From about 40 years I have been studying pre-Hispanic flutes from southern Andes (Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru). From the firts approaches, in the 1980s, I noticed that many flutes share a similar structure of the internal tube that shows two internal diameters, one wider in the upper part, and one narrower in the lower part, thus I name it tubo complejo (complex tube). In organological terms, it seems it was intended to produce a special quality of the sound, but ¿what quality was it? This tube appears in different flute types, made in different material, in different cultures. The oldest ones are panpipes with several tubes made of ceramic, described in Paracas culture (700 bc-200 ac.) and in early Nazca (100-400 ac.), both in the dessert coast of southern Perú. [1][2][3][4][5] Another type of panpipe, almost reduced to one typology of four tubes, provided with a side handle, made of stone, and some made of wood, have been found in the highland of Oruro salt flat, Bolivia, from Yura culture (400-1200), 6 in Chile, from the northern dessert San Pedro culture (900-1200), the green dessert Diaguita culture (1200-1400), 7 the central valley's Aconcagua culture (1200-1550), in Argentina adjacent regions from Jujuy to Mendoza. 8 A later version, with two symmetrical handles appear in Chile southern lake region, in Pre-Mapuche culture (¿1300-1600?). 9 Resuming, we have a long tradition of a special tube-flute construction that covers many centuries and a great region of southern Andes, whose history I resume in two articles. 7,8 Stone flutes presents a paradoxical construction dilemma, because it is one of the most difficult material to use for the construction of flutes (specially with a precise bore as complex tube), but this effort does not improve the sound, as all acoustic research made by acoustic specialist Arnaud Gérard prove. 10 But, thanks to this stone flutes, we have an archeological record in central and southern Andes where organic materials (wood, cane) have not been preserved, because of climate conditions.
ContinuityMeanwhile, we know that in present day central Chile exist an ancient tradition of ritual flute-dancers called bailes chinos 1 that uses flutes with complex tube, similar to the prehispanic ones, made of wood. They formed orchestras of many flutes, plus one or more drums. With Claudio Mercado and other investigators, 2 we began a study of the bailes chinos traditions in Aconcagua valley, near Santiago. The sound of their flutes, that they called sonido rajado (thorn sound), is very different to any other flute sound we know; it is a strong, complex, dissonant and vibrated sound with multiple harmonics and acoustic properties (multiphony, batimiento, dissonance, dynamic vibrato) whose unstable structural characteristics is not easy to describe. 11 This sound was so strange to European ears that we find not a single description of it in 500 years of colonial or republican writings. 3 Chinos (as musicians self-define) have a great esthetic value for this sound, they are capable to distingu...