Playing the flute... 35,000 years ago

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 25 Jun 2009, 11:05

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090624/sc_ ... historic_1

Playing the flute... 35,000 years ago

Wed Jun 24, 1:26 pm ET
LONDON (Reuters) - People have been making music for more than 35,000 years, judging by prehistoric bird-bone flutes excavated in southwest Germany.

Researchers said on Wednesday they had found a five-hole flute made from the radius bone of a griffon vulture and two fragments of ivory flutes in a cave in the Swabian Jura mountains.

The flutes are at least 5,000 years older than any previous confirmed archaeological examples of musical instruments.

"These finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe, more than 35,000 calendar years ago," Nicholas Conard of Tuebingen University and colleagues reported in the journal Nature.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090625/ap_ ... ic_flute_8

By PATRICK McGROARTY, Associated Press Writer Patrick Mcgroarty, Associated Press Writer - 1 hr 24 mins ago
BERLIN - A bird-bone flute unearthed in a German cave was carved some 35,000 years ago and is the oldest handcrafted musical instrument yet discovered, archaeologists say, offering the latest evidence that early modern humans in Europe had established a complex and creative culture.

A team led by University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard assembled the flute from 12 pieces of griffon vulture bone scattered in a small plot of the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany.

Together, the pieces comprise a 8.6-inch (22-centimeter) instrument with five holes and a notched end. Conard said the flute was 35,000 years old.

"It's unambiguously the oldest instrument in the world," Conard told The Associated Press this week. His findings were published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.

Other archaeologists agreed with Conard's assessment.

April Nowell, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada, said the flute predates previously discovered instruments "but the dates are not so much older that it's surprising or controversial." Nowell was not involved in Conard's research.

The Hohle Fels flute is more complete and appears slightly older than bone and ivory fragments from seven other flutes recovered in southern German caves and documented by Conard and his colleagues in recent years.

Another flute excavated in Austria is believed to be 19,000 years old, and a group of 22 flutes found in the French Pyrenees mountains has been dated at up to 30,000 years ago.

Conard's team excavated the flute in September 2008, the same month they recovered six ivory fragments from the Hohle Fels cave that form a female figurine they believe is the oldest known sculpture of the human form.

Together, the flute and the figure ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Â

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 25 Jun 2009, 14:15

That implies that all documents we have made so far will also go for a toss someday and after some thousand years all will start a fresh.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 25 Jun 2009, 21:16

VK,
Read this in the morning paper and wondered. The flute perhaps was the oldest instrument created by man--even in a locale where bamboos don't grow. In warmer climes, Nature must have 'handed it over' to mankind without the human brain having to 'think' about creating one. A mere walk or trudge along the river would have made men listen to the flute (insect made holes in bamboo played by the whistling of the wind ). Bird bone flute is another thing! some time ago, I saw in the papers the sculpture of a woman carved in bone found in the same site. Sobering thought for those who think culturally the western hemisphere just had barbarians as its inhabitants, until recently.
And on the forum, Uday, yourself and the rest are ancient indeed, playing such an old instrument!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 26 Jun 2009, 03:44

Kokilam (bird) evolved from the dynosaurs about 50 million years ago! Hence no wonder humans crafted an instrument to imitate the bird quite early..

Is there a 5-hole musical flute in existence? Will it be pentatonic so that we can claim mohanam a hoary past?

mridangamkid · Post by **mridangamkid** » 26 Jun 2009, 03:52

Who said humans made it? It was obviously Lord Krishna's flute!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 26 Jun 2009, 04:29

Yes! They did also locate a sign

Achtung
achyutan FlÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¶te spielte hier auf Brindabahn

Shivadasan · Post by **Shivadasan** » 26 Jun 2009, 07:32

Thanks for the fantastic posting

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 26 Jun 2009, 07:46

CML,
In stiches in Tuebingen...

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 26 Jun 2009, 08:31

girish_a · Post by **girish_a** » 26 Jun 2009, 11:45

It is time flutists of this forum united to share and discuss the secrets of our trade. What do you say, VK and all? We feel kinda ignored in these forums, don't we

?

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 26 Jun 2009, 15:13

Ignored? Never!

Please do enter into such discussion --- as far as we can understand, we will be most interested to hear it

I wonder if they tried to play this ancient flute? I would guess not, it would probably be bad for its conservation, but what we most want to know is what it sounds like! Let them make a replica and try it.

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 26 Jun 2009, 15:48

Blowing into things must feel almost like eating them. I wouldn't do that to anything made of bone!

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 26 Jun 2009, 18:31

Amazing. Good catch VK.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 26 Jun 2009, 19:27

Interesting indeed. But I am floored by the already existing timeline of 30000 years! Actually even the 19000 years

I wonder how any different notes/intervals can be played with this flute (5 assuming techniques were rudimentary?) - and what their spacing would be. That can shed some light on say how old certain scales are.

Arun

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 26 Jun 2009, 22:29

Maybe each person made their own scale!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 27 Jun 2009, 07:27

girish_a wrote:It is time flutists of this forum united to share and discuss the secrets of our trade. What do you say, VK and all? We feel kinda ignored in these forums, don't we ?

Good idea. I started the thread here: http://rasikas.org/forums/post125569.html#p125569

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 27 Jun 2009, 11:02

arunk wrote:I wonder how any different notes/intervals can be played with this flute (5 assuming techniques were rudimentary?) - and what their spacing would be. That can shed some light on say how old certain scales are.Arun

Too early and not enough data to speculate. We don't even know for sure if they are indeed "flutes".

----------------------------------------------------------------

As an aside, a simple first order relationship between number of holes and available intervals can be developed as follows:

1. If n is the number of holes, then (n + 1) notes can be generated. Here's an example for 4 holes, "C" signifying closed and "O" open, the left extreme being the hole closest to the blowing end of the flute (whether side blown or end blown):

Note 1: C C C C
Note 2: C C C O
Note 3: C C O O
Note 4: C O O O
Note 5: O O O O

The simple model of the flute does not generate any unique sounds for any transposed fingering. So all holes following the first open hole can be construed as open regardless of whether or not they are physically closed.

2. If N notes can be generated, then NC2 intervals can be generated. So for the case of 4 holes above, we saw that the number of notes N = 5. So the number of intervals is
NC2 = 5C2 = 5!/((5-2)! * 2!)
= 10.

3. If we assign names to the notes in the example, we can do so as follows:

SA: C C C C
RE: C C C O
GA: C C O O
MA: C O O O
PA: O O O O

The valid intervals would be:

SA-RE, SA-GA, SA-MA, SA-PA, RE-GA, RE-MA, RE-PA, GA-MA, GA-PA, MA-PA

Needless to say, many of these will likely be non-unique and we may have fewer number of unique intervals.

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 27 Jun 2009, 11:44

If we have five notes, they would probably been chosen the "pentatonic" series: the mohanam-madhyamavati-shuddha saveri-shuddha dhanyasi series.

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 27 Jun 2009, 12:51

Srikanth alas...there we go again...having opened the pandora's box of speculating without enough data, might as well go the full hog!

The first thing that struck me seeing those pictures is that the spacing between the holes is very wide for the length shown (and of marginally less importance, the diameter of the pipe). Of course it may have been broken off, etc.. This indicates very large intervals.

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 27 Jun 2009, 14:58

Will a flute of the same geometry made using different materials produce the same pitches?

Will the relative pitches be same?

I'm supposing the quality of sound will be different, in any case?

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 27 Jun 2009, 15:14

Will a flute of the same geometry made using different materials produce the same pitches?
Yes. But exactly identical geometry in all dimensions.

Will the relative pitches be same?
Yes.

I'm supposing the quality of sound will be different, in any case?
Yes and No. In my experience, Delrin (Acetal) is a good approximation to wood in terms of tonality. Delrin is also the #1 choice nowadays for Irish flutes which are very similar to south Indian flutes.

gn.sn42 · Post by **gn.sn42** » 27 Jun 2009, 16:52

nick H wrote:I wonder if they tried to play this ancient flute? I would guess not, it would probably be bad for its conservation, but what we most want to know is what it sounds like! Let them make a replica and try it.

They did make a replica of one of the ivory flutes from the same period. A sample is available with the New York Times article.

Update: A CD, Klangwelten der Altsteinzeit, has been issued featuring music played on this replica flute.

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 27 Jun 2009, 17:15

From gn.sn42's link, it looks like it was indeed designed for mohanam (meaning it can be used for it's grahabhedams also).

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 27 Jun 2009, 17:47

uday, thanks for #17. Exactly what I was wondering about

! I still have to digest the formula for NC2 but I get the gist. Nice job!

Arun

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 27 Jun 2009, 18:23

Oh dear, something has happened to my PC sound set up

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 27 Jun 2009, 18:34

Thanks gn.sn42 or the links! Based on the sample of the replica, it is major pentatonic (mohanam).

But, in order to do graha-bedham (effectively) I would expect the range of the flute to be wider (?). So if it is pentatonic, I would assume you want 10 consecutive intervals, and thus 9 holes (???). Not sure I am thinking through this correctly. But I think even if it was so, this would be too speculative for me.

Arun

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 27 Jun 2009, 21:06

Thanks gn.sn42 for those links. The sample audio is awesome.

I read the NYT article a couple of times to understand what this is a replica of. It looks to be the replica of the 3 hole flute found a few years ago. Now Uday's formula states that you can make 4 notes out of it. Do you all hear only four distinct notes or five distinct notes in that sample?

Uday, beyond fingering, through tilt and blow control how many other notes one can reasonably produce?

girish_a · Post by **girish_a** » 27 Jun 2009, 22:16

How Carnatic-esque that sounds! Mohana raga it is. Their choice of that tune for the sample is significant; indeed it seems only natural that the first strains of music produced by human beings were in the pentatonic.

girish_a · Post by **girish_a** » 27 Jun 2009, 22:19

Oh, but again, that flute can only produce four notes...So I was wrong about saying it was pentatonic.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 27 Jun 2009, 22:31

PC audio restored, and sample listened to. Many thanks!

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 27 Jun 2009, 22:33

vasanthakokilam wrote:Uday, beyond fingering, through tilt and blow control how many other notes one can reasonably produce?

Important question. As I said, the formulas indicate only a "first order" model, not adequate for any reasonable music making.

As to exactly how many notes each hole can produce due to blow control, there's no definitive answer. Different factors affect it including flute construction, hole spacing, the actual hole in question and skill in blowing. In general the following may be assumed:

1. An octave can be produced for all holes. So that doubles the number of sounds available.

2. For some, the 3rd harmonic can be produced. In a south Indian flute, the G3/M1 configuration with 7 holes closed can produces 3 notes...M1...S...M1 (octave). Of course, because of other factors M1 may end up sounding like G3.

The tilt, depending on expertise can generate close to 2 semitone range but probably only one semitone range in practical. Also, the tilt does not work well during octave blowing (such as mel Sa in the south indian flute). Also, the range of the tilt depends on the wall thickness and the thicker the wall, the greater the tilt range.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 28 Jun 2009, 06:18

Uday: Excellent. Thanks for the explanation.

I will have to play/experiment with what you say about the 7 holes closed configuration producing G, M1, S, M1' with just blow control. I understand the mandhra G with all seven holes closed. How do you produce M1, S and M1' .

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 28 Jun 2009, 06:54

vk,

Yes there's the G3 / M1 issue. So for M1-S-M1' keep the seventh hole (little finger of right hand) half open.

The third harmonic blowing is predominantly dependent on the length of the air column. As with everything the construction of the specific flute and skill matter. The lenght of the vibrating column of air in the flute may roughly be taken as the distance from the blow hole to the first open hole. So for lower shruti flutes, you make be able to get third harmonic blowing in the Pa configuration...P..R2..P'. I will check and give you a better idea. We don't use that blow for any music making in Indian music. Only the fundamental and octave blowing are used.

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 28 Jun 2009, 07:57

But, in order to do graha-bedham (effectively) I would expect the range of the flute to be wider (?). So if it is pentatonic, I would assume you want 10 consecutive intervals, and thus 9 holes (???). Not sure I am thinking through this correctly. But I think even if it was so, this would be too speculative for me.

Oh no, you can produce one additional harmonic by, I think, blowing harder. That means the range as it stands is SRGPD S'R'G'P'D'. So you can play some amount of grahabhedam, though for shuddha dhanyasi, you'll have to play a lot of mantra sthayi.