Gentlemen: whenever you see a great big overgrown buck sitting at the mouth of some holler, or at the forks of some road, with a big slouch hat on, a blue celluloid collar, a celluloid, artificial red rose in his coat lapel, a banjo strung across his breast, and a-pickin' of Sourwood Mountain, fine that man, gentlemen, fine him! For if he hasn't already done something, he's a-going to - Josiah Combs, quoted in Old-Time Mountain Banjo
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?
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 »
Logged
"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." George Bernard Shaw
“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” Joseph Heller, Catch-22
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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...
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 »
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 »
I live in Beaumont, Tx. The growth I'm speaking of doesn't look like the native stuff, some of it was 2" dia. most smaller of course. I'm sure the old time cane poles were called calcutta, a famous sports shop near me cut it someplace local. This has got me curious, the owner of the field told me I could cut whatever I wanted, I just have to figure out where it was. I forgot, what was all this about?
That would be very cool if you can look into that. Who knows maybe I could start a business - I could sell them to all the 10 people who want them
Thanks for the information, KC. I don't think I'm up to the task of making a set -- not at all handy at that sort of thing. Let me know when you start that business. I'll be your first customer.
There was another man who recorded with pan pipes, and he did it on a commercial recording as late as 1951! 'Baby Please Don't Go' by John Lee on Federal. Sadly it wasn't issued, but you can find it on Document-5223, Rural Blues Vol. 1. 1934-1956.
John Lee was a really terrific guitarist on the 5 sides he cut with a reso in '51. Everything from a slide train song to a boogie. He did an album in the 60's but sadly it's of little interest.
There was another man who recorded with pan pipes, and he did it on a commercial recording as late as 1951! 'Baby Please Don't Go' by John Lee on Federal. Sadly it wasn't issued, but you can find it on Document-5223, Rural Blues Vol. 1. 1934-1956.
Welcome and thank you for reminding me about Baby Please Don't Go. It first appeared on the prewar compilation "Barefoot Bill's Hard Luck Blues" (Mamlish S-3812, 1983), I don't know what is said in the Document notes but those to the Mamlish speculate that the pan pipe player may have been John Patterson, an Alabamian recorded by Alan Lomax! The name doesn't appear in B&GR4 nor in Blues Records, the post war equivalent, but that's not to say Lomax didn't record him.
I can't find evidence of a 1960s LP by John Lee but he did record two sessions - Montgomery, Al, 2-3 Oct 1973 & Cambridge, Ma, 5 May 1974 - which were reealsed by Rounder in 1975.
OK KC, this week we are in search of the wild southern cane - that is if I don't get completely distracted by Festival International Louisiane... entirely possible.
In any case, Saturday afternoon Butch Guchereau is taking us on a swamp tour. (Butch's site: http://www.cajuncountryswamptours.com/index.html ) I figure if we haven't found any native cane by Saturday, that surely Butch will know where some is and I'll just tell him that you are willing to pay through the nose for it. A Weenie sticker to anyone who can pronounce Butch's last name.
Poo- yiii!
« Last Edit: April 20, 2008, 06:20:06 PM by Slack »
Slack - See what you can do. I read the line up for the festival.I haven't seen a WO-Music line up that good since WOMAD quit coming to Seattle. Have Fun! KC
Contact Edmond Badoux of Chaskinakuy http://www.chaskinakuy.com/. Along with playing Andean music, he makes and sells panpipes. I saw Dom Flemons of the Carolina Chocolate Drops playing the quills, and he directed me to Badoux. The Chaskinakuy web site has several ways for contacting him. I'm happy with the set I bought.
I've been listening to Sid Hemphill (quills) and Lucius Smith (banjo) playing "Emmaline, Take Your Time" on the Southern Journey Vol 3 61 Highway Mississippi CD. The notes refer to Hemphill using a four-note scale and sure enough photos of Hemphill show him with a set of quills that is only four pipes. He adds an extra note by the rhythmic interjection of vocal whoops.
It's a very pretty minute and a half of music, rather African sounding.
There is a solo recording of Hemphill doing "Emmaline, Take Your Time" on the Deep River of Song: Missississippi, Saints and Sinners CD. It also sounds like four pipes, but at the end of the track, after a brief Lomaxian interview segment, Hemphill plays a couple notes that are higher and not in the four-note scale, then the track ends. Another set of pipes perhaps, tuned higher?
You can hear the pipes and see some photos (not video) at the YouTube link below, which features pipes and drum. He's also shown holding a fife (perhaps responsible the high notes referred to above?).
Just some random quills adventures...
« Last Edit: February 08, 2010, 07:34:20 AM by uncle bud »