A very old flute indeed

Another from the BBC: Apparently archaeologists have discovered flutes made from bird and mammoth bone. The flutes, from a cave close to the River Danube in southern Germany, are about 45,000 years old.  The BBC article is here while the source article is from The Journal of Human Evolution.

The picture, of one of the flutes from two angles, suggests a swannee whistle but I'm pretty sure that what appears to be a stick protruding from the bottom of the instrument is just a label.

The first lesson

When I bought my flute from Vunugoptal I tried to teach him a tune and he tried to teach one to me.  Neither of us had much success.  I had wanted to play The Lark in the Morning - a particular favourite - but could neither remember it nor conjure it out of the Keralan air.  I settled for The Maids of Mitchelstown.

I don't know what tune he tried to teach me but I distracted myself by trying to mimic the sighing quality of his playing.  I was taught to cover the holes of the flute with the pads the last phalange of each finger.  This is a very western, classical style of playing but it makes impossible the kind of glissando that Venugoptal achieved with such grace and lack of effort.  He did this by using the pads under the second phalange of the fingers on his right hand.

I was also confused by the fact that he took his root note from the middle of the instrument - the top three holes being open, the bottom three closed.  He maintained that his flute was in C while to my mind it was in G.  This caused me some problems in our next meeting, my first 'formal' lesson.

Venugoptal's teaching involved me learning and transcribing tunes.  The first one uses a scale:

D Eb F# G A Bb C# D

Just to give you a sense of my own confusion, the first note of lines 3 and 4 of the transcription should be a G, the second F# etc. Venugopal demonstrates the tune in the clip. His playing is rather stilted but he wouldn't let me record him just 'playing', only demonstrating the tunes. The accompanying pictures are completely gratuitous but I haven't found a way of posting audio without pictures. My apologies for the noise caused wind hitting the microphone - we were outside.

The Keralan flute bag

On the way to my first Dravidian flute lesson I was hailed by the tailor whose hut, a corrugated iron-roofed structure with a view out over the Arabian Sea, was en route to the Juice Shack where I had first met Venugoptal.  I had visited him the previous afternoon to choose material and have my flute measured for a bag.  I had arranged to collect it later in the day but, although it would make me late, I responded to the tailor's enthusiasm in the only way I could.  The bag wasn't quite finished so I watched the final stages and specified the length of the draw-string while the proprietor tried hard to persuade me to have some shirts made - a sure sign I had paid too much for the bag.

I hadn't haggled on this occasion for two reasons.  Firstly, the man had refused to budge on the cost of a dress one of my daughters was keen on but didn't buy.  And secondly, I had recently read the story of V.S. Naipaul and the cobbler in 'An Area of Darkness'.

The author had a pair of shoes in need of some stitching and took them to a cobbler in Bombay.  He haggled aggressively over the cost of the repair and beat the man down to a very low price.  The cobbler took one of the shoes, picked up a four inch nail and promptly drove it through the sole with a hammer. He only returned the shoe with a struggle.  I wanted the tailor to make me a quality product.

In the end the bag was certainly fit for purpose, although I think my presence distracted him and he let his machine get the better of him.  There are a number of unnecessary black stitches near the mouth.

When I explained the delay to my teacher, the first thing he asked was the price I had paid for the bag.
"One hundred and eighty rupees," I said. (About £2.25 sterling)
"Ah," he replied. "You should not have paid more than a hundred rupees for a bag like this."
I immediately thought about the sum I had paid him for the flute.

However, he assured me the bag was a good idea, and not for the reasons I had supposed.  Apparently he had twice been bitten on the lips by insects that had crawled into the warm, damp, dark space inside his flute.  The creatures had taken exception when he put the instrument to his lips to blow and inflicted an injury that made it impossible to play for a couple of days, such was the swelling of his lip. This is  not a problem I have ever experienced in the UK.

And then we went up the rickety stairs to the covered part of the juice bar and got down to musical business.

The Dravidian flute

We left Fort Cochin by taking the ferry across to Ernakulam.  From there we took a train south to Varkala, a small town with an important Hindu shrine on the coast, just a short rickshaw ride from the station. The temple and shrines are about 300 metres from the beach.  At the beach itself the devout spread the ashes of the deceased and then return in subsequent years to do puja (prayer/ceremony).  To facilitate this, the Brahmins create altars from the sand on the beach.

The real action at this beach takes place at dawn and immediately afterwards.  (Still rather jet lagged it was a few days before I discovered this.)  A mere 50 metres north of this beach, and separated only by easily negotiated rocks, is the tourist beach.  This is populated predominantly by sunbathing westerners in trunks or bikinis. The Indians would also visit,  taking to the waters of the Arabian Sea fully clothed, as is their custom.  

On the cliff above this beach are the small, low rise hotels (ours boasted four rooms) and makeshift restaurants.  The access to these is by a footpath wide enough for delivery rickshaw but little else.  The taxis and other rickshaws deposited their human cargoes at the car park at the end of the cliff path. I enjoyed the respite from car horns, the unrelenting soundscape of roads throughout the subcontinent, and could listen to the mynah birds and the waves.

After a few days I saw a man put a bamboo flute to his lips and begin to play. It was the first live flute I had heard since arriving and I was immediately entranced.  My previous trip had been to the north and, early on, I had bought a flute for a few rupees that sustained me during my six week stay. So far, this time all I had seen were some insubstantial, overpriced 'souvenir' instruments and I was hoping to find something rather better. Now flute man demonstrated some flutes and was happy to let me try some.

He had bigger ones in G and smaller ones in C.  My technique at the time was just as I would use on the recorder, using the pads of the final section of each finger to close the holes.  This made it very difficult to close the holes on the G flutes so I gravitated towards the C instruments.  The intonation was true, at least relative to the instrument.  And the musician, who was also the maker, surprised me by taking an electronic tuner out of his bag to validate the tuning.

Now buying things in India is not like it is in England where, unless it's a second hand car, one tends to accept the initial price.  In India some things are 'fixed price' while others, especially from stalls or independent traders, are negotiable. For the flute I had taken a fancy to, Venugopal would usually (he said) charge 2,000 rupees - about £25.  In India this is an enormous sum - our hotel rooms, doubles, were costing us £3.50 a night each.  For me, because he recognised me as a musician, he was prepared to let it go for 1,500 rupees.

So was he just flattering me? Was this a good price? Was I going to let the tourist's constant fear of being ripped off come between me and a fine instrument?  I have just found a clip of Venugopal on Youtube that makes me think that although compliments came easily to him, he may have been pleased that one of his flutes might go to someone who could play it straight off.

Hawkwind to Hemsby - a tale of sonic attack. Part one...

I was fifteen when I went to my first real gig, sneaking out of a badly run boarding school and into the back of a transit van, borrowed from his father by an older day-boy. The band was Hawkwind and I was blown away by the event. The light show featured four slide projectors, mounted on a tower, that made dragons dance on a screen behind the band. The music was driving and the flute player (I'd begun learning the previous term) also played a saxophone. It may have been the first I'd ever seen. It was certainly the first I'd seen decorated with fluorescent paint.

I was also blown away by a strange cigarette that came my way (Congolese, the man said). It left me lying on the floor, unable even to crawl, while the band played a 'song' called Sonic Attack and I had my first brush with paranoia.

Remember:
In the case of sonic attack survival means
"Every man for himself"
Statistically more people survive if they think
only of themselves
Do not attempt to rescue friends, relatives, loved ones
You have only a few seconds to escape
Use those seconds sensibly or you will inevitably die
Think only of yourself
Think only of yourself
Do not panic
Think only of yourself
Think only of yourself

I hardly remembered breaking back into the boarding house at 2am with severe munchies, gorging on thick cream and lumps of cheese - the only food we could find in the school kitchen - and then praying with fervour to the porcelain trumpet. By the next day it could all have been a dream but for the reassuring ringing in my ears. That and the knowledge that nothing would ever be the same again.

Below: the author with that flute player, some time towards the end of the following decade.



To be continued...

A flute by any other name

The other day a young student told me she was going to write the word 'floboe' on her flute case. My puzzled expression elicited an explanation. "There aren't any oboes in the junior orchestra," she told me, "so some of the flutes play the oboe parts. So we call ourselves floboe players."

This put me in mind of a some-time pit band colleague (shows, not collieries) who is currently playing the clarinet parts of Beauty and the Beast on an alto flute. I wonder if she thinks of herself as a flarinettist?

I am reliably informed the 'flarinet' sounds beautiful and I have no reason to believe the floboe sounds any less so.

Carrot and stick

I have a young student who had narrowly missed out on taking her grade 1 exam with her previous tutor about 18 months ago. Between then and becoming my student last autumn she had drifted, making little progress with a flute that was in need of some attention.

We started looking at the grade material again but I quickly realised she was bored with it, having studied for an exam that never materialised. She needed a new challenge and, having made some great strides (including prevailing upon her parents to get her flute sorted out), I felt she was ready to take grade 2.

That was some time before Easter and the exam has been booked (July) and paid for. Since then, however, she has done almost nothing. The effect of this is to go into reverse; the pieces she could play some weeks ago are now too difficult. Because she doesn't practise, her tone has suffered and she spends the first ten minutes of a lesson looking into the instrument (for blockages!) and adjusting the footjoint in the hope that her flute is somehow to blame.

There was an article on BBC radio this morning about the psychology of household waste collection. It turns out it is more effective to reward people for the amount they recycle rather than charge them for the quantities they send to landfill sites. Any psychology student could tell you that encouragement is more effective than punishment. Buoyed by this fact I gave her all the praise and flattery I could think of. I finished by telling her how much better her tone sounded at the end of the lesson than it had at the beginning. I may have exaggerated the improvement but there's nothing like practice if you wish to improve and she had, after all, just spent half an hour playing the thing.

After she'd gone I congratulated myself on avoiding dire warnings of impending failure if she didn't put in some work. Hopefully she is sufficiently astute not to assume from my positive demeanour that she will walk grade 2. So, carrot and more carrot for my students. The stick, should it be needed, will be wielded by the exam result when it arrives during the summer break.

Half-holing

Half-holing is a technique familiar to recorder players. In order to move some notes up or down by a semitone it is necessary to partially cover a hole, allowing some air to escape through it. In fact to play in the upper register at all it is necessary to jam the tip of the thumb into the hole in order to force the instrument to overblow by an octave.

This is not a problem faced by players of the orchestral flute which has a system of keywork that makes it fully chromatic. But the recorder is relatively sophisticated in comparison to the humble bamboo flute. The tone of a good bamboo flute is both stronger and richer than that of a recorder but playing one with other instruments can present a problem. A recorder is, at least in theory, fully chromatic. Not so the bamboo flute. My favourite is pitched in Ab - not a great key for spontaneous jams around the camp fire.

The other day I was playing a studio session for a maker of library music. We had used the orchestral flute almost exclusively but thought we try something more 'ethnic' for a change. I have one in C which is close enough to the key of F, the key of the piece in question. But it meant half-holing the top hole in order to make a Bb.

This was not a problem until I had to execute a fast descending run. To ensure accuracy of pitch I partially covered the hole with masking tape. As you can see in the picture, half-holing is a misnomer - nearly all the hole is covered.

If you a are a flute (or recorder) player reading this I should explain that although the flute in question is pitched in C it feels like I'm playing a D scale. This makes it a transposing instrument, a fact that became clear when we abandoned the bamboo and went back to orchestral flute. I then had the sensation of reading everything a tone down. Flutes and whistles in D are very popular because they make the notes any flute or recorder player would expect. D is also a key that most guitarists can manage without too much trouble.


It is possible to cover holes lower down the instrument to facilitate playing in other keys. I part covered the second hole as well (pictured) to give me C Dorian. Always cover the side of the hole nearest the wrist of the playing hand - this allows glissandi and other effects that make these instruments so wonderful.

Mot du jour - Flutician

This afternoon, as I tried to get a student's flute to play for a little longer before an inevitable trip to the repair shop, she told me "I'll have to take it to the flutician".

Sweet sound of success

Last week I sent an eleven year old home with instructions to persevere. She had been unable to get a sound out of her flute in her first lesson and was rather despondent. She came back this morning complaining that she hadn't been able to get a sound out of the instrument. There followed the reasons that I love so much. The flute needs a polish. The head joint is dirty inside and we've lost the cleaning rod.

We began trying to make a sound. Each out-breath was followed by at least a minute spent telling me that she couldn't do it. We tried various positions to no avail. We made sure the air was being directed in a narrow stream. Eventually I realised that the child was exhaling so slowly that her breath wouldn't have misted a mirror on a cold day. It was like a kettle on the stove, just beginning to make a sound but nowhere near whistling. When I asked how hard she would blow to extinguish the candles on a birthday cake we made a breakthrough. And then we'd run out of time but there was relief and smiles all round.

She came back at break (recess), full of enthusiasm, so while I waited for my next student I taught her her first note. I'm looking forward to hearing how much her tone has improved after the half term holiday.