Panpipes

Andean Siku  with Chinese and Philippine panpipes

 Panpipes (Philippine)

Submitted by Crisouli Tsaglis

History

 There is not a direct way to pinpoint when and where the bamboo panpipes of the Philippines came from. This is because there is not a written information about music before the arrival of Magellan in 1521.[i]  Panpipes, however, are found around the world and date back as far as 6^th millennium BC in Europe, and 4^th century AD China.[ii]

The Philippine panpipes seem to be located primarily in the Northern Philippines. Since there are many different dialects and regions, the panpipes can be also called “dad’ayu”, “dewdewas”, “diwas”, “diw-diwas”, and “diw’as”.[iii]   The first part of the word, “Diwdiw” means approach, and the suffix “as” means distance.[iv] 

Physical Description

 The panpipes fall under the category of aerophones.  They are made of bamboo reeds of different lengths tied together side by side in a raft shape. Usually they consist of five pipes but they can vary from five to eight reeds. Finger holes do not exist in the pipes. The musician blows across the top of the pipes to produce sounds.[v] 

Function

 The panpipes are rarely used today. Traditionally they were not only used in many festivities of feasts and celebrations held after harvest, but also contributed to courting, at work, during recreation and relaxation.[vi] They were also used to accompany the folk-tales. Women have been known to play the panpipes in traditional Philippine society.[vii]

Panpipe