South-American Pan Flutes and Skill-Level and Quality Categories

I start this post by apologizing to my readers for delaying my next post for so long. Graduate school can consume most of my time. I also want to share with you some changes that I have implemented in my store and explain why. The change specifically relates to skill-level and quality categories. In other words, the categories that are commonly used to designate the characteristics that make a musical instrument suitable for either for beginners or for professional players.

I am no longer using those categories on my website. The reason is that South-American pan flutes (antaras and sikus) in principle and by tradition do not comply smoothly with those categories. I will explain this more clearly.

South-American pan flutes date from the Inca culture. For centuries, they have been made using certain materials and techniques that create the characteristic sound of this culture. Some of these construction aspects are, for instance, using bamboo reed rather than other varieties often used in Romanian pan flute varieties oriented towards Western classical music, like bamboo Tomkins. Here is the crucial difference: the Tomkins variety is thicker and more resistant, creating a clearer sound and more durable instrument. Reed, on the other hand, has thinner walls, which are more fragile, less durable, and create breathy sound. Yet, that is precisely the point. The aesthetics of Andean music is deeply tied to its cosmology. Being is inseparable from nature, from the wind.

Another construction aspect of the South-American pan flute is the tying. These pan flutes, as opposed, to their European variants used for classical music, are tied together with a special technic rather than glued. This is not arbitrary artisanship. Sicuris (pan flute players) have been tying their pan flutes together for generations because this allows them to easily replace the pipes if needed. As I mentioned, reed can be fragile, so this is fundamental for sicuris since they perform and practice frequently. An additional interesting practice is that sicuris use quinoa or seeds to tune their pan flutes. They put them inside the pipes to adjust the tuning. Some times they also sand the embouchure to adjust it.

Now, as you, the reader, might realize by this point, these characteristics are oppossed to what is commonly considered as "professional" or "good-quality." For years, I have produced European-style pan flutes using peruvian bamboo to comply with those "professional" standards, and I had to label my South-American pan flutes either "for beginners" or "artisan." The reason I did this was that I received complains at times from customers saying that a flute was "cheap" because it was tied together or because the sound was breathy. Yet, today I have shared with you what South-American pan flutes truly are. They are neither professional nor for beginners. They do not comply with any of the standards used in the Western music industry. They are not meant to.

I will continue to sell European-style pan flutes. However, I encourage you not to let the categories of the musical instrument industry to prevent you from trying South-American flutes. "Durability" or "resistance" are not necessarily "quality.""Clarity" in the sound is not (the only) beauty. An antara can last as long as any instrument if you take good care of it. More than that, it can last even longer than any industry-manufactured instrument because it is not a static commodity. You can learn how to tie it. You can replace the bamboo yourself. An antara is not a product. It is a relation. Its sound is not just music, but presence.

Antaras and Sikus are not just objects to use. They are instruments to encounter. This is the reason why I have created two new categories in my website: Rising and Path-Walker. These categories are not meant to judge the flutes as objects, but to describe how we relate to them. As a principle for organizing them, rather than materials, I separate them by more commonly used keys and ranges (number of pipes). The Rising series includes flutes with smaller ranges and C and G major tunings, which are the most popular ones for pan flutes. The Path-Walker series includes flutes with wider ranges and more complex keys, configurations, and frequencies.

As always, thank you for taking the time of reading this post.

Ron