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I've been in bigger jails than you've been towns - Arthur Jackson aka Peg Leg Pete aka Peg Leg Sam, in Bruce Bastin's Crying for the Carolines, p.85

Author Topic: About pan pipes  (Read 8208 times)

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BackdoorMan

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About pan pipes
« on: November 25, 2007, 12:05:47 AM »
I'd like to try my hand at the pan pipes, or quills, but know nothing about them. I'm hoping someone can point me to an approximation of the instrument that Henry Thomas played. I have seen some cane pipes from Peru. Would a set of those fit the bill? How many pipes and what length to approximate the range Henry Thomas got from his? Where can they be purchased?

I will be grateful for any and all advice.

BDM

Offline waxwing

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2007, 01:40:05 AM »
Hey BDM.

A few tips on finding already existing info on Weenie Campbell:

You can search the forum by selecting Search Forum from the left column menu, one of the subheadings under Forum.

You can go to the top of any Forum page and select the link for Tags (there's also one for Search here, too) and that will take you to an alphabetized list where you can easily find the subject you are looking for, select it and see all the threads that have been given that tag.

I've tagged this thread in case there are further developments so you can go down to the bottom of the messages on this page and select the tag "quills" and see what we've got so far.

Also I would recommend googling 'quills blues' and you will find an excellent site titled The Quills.

Good luck.

All for now.
John C.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2007, 01:41:30 AM by waxwing »
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Offline uncle bud

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2007, 07:45:19 PM »
Hi BDM,

Perhaps KC King will stop by and comment. He has a set of quills and I've played Henry Thomas tunes with him at the Port Townsend workshop. They are quite small, not like the Peruvian ones I've seen but I can't recall where KC got his.

BackdoorMan

  • Guest
Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2007, 07:49:04 PM »
Waxwing,

Thanks for the tips on searching the site. I didn't know about the highly useful search function.

I had googled "quills" and other keywords, and found the site you mentioned. I was (still am) hoping that someone can point me to a commercially available instrument to try out.

All the best,
BDM

BackdoorMan

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2007, 07:54:34 PM »
Andrew,

Thanks very much. I hope to hear from KC or someone else in the know.

BDM

Offline Dave in Tejas

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2007, 07:13:10 AM »
Hi.
I've seen some pipes at Elderly Music, in their mail catalog. Don't know if they will show up online. Have no other knowledge.

Offline Bunker Hill

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2007, 12:54:15 PM »
What follows has no relevance to the matter under discussion but for a simpleton like myself have found it a useful "aide memoire" by whom and where I have recordings of the instrument. It is extracted from Mack McCormick's introductory notes to the booklet accompanying the 1977 Henry Thomas double Herwin LP:

Another almost unique aspect of Henry Thomas' recorded legacy is his use of the panpipes. It is the simplest of instruments, needing only some cane from a river bottom to be cut into tubes of progressively shorter length and bound together side-by-side to form an instrument that is probably as old as man's sense of melody. Until the era of the first World War virtually every Southern youngster seems to have made himself a set of these panpipes or "quills" which ranged in size from three and four note models on up to sets of ten or more notes. Both Bill Monroe and Mississippi John Hurt have described making such instruments when they were children, tuning them up by dropping pebbles into each tube until it sounded the desired pitch. Yet only four men have ever been recorded playing this instrument which went out of fashion as inexpensive harmonicas became widely available. [note 18] Of those recorded, Henry Thomas offers the only extensive sample of this once commonplace instrument.

Note 18
Recollections of the quills are numerous and widespread. The instrument was discussed in 1886 in George Cable's frequently quoted articles for The Century Magazine describing traditions in Louisiana: "To all this there was sometimes added a Pan's pipe of but three reeds, made from single joints of the common brake cane, and called by English-speaking negroes 'the quills?. One may even at this day hear the black lad, sauntering home at sunset behind a few cows that he has found near the edge of the canebreak whence he has cut his three quills, blowing and hooting, over and over."
The quills (the word means simply a hollow tube) are distinct from the quill (singular) which is a kind of fife with finger holes which is still heard in some areas of the South and which was the instrument featured in a 1927 recording by Big Boy Cleveland. The quills or syrinx or panpipes that Henry Thomas plays were possibly fixed in a shoulder rack but more probably held in a box attached to the side of the guitar.
In spite of many, readily-heard memories of this instrument, the only other known recordings of it are those made in 1942 for the Library of Congress by Alec Askew and Sid Hemphill, plus two selections made in 1959 by Hemphill (these are available on Prestige 25010 and Atlantic 1346), plus three selections recorded in 1964 by Joe Patterson (on Vanguard VSD 79182).
 

Offline Dave in Tejas

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #7 on: November 26, 2007, 04:09:48 PM »
Bunker.
What a wonderful reference, hardly a "no relevance" post, instead a complete history.

Offline Bunker Hill

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #8 on: November 27, 2007, 11:32:58 AM »
What a wonderful reference, hardly a "no relevance" post, instead a complete history.
Glad it was of interest.

Prompted me dig out the Vanguard LP "Traditional Music At Newport 1964, Part One" and play the delightful segue Fox-Chase-Sheer Them Sheep Even-Casey Jones by Joe Patterson. "The only known examples of ten-reed panpipes (or quills)" says Ralph Rinzler in his notes.

Offline KC King

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2007, 09:40:27 AM »
Hello - I'm kinda late to the party here.

I have also looked around for commercially available pipes and have been comming up empty. I called Jere Canote ( Seattle, Old Timey/ Novelty etc. musician) to see how he got his. He went and bought some tourist Peruvian pipes and tuned them with a disc sander. It's hard to find eastern European or South American pipes that are pitched high enough. The web sites that sell them don't tell you what key they're in either. I have a set that I bought at the Seattle Folklife Festival. They are pitched to G Major Diatonic from D below the scale to A above.

Henry Thomas played a major pentatonic probably keyed near Ab. Most if not all of his songs except "Bulldoze Blues" are played within an octave from root to root.  I am very tempted at this point to just remove the 4th and 7ths from my pipes, because if I try to put them on a rack the reach is way too long. I really should just try to build a set. A lot of Asian Bamboo is to thick to use.
If I could get my hands on some North American cane - I would feel obligated do it. 

I don't know how helpful that is. There are web sites that give tips on building them - I found this one interesting http://www.panflutejedi.com/jean-paul-tutorial.html

Hope this helps - If you find any thing let me know!

KC
« Last Edit: December 16, 2007, 10:27:06 PM by KC King »
KC (Chris) King

Offline Slack

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2007, 10:41:05 AM »
KC, I say grow your own american bamboo -- there is a dealer in your neck of the woods.

Bamboo Gardens

A specialty retail and wholesale nursery

Location:

196th Ave NE & Highway 202, Redmond.
Mailing address:

5016-192nd Place NE
Redmond, WA 98074

Phone 425-868-5166
Fax 425-868-5360

http://www.sohl.com/Quills/Cane.htm

It will only take 4 or 5 years.  ;D

Actually, I'm going to Lafayette, LA in April for a music fest -- if I can remember (you could remind me) I'll look around a couple of river bottoms for some stands.

Offline KC King

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2007, 10:50:03 AM »
Slack -
   That's my next door neighbor - We are growing it, but I think it will take about 7-10 years at this rate.

KC
KC (Chris) King

Offline Dave in Tejas

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #12 on: December 14, 2007, 11:22:20 AM »
There is a bamboo forest near me, or it was there a few years ago, a big field near a swamp. It was Calcutta cane, in the past was cut for fishing poles. Maybe over the holidays I'll try to drive out there...

Offline KC King

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2007, 01:18:10 PM »
Dave -
   Where do you live? As far as my quick goggle search could take me Calcutta Cane should be an import that was use for fly fishing. Now if you live in Texas and there was a field by a swamp it may be a native cane which is what we are looking for. This would be the same stuff you might have used for simple fishin' poles as a youth, if you are from the south. Inner bore for long pieces is about 3/8th inch for the shortest about 1/4 inch.  The D (low note) on my set is about 5 1/2 inches from the node to the mouth the high A is about 1 1/2 from node to mouth. If you or Slack got some I would try to make a set for the provayer as well! I was going to warn slack that I asked around when I was in Helena, Arkansas, but it has been mercilessly eradicated from the river and near the cotton fields. Some friends of my cousin in Memphis, are botanist and say there are stands around in some parks, but I didn't make it up there. 
« Last Edit: December 15, 2007, 10:42:33 PM by KC King »
KC (Chris) King

Offline Slack

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Re: About pan pipes
« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2007, 02:47:37 PM »
Quote
I was going to warn slack that I asked around when I was in Helena, Arkansas, but it has been mercilessly eradicated from the river and near the cotton fields. Some friends of my cousin in Memphis, are botanist and say there are stands around in some parks, but I didn't make it up there.

KC, I'll be traveling with someone who is from Lafayette and her family still lives there -- and in fact they have property on a river and I'll bet they will have a good idea of where some might be growing.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2007, 07:52:17 PM by Slack »

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