Instrument
consisting of a number of pipes of graduated lengths, joined together either in
the form of a bundle or more commonly in the form of a raft. It is classified
by Hornbostel and Sachs as a set of end-blown flutes (see Aerophone). The pipes lack mouthpieces
and are blown across their tops while the lower ends are stopped. The
instrument is found in central Europe and in areas bordering the Pacific. In
European art music the panpipes have traditionally been regarded as a pastoral
instrument. Telemann specified ‘flûte pastorelle’ in a concert suite in E
(ed. A. Hoffmann in NM,
no.177) and ‘flauto pastorale’ in a short piece in E in Der getreue
Music-Meister (1728–9); these are often played on a recorder, but Hunt
(‘Fitting the Instrument to the Music’, Recorder and Music Magazine,
1983, March, p.228) has suggested that panpipes were intended. In Die
Zauberflöte, Mozart gave Papageno, as a ‘child of nature’, a set of
panpipes to attract birds into his cage.
1. Early panpipes and distribution.
3. South American, non-Andean.
JAMES W. McKINNON, ROBERT ANDERSON/R (1), JOHN M. SCHECHTER/R (2, 3), MERVYN McLEAN (4), TIBERIU ALEXANDRU, GRIGOL CHKHIKVADZE/R (5), ALAN R. THRASHER (6)
Though the instrument may appear as early as the 6th millenium bce in drawings of animal dances from Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia, its earliest extant European representations appear on three bronze urns from the Illyrian Hallstatt culture of north-east Italy, dating from the 6th and 5th centuries bce (fig.1). They show it functioning prominently in scenes from the aristocratic feudal culture of the period, such as offertory processions and festive meals. Panpipes later gained considerable popularity among the Etruscans, who enjoyed a wide variety of wind instruments. In Greece, where it was called the Syrinx, and originally had pipes of the same length stopped at various points with wax, it was an instrument of low status with rustic connotations. Presumably both the Illyrian and Greek instruments had a common ancestor in the Indo-European Iron Age culture of the Danube Basin; today the panpipes are an important feature of Romanian folk music (see §5 below).
The Greek instrument may be the source of the large panpipes on bronze statuettes from Parthia in the early centuries ce. The same may be the case with Sassanid panpipes (the mushtaq) which appear in the court orchestra of Khosrow Parviz (Khosrow II, 590–628 ce) in cave reliefs at Taq-e Bostan and on silver cups from Kālār Dasht of the 6th century. But the Sassanid mushtaq may equally well be of Chinese origin.
The instrument appeared very early in China (see §6 below), and is also found in Myanmar (formerly Burma), where, among the Kachin and Shan, they are played with hnyìn (small bamboo free-reed mouth organs) for dance music, often at times of mourning.
Panpipes are also found in the central Pacific islands and western Latin America (particularly Peru and Bolivia, where, among other names, they are called antara, and Ecuador, where they are called rondador). They are often strikingly similar to Chinese panpipes in that they are a double instrument in which each half produces a whole-tone scale. An interesting version of the instrument has the two wings entirely separated, bound together only by a cord and blown by two players. Citing such evidence Sachs (1940) argued that Pacific panpipes were all derived from those of ancient China, having spread southwards to Myanmar and eastwards across the Pacific with the aid of the ocean currents.
One- and two-rank panpipes are played throughout the length of the Andean chain, from Colombia, through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and north-western Argentina. The Colombian castrapuercas or capador (the predominant name) receives its name from the 17th-century Spanish gelder who announced his presence with a panpipe. It is a ten-pipe panpipe in a series of five. In Ecuador, the syrinx is made of cane or, more rarely, the thin feathers of a condor or vulture. It appears in three sizes played by Quechuas: eight-tube (highlands; played with a small double-headed drum in pipe-and-tabor fashion); 15-tube (Chimborazo, at Carnival); and 20- to 43-tube (solo or in folk groups with other instruments). The tubes of the Ecuadorian rondador are closed at the bottom, and are arranged not in strict staircase fashion, as with south Andean instruments, but in ‘zigzag’ style, gradually becoming longer (see Ecuador, §II, 1(ii)). In Argentina and the Bolivian altiplano, the widely accepted term for panpipe is the Aymara word, siku; in most instances this is a two-rank instrument, of which the second rank, of open tubes, is the same length or half as long as the first, of closed tubes. The open-pipe rank is blown softly to support the closed, melody pipes and to modify the tone colour. Both ranks resemble a raft in shape, with pipes arranged by size in a staircase pattern. The zampoña of Gral, Bilbao Province, Potosí Department, on the Bolivian altiplano, has its pipes ranked in joined pairs, one pair having two ranks with eight pipes in each, and the other two ranks with seven pipes in each. One rank in each linked pair is closed. The tubes of the other rank are open and cut, at an angle, to half the length of the closed tubes; they sound two octaves higher. The open pipes sound indirectly when the closed pipes are blown and amplify their sonority. Zampoñas elsewhere may have the open tubes the same length as the matching closed pipes, producing notes one octave higher. The Spanish fusa prevails in some regions, especially north-west Argentina.
Panpipes, with other native aerophones, play a major role in the festival cycle in the altiplano high plateau zone of Bolivia and Peru. Here the agricultural cycle and the cycle of saints’ days determine the choice of musical instruments. The jula-jula panpipes (three- and four-tube) are connected with a ritual battle, part of Carnival. The sikuri (two-rank, 17-tube panpipes) and lakita (single- or double-rank, seven- or eight-tube) are linked to the agricultural cycle. Panpipes of the altiplano generally perform in pairs which share the melodic line; this practice of hocketing has been explained as necessitated by the impossibility of sustained playing at an altitude of 4000 metres. The leading panpipe is called ira, the follower arca. The number of pipes in the arca often differs by one from that of the ira. Melody proceeds in parallel organum fashion: some ensembles produce from two to four parallel octaves, other types perform in parallel 5ths and octaves. Panpipes on the altiplano are commonly played in ensembles, rarely as solo instruments. Strings and wind are rarely mixed. All flutes, including panpipes, are typically performed by males; women may dance to panpipe music. Ensembles consisting exclusively of panpipes include the maizu (Chipayas), jula-jula (Aymaras, Quechuas), and chirihuano (Aymaras, Quechuas, Chipayas). The maizu ensemble comprises four panpipes, one with three stopped tubes and three with two stopped tubes. The three-pipe instrument (lutaqa or ira) is considered masculine and the two-pipe one (mataqa or arca) feminine. They are played in hocketing pairs, as described above; the three two-pipe instruments are played in unison, each by a different performer. The instruments of the chirihuano ensemble are made from the tokoro reed, harder than the caña-hueca reed used for the similar jula-jula. Each rank of the typical pair has three or four pipes and there are up to 12 players in an ensemble: two on the lowest panpipes, the jilawiri (or kilawiri); four on the next highest, the liku; two on the next highest again, the orqo; and four on the highest, the sanja. There is one octave difference in pitch between one size and the next. The ensemble, using hocket technique (ira and arca), performs duple-metre wayñus (dance-songs), the musicians dancing as they play in keeping with traditional practice. The siku is a panpipe group with drum(s).
See also Bolivia, §II, 1(ii) and Peru, §II, 3.
Among pre-Columbian Peruvian coastal societies, the Paracas Culture (400 bce– 400 ce) had panpipes, each in pairs of six tubes, or (from the Pisco Valley) of three to seven tubes. The south-coast Nazca (ce 400–1000) had clay panpipes (antaras) with three to 15 tubes which could produce untempered semitones and which show other evidence of clear tuning intentionality in manufacture. The northcoast Mochica (400–1000) and Chimú (c120–1460) had panpipes of three to seven tubes. The Yunca culture from coastal Trujillo and Chimbote had, among other types, two-rank panpipes of six tubes each. Today the Ocaina Indians of the Peruvian tropical forest region play a four-tube panpipe, the Bora of this region a three-tube instrument. To the south, the Orejones play ten-tube instruments and the Yaguas 22- to 32-tube (single row) syrinxes. The Conibo play bamboo panpipes. In Colombia, the coastal Motilón Indians play panpipes of bamboo and feather quills. The Cuna of the San Blas Islands off Panama play pairs of panpipes (kamu-purui), each of seven bamboo tubes bound into groups of three and four; the ‘male’ and ‘female’ instruments play in hocket, producing composite melodies in parallel 5ths. In the early 20th century, the Uitoto (Witoto) of the Colombian Amazon had panpipes with varying numbers of tubes. The Tucano Indians of the south-eastern Colombian Amazon play cane and bamboo panpipes. Large groups of Tucano men play antiphonally, and men play panpipes as women pound cocoa leaves.
See also Peru, §II, 2.
Panpipes have reached a remarkable peak of development in the Solomon Islands, where there are elaborate ensembles played by men and boys. In Malaita there are seven extant types of ensemble, the best known of which are those of the ‘Are‘are people (‘au keto, ‘au paina, ‘au tahana, ‘au taka‘iori). These panpipes play ‘programme music’ based upon the sounds and events of nature and of daily activities including the calls of parrots, the swinging motion of a spider, raindrops falling on a leaf, or ‘the satisfied cry of the pig when it is fed in the morning’. Some ensembles make use of equiheptatonic scales in which the octave is divided into seven equal steps. The melodic intervals produced by such panpipes are steps of one, two, three or more equiheptatonic units. Each ensemble of panpipes is characterized by a different number of musicians, a different organization of the scale, a particular type of polyphony and a distinctive repertory. Northwards, panpipes are found throughout New Guinea and offshore island groups including the Bismarck archipelago. The distribution of panpipes in New Guinea and the Bismarck archipelago is similar to that of rattles and jew’s harps, with a central belt of concentration from the Highlands to Morobe and another area of concentration in southern New Ireland. Both raft and bundle panpipes are found, with the raft form most common. The southern limit of expansion is marked by the Polynesian islands of Tonga (where the instrument is known as mimiha) and Samoa (fa‘aili‘ofe), where it is now all but forgotten.
Various types of panpipes are found in Russia, Georgia and Romania. In Russia, the kuviklï (kugiklï) is a woman’s instrument, played in the south-western oblasts (see Russian federation, §II, 4). These panpipes, consisting of two to five stopped reed pipes, may be used for playing dance music, or as accompanying instruments in an ensemble that includes singers. In Georgia, an ancient type of panpipe known as soinari or larchemi is played in Guri and Megrelia (though its use is dying out); it consists of six reed pipes of various lengths fastened in a row. They are tuned in 3rds from the bass pipes, which are positioned in the middle and are a 2nd apart. The tuning varies according to the piece being performed. Sometimes the pieces are performed by two players who can divide the instrument into two, taking three pipes each.
The earliest evidence for the existence of panpipes (nai) in Romania is from archaeological sources; the earliest documentary sources date from the 16th and 17th centuries. From the second half of the 18th century the nai appeared frequently in the taraf ensembles of the lăutari (professional folk musicians) in Romanian principalities. The oldest native names for the instrument are fluierar, fluierici, fluierător, şuieras etc.; in addition the term ‘muscal’ is found, like the nai, of oriental origin. These terms, and the fact that both early and contemporary pipes are made of bamboo stems, have led to the hypothesis that a fusion occurred between an ancient, rural instrument and an oriental professional one, the older type giving way to the new.
The
‘classical’ Romanian nai consists of a concave row of 20 pipes, of
different lengths and diameters, in order of size. The pipes are open at the
upper end and glued together; they rest on a slightly curved stick or, more
recently, are set into a curved pipe. The lower ends of the pipes are stopped
with cork and filled with beeswax; the tuning is regulated by the quantity of
wax. The nai produces a diatonic scale from b' to g'''',
with F
s. Intermediate
notes can be obtained by slightly modifying the angle of the instrument during
performance. This leads to the characteristic portamento effects in slow
melodies. The nai is played by lăutari, who have recently
introduced additional pipes. Such modified instruments may have 25, 28 or 30
pipes, expanding the lower register.
Between the two World Wars the nai almost disappeared but was successfully revived, largely owing to the work of Fănică Luca (1894–1968), who trained many successful young nai players.
The presence of panpipe-type instruments in ancient China is attested by the post-15th century bce oracle bone pictographs showing two and three tubes bound together with a cord and invention legends ascribed to an even earlier period. When mentioned in the classic texts of the 3rd–2nd centuries bce, the Chinese panpipe (paixìao) was simply known as xiao (a name later applied to vertical flutes with finger-holes). The Zhouli states that a large one had 24 pipes, a small one had 16 pipes; other sources, however, cite different numbers. While it seems that, most normally, pipes were closed at their lower ends (dixiao), a note in the Erya states that on some the lower ends were left open (dongxiao). Two panpipes with closed ends have been found at different tomb sites in central China dating to the 5th century bce, one of a white stone (possibly jade), the other of lacquered bamboo. On both there are only 13 pipes, tuned pentatonically. According to the 2nd century ce Fengsu Tungyi, their profile ‘resembles a (single) wing of the phoenix’. Single-wing panpipes (long pipes at one end) are also pictured in the 4th–6th century ce paintings and stone reliefs at Dunhuang, Yungang and Gongxian, suggesting that this shape was the prevailing design for the early period. Morphological, decorative and musical associations with the mythical phoenix would remain a constant theme in the development of the Chinese panpipe.
By
the Tang dynasty (618–907), panpipes with pipes of similar lengths appeared
more frequently, their bottoms filled to varying depths with wax to govern
vibrating lengths. According to Chen Yang's early 12th-century music treatise Yueshu
(c1100), pipe numbers varied widely from one type to another (e.g. 10,
12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 21, 24), some tuned diatonically, others tuned
chromatically. An 18-pipe Chinese instrument dating to about the 8th century,
preserved at the Shōsōin Repository in Japan, is an example of this
style of panpipe, with pipes of similar lengths, bevelled at their blowing ends
and closed at their bottoms. As shown by Hayashi Kenzō (1975), this
panpipe was tuned diatonically (though including the equivalents of both fa
and fa) with a
compass of more than two octaves. A detailed line drawing of an 18-pipe panpipe
also appears in the Yueshu (fig.7). Identified as
fengxiao (‘phoenix xiao’), both ends of the frame on this
instrument are decorated with carved phoenix heads.
Sometime before the 14th century the Chinese panpipe was called paixiao (‘row xiao’), in an attempt to distinguish it from the popular vertical flute which became known by the borrowed name dongxiao (‘open xiao’) or xiao. This new panpipe style, which has been pictured in 18th century sources and survives in museum collections, typically has 16 notched bamboo pipes of varying lengths, arranged in a double-wing shape (long pipes at both ends, short pipes in the middle) and enclosed in a red-lacquered wooden case (fig.8). Its pipes are tuned chromatically with a compass of little more than one octave. As shown by Chuang Pen-li (1963), U-shaped notches usually appear at the blowing ends of open-ended pipes as a way to facilitate tone production (a feature not needed on closed pipes which respond readily without notches). As preserved at the Taibei Confucian shrine, the paixiao of today is constructed in this same external form; but instead of U-shaped notches at the blowing ends, the pipes are provided with ducts for more consistent tone production.
SachsH
Chen Yang: Yueshu [Treatise on music] (c1100/R)
Chuang Pen-li: Zhongguo gudai zhi paixiao [Panpipes of ancient China] (Taibei, 1963) [with Eng. summary]
Zhongguo yinyue shi cankao tupian [Illustrations for reference on Chinese music history], Minzu yinyue yanjiusuo, ix (Shanghai and Beijing, 1964)
R. Stevenson: Music in Aztec and Inca Territory (Berkeley, 1968)
H. Zemp: ‘Instruments de musique de Malaita II’, Journal de la Société des Oceanistes, no.34 (1972), 7–48
M. McLean: ‘Recordings from Musée de l'Homme’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, lxxxiii (1974), 490–91
K. Hayashi: ‘Restoration of a Panpipe in the Shōsōin’, AsM, vi (1975), 15–27
C.A. Coba Andrade: ‘Instrumentos musicales ecuatorianos’, Sarance, no.7 (1979), 70–95
C. Ziegler: Les instruments de musique égyptiens au Musée du Louvre (Paris, 1979)
H.C. Buechler: The Masked Media: Aymara Fiestas and Social Interaction in the Bolivian Highlands (The Hague, 1980)
M.P. Baumann: ‘Music, Dance, and Song of the Chipayas (Bolivia)’, LAMR, ii (1981), 171–222
M.P. Baumann: ‘Music of the Indios in Bolivia's Andean Highlands (Survey)’, The World of Music, xxv/2 (1982), 80–96
Tong Kin-woon: Shang Musical Instruments (diss., Wesleyan U., IL, 1983): repr. in AsM, xiv/2 (1982–3), pp.17–182; xv (1983–4), no.1, pp.103–84; no.2, pp.67–143
A. Valencia-Chacon: El siku bipolar altiplano estudio de los conjuntos orquestales de sikus bipolares del Altiplano Peruano (diss., Escuele Nacional de Música, Lima, 1983)
M.P. Baumann: ‘The Kantu Ensemble of the Kallawaya at Charazani (Bolivia)’, YTM, xvii (1985), 146–66
B. Broere: ‘Some Considerations Concerning Panpipe Music of the Kuna Indians in Colombia’, AnM, xli (1986), 6–16
Liu Dongsheng and others, eds.: Zhongguo yueqi tuzhi [Pictorial record of Chinese musical instruments] (Beijing, 1987) [YYS pubn]
C. Bolaños: Les antaras Nasca: historia y análisis (Lima, 1988)
G. Borras: ‘Analyse d'une “medida” servant à la fabrication de syrinx aymaras’, Journal de la Société des Américanistes, lxxviii (1992), 45–56
Liu Dongsheng, ed.: Zhongguo yueqi tujian [Pictorial guide to Chinese instruments] (Ji’nan, 1992), 116–19
T. Turino: Moving Away from Silence: Music of the Peruvian Altiplano and the Experience of Urban Migration (Chicago, 1993)
M. McLean: Diffusion of Musical Instruments and their Relation to Language Migrations in New Guinea (Boroko, 1994), 17–19
Zhongguo yueqi zhi [Monograph on Chinese musical instruments] (Ji’nan, n.d. [c1995])
Zhongguo yinyue wenwu daxi [Compendium of Chinese musical relics] (1998–)