EncyclopediaOBLIQUE FLUTES

In the case of these flutes, the player blows the air to the edge of the tube, holding it in a oblique way. For example, the kaval from the Balkans and most of the flutes called “ney/nay” that originated in the Middle East are classified in this group.

The oldest known musical instruments in the Basque Country are some aerophones found in Isturits in the early 20^th century. They are pieces of bony tubes, and it is generally accepted that they are fragments of musical instruments. To date, it has been thought that they are flutes, specifically, oblique flutes. The musicians who have replicas of these instruments also play them this way.

In any case, some researchers do not rule out that they could be another type of aerophone (with a reed, or played by vibrating the lips). According to them, they may have had a mouthpiece made of perishable material that had been lost¹.

Isturits is a village in Lower Navarre where the first archaeological remains were found in the late 19th century in a phosphate plant (Normand et al., 2012, 162). Following that discovery there were two major digs; the first was directed by the archaeologist Emmanuel Passemard 1912 and 1923 and the second by René and Suzanne Saint-Périer 1928 and 1959.

According to the researchers (Mazo et al., 66), the site at Isturits is unique because of the large number of tubes with holes found there (more than twenty) and because samples of all the phases of the Upper Palaeolithic era have been found there (Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian). All the tubes are made of bird bone, many of them of vultures, and at least one with lammergeier (Gypaetus barbatus) bone. The technique used to make the holes is not constant but, according to the experts, they were made by scraping the wall of the bone rather than making holes in it (Ibíd., 75). The acoustic analyses reveal a pentatonic scale, which is not very common in current Basque music.

Future studies will probably give us more data on these musical instruments.

Mixel Etxekopar playing a reproduction of the Isturits flutes. (Photo: M. Etxekopar)

Juan Mari Beltran playing a reproduction of the Isturits flutes. (Photo: Soinuenea)

REFERENCES

¹ Musicians who have created replicas of the aerophones of Isturits have used different types of mouthpiece to do tests (Mazo Pérez et al., 2015, pp. 81-86): to play them as oblique flutes through a window; to play them by placing a single reed, or like a horn, making the lips vibrate.

SOURCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BUISSON, D. (1990). Les flûtes paléolithiques d’Isturitz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française, Tome 87 (10-12), 420-433.

FLINTOFF, B. (2004). Taonga Puoro; Singing treasures; The musical instruments of the Maori. Craig Potton Publishing.

MAZO PÉREZ, C., GARCÍA BENITO, C., ALCOLEA GRACIA, M. (2015). Un caso de Arqueología Experimental aplicado a la Arqueología Musical. SALDVIE, (15), 65-91.

NORMAND, C., GOUTAS, N., LACARRIÈRE, J., SIMONET, A. (2012). El Gravetiense de la cueva de Isturitz: nuevas investigaciones, nuevos datos. In De las Heras Martín, C., Lasheras Corruchaga, J. A., Arrizabalaga Valbuena, A., De la Rasilla Vives, M. (Ed.), Pensando el Gravetiense: nuevos datos para la región cantábrica en su contexto peninsular y pirenaico (161-183). Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.

DISCOGRAPHY

BELTRAN ARGIÑENA, J. M. (zuz.) (2014). Hots larretan [CD]. CDNO 37 NO-CD Records. L.G.: SS 1402-2014.

ETXEKOPAR, M. & ROSSÉ, F. (2013). Aspaldian [CD+DVD]. KD1302 ZTK diskak.