The Pan
Flute Store

Buying a pan flute directly from Peru can be a good way to find instruments made by experienced makers and, in some cases, at a lower price. However, purchasing internationally also involves considerations that are easy to overlook when comparing prices online. Shipping, customs, returns, payment methods, and the type of instrument itself can all affect the final experience. In this post, I will go over some of the main things that I think are worth considering before buying

I write this post as an extension of a recent response to a client who asked a simple question: Why buy your pan flute from us? To answer that question, it is useful to first consider the unusual position of the Andean pan flute in the contemporary musical instrument market. For much of the modern international market, the most familiar image of the pan flute was shaped less by Andean instruments than by the Romanian concert pan flute. The instrument became widely associated

When we think of an Andean pan flute today, we usually imagine rows of bamboo or cane tubes tied together. During a recent visit to the Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI), however, I encountered a very different version of the instrument. The exhibit showcased a series of ceramic antaras made by the Nasca culture on the southern coast of Peru. The examples displayed at MALI date broadly from 50 to 650 CE. They are not ceramic representations of pan flutes. They are pan flutes. It i