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Bamboo musical instruments

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– Overview:
Bamboo used for flutes, mouth organs, saxophones, trumpets, drums, and xylophones.

– Flutes:
– Types of bamboo flutes worldwide: dizi, xiao, shakuhachi, palendag, jinghu.
– In Indian subcontinent, bamboo flute is popular, associated with Lord Krishna.
– Polynesian hula instruments made of bamboo: nose flute, rattle, stamping pipes, jaw harp.
Bamboo in Australian didgeridoo construction.

– Other bamboo instruments:
– Indonesia and Philippines use bamboo for kolintang, angklung, bumbong, and slit drums.
– Philippine banda kawayan features bamboo marimba, angklung, panpipes, bumbong.
– Las Piñas Bamboo Organ in Philippines has bamboo pipes.
– Chapman stick and khene are also made using bamboo.
– Madagascar’s national instrument, valiha, is a bamboo tube zither.

– Manufacture of guitars and ukuleles:
Bamboo used in making bamboo ukuleles with solid cross laminated bamboo strips.

– Sources and references:
– Mercurio’s work on traditional music of Southern Philippines.
– Origins and development of bamboo music.
– Authority control databases in Germany.

Bamboo's natural hollow form makes it an obvious choice for many musical instruments. In South and South East Asia, traditional uses of bamboo the instrument include various types of woodwind instruments, such as flutes, and devices like xylophones and organs, which require resonating sections. In some traditional instruments bamboo is the primary material, while others combine bamboo with other materials such as wood and leather.

Wind instruments made of bamboo played by students in Talaud, North Sulawesi, Indonesia.
An example of a slit drum or scraper from the Philippines known as a kagul by the Maguindanaon people
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