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#dai

2 posts1 participant0 posts today
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Alexander Goeres 𒀯
eine kleine ablenkung von dem alltagskram: importierte glasgefäße im china des ersten jhrt.

#wissenschaft #archäologie #china #dai #DeutschesArchäologischesInstitut #archaeology #science

DAI wrote the following post Mon, 10 Feb 2025 11:55:13 +0100
#JoGA für einen entspannten Wochenstart: Das Journal of Global Archaeology unserer #KAAK_DAI gibt es im inzwischen 5. Jahr als #OpenAccess Publikation!

Im aktuellen ersten Beitrag dieses Jahres untersucht B. Borell den Import "westlicher" #Glasgefäße nach #China und in das Tarim-Becken im 1. Jahrtausend n. Chr., deren sozialen Bedeutung und Verbreitungswege:

https://publications.dainst.org/journals/joga/issue/view/605
Montage, die die Abbildung zweier antiker Glasgefäße zeigt; das braune Cover der JoGA 2025 ist rechts im Vordergrund klein darüber projiziert.
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🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
I have played woodwinds and adjacent seemingly forever. (I think I started at 6 with a recorder.) They remain my favourite overall class of instruments (though for just noodling around I also really enjoy the kalimba).

The tendency in western instrumentation is to streamline. As a result there's not that much variety in musical instruments of a given class. Contrariwise in China they keep every instrument from every subculture down the ages, meaning that I've built up a rather sizable collection of assorted woodwinds (and adjacent) from the fiendishly difficult 管子 (guǎnzi or lit. "pipe") to the slightly simpler 箫 (xiāo or end-blown flute).

But the most interesting instruments are the folk instruments.

Every year, during Spring Festival, I like to pamper myself with one major purchase. This year's major purpose is a 葫芦丝 (húlúsī, often translated as "gourd flute"), an instrument associated mainly with the Dai people. The literal translation of the name is "calabash silk", with the former referring to what it is traditionally made of—bamboo pipes stuck into a calabash gourd—and the latter a description, in effect, of the sound's timbre.

Modern hulusi are made of any number of things: wood, plastic, resin, metal, even ceramics. But for me, I only want the traditional which means I got a hulusi made of bamboo pipes pushed into a calabash.

Only I had to be weird and get one made of a "single belly" gourd, not the far more common "double-belly" gourd.

This instrument is something special. It has a rather limited tessitura, a dynamic range that varies by what note you play, both mildly annoying, but for that has a wonderful timbre that is fully worthy of the name "silk". As with most traditional Chinese instruments there is a lot of technique involved in playing it well and a skilled player (read: not me) can bend pitches using just breath control among other tricks to make it fully chromatic.

#hulusi #woodwind #dai #TraditionalMusic #葫芦丝 #木管乐器 #傣族 #传统音乐
This s the case the hulusi came in. It's brown vinyl with fancy calligraphy over it that looks like what you'd expect a flute case or the like to look like except for an odd bulge at one end.
Opening the case and you can see why the bulge. The three bamboo pipes in parallel penetrate a large, single-bellied calabash gourd and that gourd is *large*. Large enough I can't get my hand around it. Also visible in the case (this is basically an unboxing photoessay) is a decorative piece of knotwork with a faux-jade ring as well as a little satchet with some sundries for maintenance.
The hulusi, with the red knotwork attached now, lies against a burgundy background. This angle presents the whole length and shows all three pipes and how they enter the calabash. Only the central pipe is playable. (This can be determined by noticing it's the only one with holes along its length; six of them, to be precise.) The pipes to either side are drone pipes and when unplugged will produce only one tone. This way the instrument can be its own (albeit monotonous) accompaniment.
With a closeup of the bottom we can see a few elements of the instrument's design. First the drone pipes are cut in such a way as to leave a long tail that reaches almost to the bottom of the central (playing) pipe. They are tied snugly to the central pipe by these tails. Each pipe has a plug, in this case made of dense foam rubber, though traditionally I would guess it would be more like batting wrapped in waxed gauze or something similar. The plugs are tied tightly by the same twine that ties the drones to the main pipe, and are connected to the same place that the twine holds the pipes together. This means removing a plug for the drone doesn't risk losing it. The twine is not traditional twine (it's definitely an artificial twine), but has the right colour to look like it might be.
#传统音乐
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