Whistle pot

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Whistle pot with two bodies

Whistling pot or whistling vessel , Spanish vaso silbador ( silbador or chiflador , " piper "), also huaco silbador , English whistling pot , French vase siffleur , is a type of vessel flute made of clay, which is known from pre-Columbian Central and South America . Vessel flutes have a flared body instead of the usual flute tube. Simple whistle pots are to be distinguished from whistle pots with two bodies. The vessels are usually zoomorphic or anthropomorphic .

History and use

The oldest whistle pots were made around 500 BC. Found in temples, residences and graves of warriors and children of the Vicús culture in northern Peru . The whistling pots mainly had a ritual function in ceremonies in which the consumption of drinks was common, so the pots were filled with water, chicha and alcoholic beverages. Another important function was ornamental, this partly linked to the musical one, in that the tones produced with the whistle pot resemble the corresponding sound of the animals or people depicted in the vessel.

Sound generation

Driving the liquid in a whistle pot
Sound generation in the head of the second room

The clay is created by blowing against the sharp edge of a blowhole. Since an important function of the whistle pot was to hold liquids, the instrument was usually used at the same time. In the two-body whistle pots, the connected cavities were filled with water or chicha (corn beer). The stream of air blown through the narrow neck into the first room drives its water or chicha into the second, where it meets the cutting edge. Then the air flow is directed through the so-called cut (the space between the cutting edge and core gap) on the coupled ball and forces it out through the head, creating a sound. The timbre of the instrument is strongly influenced by the liquid contained in the whistle bowl .

literature

  • Sibyl Marcuse : A Survey of Musical Instruments. Harper & Row Inc., New York 1975, pp. 598f
  • Samuel Martí: Music history in pictures: Old America . (Volume 2: Music of Antiquity , Delivery 7) Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1970, pp. 154f
  • Ruth Midgley et al. a. (Ed.): Musical instruments of the world . Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verlag 1979, ISBN 3-570-05576-0

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