Simple Flute Demonstration
My son came across this yesterday and sent me a link. I thought I’d share the link. Flute playing couldn’t be less complicated. And no finger hole sizes to worry about.
https://youtu.be/c6T6suvnhco
I thought it might be handy to work out a fingering chart for it:
C: Th xxxx
(There may be some alternate fingerings, eg Th xxxo or Th xxoo.
Th xooo or Th oxoo might work but are probably less stable…)
That is among the coolest things ever. Human creativity is endless and i love it so much.
I’m reminded of an African singer who performed at some of our National Folk Festivals here in Australia many many years back. His name was Jean-Paul - I don’t think we ever became aware of a surname. He came out on stage, barefooted, in jeans and a loose shirt. As he started introducing himself, he was unbuttoning his shirt. Interesting, we thought. Then he threw the shirt off, and every female in the massive venue involuntarily went “oooh”. He was superbly proportioned, and incredibly good looking. Then he started to sing, and accompany himself with body percussion - using both hands, slapping various parts of his chest and arms to achieve a complex supporting web of sound. So simple, so effective.
Interesting to think of music as a spectrum, from the most simple to the most complex. Jean-Paul and Francis Bebey at the minimalist end, what would we have at the other extreme? Wagner and a 96-piece orchestra perhaps? Where would our simple flutes and whistles be along that path? We get a lot of value-for-money when you think about it…
The original Deep Forest album kept me (relatively) sane through the early nineties, not for its more techno rhythm but the connect with the Baka from the singing.
Searching up this kind of flute playing… would seem a shame not to post the related links…
Various songs here include flute (should be a playlist)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f0xOuCjXSvQ&list=OLAK5uy_lUKfaW3NX7PhQcbVhSiAL26yDwtMza6-A&index=1
Solo flute here is one or more flutes ?
https://folkways.si.edu/mbuti-pygmies-of-the-ituri-rainforest/world/music/album/smithsonian
Video collection with music
https://www.oscarvandillen.com/pygmy-music/
Book chapter on the music, the Ilomo song is said to be for times of misfortune, which are attributed to the forest having gone to sleep, and so they will sing to wake it up, sometimes for months.