Yesterday, I was reading the Natural History magazine, September 2005. I ran across an article about an 8000 yr old bone end-blown flute. About 25 flutes were unearthed from a grave in China and three of the 7-holed flutes were still playable, one being in pristine condition. These flutes were fashioned from the ulna (one of the hollow wing bones) of the red-crowned crane–which stood about five feet tall. The scale and pitches available was interesting. One of these has 8 holes (octave and 7 pitches), possibly producing more pitches with cross-fingering. Some only had 6 notes (including the octave note) for a pentatonic scale–a scale still in use in China today. One flute had 10 holes–at half step intervals. This is thought to have been used as a tuning guide only. I think this discovery adds something significant to our understanding of the evolution of our modern scale.
Older flutes have been discovered in Europe, according to the article, but none have been found in working order. And of course older bamboo flutes were probably around but never survived. It’s pretty amazing that even one of these was in perfect condtion. The [u]article[/u] describes the tone.
I suppose you’re right. They’re all flutes–flute meaning non-transverse, non-fippled whistles such as the quena. Can you play your whistle without the mouthpiece?
Just pulled the head off of a Gen Eb and gave it a try. Not ideal in terms of overall tonal strength, but remarkably easier to accomplish than I’d have thought, and surprisingly in tune. I may work on this further as a parlor trick. I think it can probably be done, although I also think that the comparatively thinner walls of the Gen pose more challenges than thicker bone walls would for the task.
I wonder just how important the material is vs. density and wall thickness, etc. I listened to a clip of [u]Aaran Malcomb playing his Olwell bamboo flute[/u], and if he hadn’t said anything, who would have guessed? I wonder if there are any clips of Ivory flutes.
Looking for clips, I discovered an article about a [u]35,000 year old ivory flute[/u] (carved from a mammoth tusk), found in Germany a couple years ago. There may be sound clips of it, not sure. Apparently, this flute only has three toneholes.
