A term used to designate an ensemble based on sets of end-blown flutes closed (i.e. stopped) at their distal ends by natural nodes or by movable tuning plugs. They are mostly single-note flutes, each blown by one man while dancing, accompanied by drumming and singing. Scholars of African music have frequently used the terms ‘reed-pipe’ or ‘reed-flute’ for such instruments, but the flutes can be made of material other than reeds (e.g. bamboo, olyra latifolia, papya stalks or clay), and the term ‘reed-pipe’ is best restricted to pipes fitted with a vibrating reed or reeds at one end. Ensembles of panpipes such as those played in the Solomon Islands, parts of Africa (e.g. the nyanga ensembles of Mozambique) and South America could also be included in this term since each panpipe is essentially a raft or bundle of stopped flutes. Cone-flute ensembles, such as those used in the court music of several of the former kingdoms of the inter-lacustrine area of east-central Africa, though obviously related to stopped flutes in musical style as well as organologically, often include instruments with one or more finger-holes and a small vent (also fingered) at the bottom end.
The music of the true stopped flute ensemble has fascinated observers in Africa since Vasco da Gama reported them during his exploratory voyage around the tip of southern Africa in 1497. Kirby (1933) documented this and other accounts and mapped the distribution of such ensembles in southern Africa (see also Cooke). Further north, in eastern parts of Zaïre, the occasional use of these ensembles by Mbuti pygmies (see Demolin) and Tetela children has been reported. They are also found in Mozambique, Zambia (if panpipe ensembles are included), along the line of the western rift valley into Uganda and the Sudan, and as far north as Ethiopia (where they are played in the central highlands and by Cushitic-speaking peoples in the south). The western limit appears to be Chad (where Brandily reported finding ensembles of fana flutes made from unbaked clay) and the nearby areas of both Nigeria and Cameroon (Nikiprowetzky). However, stopped flute ensembles are not as widespread in Africa as the trumpet ensembles that are played in a similar manner and whose music serves similar purposes. Outside Africa stopped flute ensembles have been reported in Lithuania and some of the Pacific Islands, including the Philippines.
The ensembles of Africa and elsewhere have many common aspects. Since each flute usually can play only one pitch, the ensembles generally perform in hocket style, like many African trumpet ensembles. This performing technique results in pieces that can hardly be considered simply as representations of single melodies. The use of ‘harmonic equivalents’ (see Blacking) and a considerable amount of apparent improvisation within the constraints of a basic pattern produce descending series of chord progressions (the Ethiopian ensembles appear to be exceptions in this last respect). Only men and boys may play; where women participate in the dancing they usually make their own circle around that of the males. The dances are central to the musical and social life of the peoples who perform them: for example, the tshikona flute dance of the Venda of the Transvaal is considered their ‘national’ dance (see South africa, §I, 3), the eluma dance of the Amba of western Uganda brings together all the men and youths of an extended family and serves to strengthen kinship bonds; and the embilta (notched flute) dances of Ethiopia are focal points of weddings, funerals and other family gatherings.
GroveI (‘Fana’; M. Brandily)
P.R. Kirby: ‘The Reed-Flute Ensembles of South Africa’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, lxiii (1933), 313–88
P.R. Kirby: The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa (London, 1934, 2/1965)
T. Nikiprowetzky: disc notes, Musiques du Cameroun, Ocora OCR25 (1966)
J. Blacking: Venda Children’s Songs (Johannesburg, 1967/R), 168
J.-G. Gauthier: Les Falis (Hon et Tsalo) (Oosterhut, 1969) [discusses the huele ensemble of the Fali of Cameroon)
A. Simon: ‘Trumpet and Flute Ensembles of the Berta People in the Sudan’, African Musicology … Festschrift Presented to J.H. Kwabena Nketia, i, ed. J.C. Djedje and W.G. Carter (Los Angeles, 1989), 183–217
P. Cooke: ‘On the Trail of the Music Hunter: a Semester with the Laura Boulton Collection’, Resound, x/3 (1991), 1–4 [discusses Laura Boulton’s recordings of a Nama stopped flute ensemble]
D. Demolin: ‘Les reveurs de la fôret: polyphonies de pygmées Efe de l’Ituri (Zaire)’, Cahiers de musiques traditionelles, vi (1993), 139–51
PETER COOKE