While I was reading an emmline’s post,several ideas came to my mind and they were interesting to me.
One of the idea is the reason why Japanese tradition sticks to bamboo when they make their flutes.This is because Japanese had originally strong belief in trees(in my and several scholars’ view).Nowadays this is not the case of many Japanese(They still ‘love’ to destroy primeval forests for money).But bamboo flute tradition just as a custom nowadays can be among the evidence of their past belief in trees.Bamboo grows so fast that they regenerate easily(unlike many other trees for flutes).
This is just a quick idea which came to my mind,which cant prove anything. which can be completely wrong. But I start to want to know if Celtic religion had how much belief in trees themselves.
Not sure about the trees and celtic religions. I’m sure a more devoted pagan can help us here. (Andrea?) I do believe there was/is a greater reverence for the natural world in pre-Christian Europe…but I’m not sure how much was truly part of the belief system and how much is mythology.
Personally, I’m very fond of trees, and I think disregarding the importance of nature is often a problem in contemporary religions.
Musicologist types trace the origins of flutes
to two naturally occurring materials
both of which have a hollow stem:-
bone and bamboo.
Flutes were first made with these
and only later did wooden flutes evolve.
In light of this, Hiro, your speculation that the Japanese
went for bamboo to protect the trees is not so viable.
As you know, there has “always” been bamboo in Japan
so very unlikely for to consider other materials for flutes
given the excellence of various types of bamboo.
But talasiga,why 99% percent of them Japanese ‘still’ stick to bamboo nowadays,they will never dare to make flutes out of other trees( except Yamaha and few traverso makers). Some bamboos are the hardest material(which means very good material for flutes) among most trees and that might be also the reason why they stick to bamboo. The weather in Japan might make flutes of other trees sound bad thats why they might not want to choose other trees. There can be so many factors to prevent my speculation.
Hey,I dont even know whether bamboo grows naturally in Ireland.
Were the first whistles by any chance made out of old Irish Whiskey bottles? I figure two irishmen got drunk. One broke the bottle over the other one’s head, leaving the long tubular neck. Uh… and fipples… evolved from…lemers. yeah.
Hiro, from what little I know about Japanese culture, it’s my understanding that in the traditional arts, “natural” is an ideal quality. Of course, there’s nothing really unnatural about metals; flute and bamboo are a very natural and fundamental combination, though. Another instance would be in kyūdō, or traditional Japanese archery as art and meditation. There are bows made of synthetic materials, but the traditional wooden/bamboo laminated ones are much more highly prized, even though they are subject to changes in the weather. Kinda like uilleann pipers and their reeds. I’ve come across commentary that the greater impermanence of natural materials is something that fits in with traditional Japanese esthetics, too. I think that this might fit part of what you’re thinking about.
Tone counts, too. Wood, cane or bamboo will have a different tone than metal, although a good Boehm flute player can get a woody tone with the right technique, I’m told. But a Boehm flute played at a shrine is just that. Nothing wrong with it, but a traditional yokobue played at that shrine is another thing altogether. It’s totally Japanese. There’s nothing else like it; it can’t be matched. It forms a complete whole based on a very old culture.
Anyway, that’s my take as an outsider. I don’t know if I’ve addressed your thoughts fully. I’ll leave ideas about the Celtic relationship with trees to someone else.
I used em up at work. You think I do this for free?
Never surf the web, or take a dump, on your own time, when your employer will pay for it. I’m charging them overtime right now! Hehehehehehe.
Of course they are mutually implicit.
But my point turned more on
the fact that there is a natural hollow
in the bamboo
whereas in a wooden flute one has to be made.
This correlates with some philospophies
whose aim is to uncover the innate.
I am not pagan but I do recall reading about early Celtic practices during a military history class. We touched on them briefly while reading Caesers memoirs.
He wrote that the Celts had huge oak groves and they did rituals in them. His information has to be taken with a grain of salt (he was trying to kill them and might have lied a bit) but other observers of Celts in that period seem to support his claims.
I heard that ash wood helps keep fairies away too.
Hiro, the sources of hollow “natural tubing” aren’t so large for woodwinds.
So in Asia, you have bamboo.
In America, both North and South, cane–same thing.
In Europe, reed cane and elder tree.
And, of course, in Australia eucalyptus, but hollowed by them, er… kermites.
Of course, with “modern” makers, the prime source of tubing is… plumbers’ supplies stores. Hence our modern "wood"winds of PVC, brass, copper.
One aspect, I thought the main one, of Hiro’s question concerns the continuing use of bamboo rather than it’s origins, not that they aren’t relevant of course. My very underinformed guess is that there might be a heavy element of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’
Bamboo flutes have a distinctive sound, unlike wood and unlike metal, not that all wood or metal flutes sound the same. So, after hundreds of years of developing a tradition in which the sound of the bamboo flute has an organic role, why would you change? Japanese technologists are noted worldwide for their ability to improve design and innovate but a big part of that art is to know when something doesn’t need improving.
There’s the fundamental problem of drilling a long bore in any material… and subsequently the economics involved of doing so when the technology and methodology finally arrives.
Why spend a vast amount of time boring and shaping a material when a natural one exists which has been utilised most pleasingly for thousands of years?
There are, as Wombat has said, some traditions which should not be changed simply because they can be.
I suspect that if the UK had been wall-to-wall bamboo instead of “oak and ash and thorn”, our history would be very much different, and so too our traditions.
I’ve come across commentary that the greater impermanence of natural materials is something that fits in with traditional Japanese esthetics, too. I think that this might fit part of what you’re thinking about.
