just researching some history and figured it would be useful to post what I have learned. Often when studying anything, I find that if I don't put down the information when fresh then it tends to just dissappear into own archive.


This presentation is more traditional orientated than medieval courtly and so on, because the trend of courtly renaissance and classical flute has been somewhat similar in various countries, I'm looking at flute and reeds in folk setting.


As south-east Spain is pretty much home, I noticed flutes are rare there in traditional settings, just about absent. The only flute I remember is the local knife sharpener who had a grinding disk set up on the tail of his small motorbike who would play a pan pipe tune wherever he went to let the neighbourhood know he was there.

It seems you have to go well north and west to find flutes? In the northwest the single handed two or three holed tabor pipe is a feature along with drums, and in northern Portugal, as well as being an older feature in some of northern Europe. These instruments are incorporated into traditional folk bands of various styles, and maybe only more recently some flutes proper ?

Then in Portugal you have cane flutes, said more from pastoral setting for having time to make them, as opposed to agriculturist. Played by themselves or with small accompaniment, often in form of a whistle, older recordings or documentation of their music is hard to find though certainly they have been played through the ages.

So here is a short but clear clip from a local artesan who works cane

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L93LxZ23NYg


And here is from a site with locals recording their traditional music, she learned to play as a child (first ten seconds no sound because she is rehearsing)

http://amusicaportuguesaagostardelaprop ... f_s=Flauta

After that there is the "pito Herreño" and similar flutes (often only documented) from the Canary islands. Though called a whistle for its higher pitch (towards piccolo) it is actually a cylinder transverse flute. Originally made from Laurel, it is said either introduced in medieval times by Iberian colonists as part of military band or introduced by settlers from north west Iberia (as in similar to the cane flute above). It is fully part of traditional music there , music and dance that is medieval but with some earlier Guanche aboriginal influence also probably (and for Guanche all we have is rock art that shows people holding something that could be a flute).

There is quite a lot of talking in this clip, but the flautist plays very clear parts from both festivity music and local folk music

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3jfPksNawc

If anyone searches up "Pito Herreño tango" they should find folk examples.

As far as I know that is about it, beyond occasional whistles and panpipes of varying kinds that appear quite at random. In Portugal small clay whistles are a traditional toy. You have to go to prehistory to search for other examples, of which there is very little surviving evidence to work with. So unusually maybe the flute seems more confined to the Atlantic side, but maybe I have missed examples. I know culture often travelled mostly by sea, so megaliths in Portugal and western France and Ireland for example. Later Celtic influence was stronger in the north and west also compared to the rest of the peninsula.



Reeds are slightly different. Common reed is native and though giant reed/Arundo Donax is introduced and sometimes considered invasive it has been present for millenia I think, will have to look that up again. Either way there are numerous examples of reed instruments through time, going from simple single note through to Aulos reed pipe style through to bagpipe and modern woodwind, and just about everything in between. Incidentally "gaita" in Portuguese can mean a variety of instruments (flute, pipes, whistle and even voice). So I just give examples of the simplest.

Here is a stone sculpture of Aulos being played (Turditan pre-Roman @ 300 BC) in the south west of Iberia. Apparently even then the Iberians were praised for their music and dancing, by written source.

https://upload.wikimedia.org//wikipedia ... id)_02.jpg


And go forwards to the Portuguese cane artesan and a local form of gaita

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pKzU1NtiXKA


We have even made acceptable didgeridoos from the giant cane, though I don't know if others ever did. The whole region does have zambombas though from around 15th century, thought from Africa, and they sound quite didgeri so it is not a sound that is rejected

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MK7kRgZpoJU


So reeds are a large topic and I leave it all there. To note, there is often argument on whether an idea diffused, say ancient mesopotanian reeds instruments travelled, or whether similar were invented seperately in different places. Both are possible (see some pre-European american flutes for example) .


If anyone has other specific examples of either flute or reed in a proper traditional setting, or historic setting, for Iberia then I guess that is what this thread is about....

[GreenWood]

To focus on Galician (north-west) instruments, a site with a good archive of examples is

http://www.consellodacultura.gal/asg/in ... trumentos/

which is the index. For wind instruments of all kinds it is 4.2 onwards. It includes some history of bagpipes, going back to traditional reed instruments, for example

http://www.consellodacultura.gal/asg/in ... astineiro/

But as far as flutes go the history tapers off into medieval. There was a moorish period flute called axabeba the name of which is encountered, some think it was a nai and others like to attribute all later flutes to it (which is likely part of agendas we often find nowadays seemingly aimed at creating confusion), or it might just have been the moorish name for local flutes . The oldest flute/whistle I know of in Iberia is neolithic so way earlier. Whatever, there is hardly any proper evidence of any kind of what was being played as flute until medieval times, when renaissance flutes started to appear. They did have flutes previously though.

Much like the Portuguese versions, here are traditional cane flutes

http://www.consellodacultura.gal/asg/in ... /frauta-1/

And here is a locally made contemporary baroque flute. The main picture is reproduction, but on the tabs underneath to enlarge are pictures of the original, and the name of the maker is in the text.

http://www.consellodacultura.gal/asg/in ... /requinta/

There are black and white pictures of flautists in traditional bands with pipes and drums on that page, so flute as part of traditional band music I guess goes back at least to the early 1800s, probably much earlier even if in simpler form.

If I find a better answer to any of the above questions, or sites like this for other regions, I will add them in later...