LL-L "Music" 2009.03.06 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 06 March 2009 - Volume 03
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Music

I wrote about bagpipes and related musical instruments in Medieval
Saxon-speaking areas, and I mentioned the following:



Apparently, a *platerspil* (Middle German *blaturspil*) is a much smaller
type of pipe, consisting of a wooden mouthpiece and the main part of the
flute with play holes, both attached to a bladder (*plater*, *blatur*) as
sack.



Please see here:
http://www.lutherschauspiel.de/index.php?id=26

http://www.u-roming.de/camerata/platerspil.html

http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/tml/16th/LUSMUS_07GF.gif



It seems to me that there are remarkable and perhaps not coincidental
similarities between this instrument and the *huluxiao* (葫蘆簫) or *hulusi* (
葫蘆絲) of China.



http://www.chineseinstruments.org/page.php?type=Wind&inst=Hulusi&file=Hulusi_1

http://www.chineseinstruments.org/page.php?type=Wind&inst=Hulusi&file=Hulusi_2



While the *platerspil* uses a bladder as an air chamber, the *huluxiao* ~ *
hulusi* uses a gourd for the same purpose. The latter can have one or more
pipes, while the former has only one. (The type of gourd itself is of
non-Chinese origin as its name with *hú* (葫) suggests.)

The flexible air chamber (bladder) of the *platerspil* may well have led to
the development of the inflexible air chamber of the *huluxiao* ~
*hulusi*as well as to the development of a larger, squeezable air
chamber as in the
bagpipe family. I have a hunch that we are dealing with cross-Eurasia
technology (as in so many other cases).

The *huluxiao* ~ *hulusi* is a "barbarian" instrument, i.e. is not an
invention of China's dominant Han (æ¼¢) ethnicity. Relatives of it are played
traditionally among various ethnic groups of Southern China and in
neighboring countries (some of which have been absorbed among the Han). Its
air chamber is not unlike that of the *hujia* (胡笳), an instrument associated
with "northern barbarians", specifically with the Xiongnu (*Hsiung-nu*, 匈奴),
the eastern branch of the Huns that kept biting at China's ankles for quite
some time while its western branch kept biting at Europe's ankles.
Descendants of the *hujia* are still being played in Northern China, also in
part among ethnic minorities.



http://www.chineseinstruments.org/page.php?type=Wind&inst=Hujia&file=Hujia_1
http://www.chineseinstruments.org/page.php?type=Wind&inst=Hujia&file=Hujia_2
http://www.chineseinstruments.org/page.php?type=Wind&inst=Hujia&file=Hujia_3
(read "Altai" instead of "Altair")

As you can see, aside from the air chamber, the *hujia* resembles an oboe or
shawm. You can see a musician playing it on camelback in a sculpture of the
Tang dynasty (唐朝, 618-907), a time when China was teaming with foreigners:



http://www.chineseinstruments.org/page.php?type=Intro&file=Intro_11



The European Renaissance shawm has an air chamber also, albeit a perforated
one, and there are medieval ancestors of this instrument:



http://www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/renshawm.htm



Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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