After taking up playing the flute and making some, and trying to understand its place in local Iberian music, I was just researching some history and figured it would be useful to post what I have learned. Often when studying anything, I find that if I don’t put down the information when fresh then it tends to just dissappear into own archive.
This presentation is more traditional orientated than medieval courtly and so on, because the trend of courtly renaissance and classical flute has been somewhat similar in various countries, I’m looking at flute and reeds in folk setting.
As south-east Spain is pretty much home, I noticed flutes are rare there in traditional settings, just about absent. The only flute I remember is the local knife sharpener who had a grinding disk set up on the tail of his small motorbike who would play a pan pipe tune wherever he went to let the neighbourhood know he was there.
It seems you have to go well north and west to find flutes? In the northwest the single handed two or three holed tabor pipe is a feature along with drums, and in northern Portugal, as well as being an older feature in some of northern Europe. These instruments are incorporated into traditional folk bands of various styles, and maybe only more recently some flutes proper ?
Then in Portugal you have cane flutes, said more from pastoral setting for having time to make them, as opposed to agriculturist. Played by themselves or with small accompaniment, often in form of a whistle, older recordings or documentation of their music is hard to find though certainly they have been played through the ages.
So here is a short but clear clip from a local artesan who works cane
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L93LxZ23NYg
And here is from a site with locals recording their traditional music, she learned to play as a child (first ten seconds no sound because she is rehearsing)
http://amusicaportuguesaagostardelapropria.org/videos/oioai/?_sf_s=Flauta
After that there is the “pito Herreño” and similar flutes (often only documented) from the Canary islands. Though called a whistle for its higher pitch (towards piccolo) it is actually a cylinder transverse flute. Originally made from Laurel, it is said either introduced in medieval times by Iberian colonists as part of military band or introduced by settlers from north west Iberia (as in similar to the cane flute above). It is fully part of traditional music there , music and dance that is medieval but with some earlier Guanche aboriginal influence also probably (and for Guanche all we have is rock art that shows people holding something that could be a flute).
There is quite a lot of talking in this clip, but the flautist plays very clear parts from both festivity music and local folk music
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3jfPksNawc
If anyone searches up “Pito Herreño tango” they should find folk examples.
As far as I know that is about it, beyond occasional whistles and panpipes of varying kinds that appear quite at random. In Portugal small clay whistles are a traditional toy. You have to go to prehistory to search for other examples, of which there is very little surviving evidence to work with. So unusually maybe the flute seems more confined to the Atlantic side, but maybe I have missed examples. I know culture often travelled mostly by sea, so megaliths in Portugal and western France and Ireland for example. Later Celtic influence was stronger in the north and west also compared to the rest of the peninsula.
Reeds are slightly different. Common reed is native and though giant reed/Arundo Donax is introduced and sometimes considered invasive it has been present for millenia I think, will have to look that up again. Either way there are numerous examples of reed instruments through time, going from simple single note through to Aulos reed pipe style through to bagpipe and modern woodwind, and just about everything in between. Incidentally “gaita” in Portuguese can mean a variety of instruments (flute, pipes, whistle and even voice). So I just give examples of the simplest.
Here is a stone sculpture of Aulos being played (Turditan pre-Roman @ 300 BC) in the south west of Iberia. Apparently even then the Iberians were praised for their music and dancing, by written source.
https://upload.wikimedia.org//wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Relieve_de_Osuna_(M.A.N._Madrid)02.jpg/1280px-Relieve_de_Osuna(M.A.N._Madrid)_02.jpg
And go forwards to the Portuguese cane artesan and a local form of gaita
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pKzU1NtiXKA
We have even made acceptable didgeridoos from the giant cane, though I don’t know if others ever did. The whole region does have zambombas though from around 15th century, thought from Africa, and they sound quite didgeri so it is not a sound that is rejected
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MK7kRgZpoJU
So reeds are a large topic and I leave it all there. To note, there is often argument on whether an idea diffused, say ancient mesopotanian reeds instruments travelled, or whether similar were invented seperately in different places. Both are possible (see some pre-European american flutes for example) .
If anyone has other specific examples of either flute or reed in a proper traditional setting, or historic setting, for Iberia then I guess that is what this thread is about…