Ethnomusicologist and life-long flute player Dale Olsen treats his readers to a fascinating six-continent tour in this comprehensive exploration and interpretation of “flutelore”—folktales, myths, poems, literature, song texts, ethnographies, and other stories having to do with flutes, flute players, and flute playing. He states that this is the first book “specifically about the lore of world flutes as found in legends, myths, poems, and other stories.”
Olsen observes that flutes “have always been the most common melody producers of people throughout the world.” He defines a flute as “an edge-type aerophone, meaning it is any instrument whose sound is produced by an aspirated stream of air…that strikes a sharp edge, creating audible sound waves.” For many, the word “flute” immediately brings to mind horizontally-held instruments similar in form to the modern Western orchestral flute. However, the flute family is remarkably varied and widespread, encompassing a multitude of forms which the author organizes, in an important new scheme of flute classification, into seven “Olsen categories” according to overall physical form or shape (single tube, multiple tubes, globular, vessel), orientation to the player (vertical, diagonal, horizontal), and mouthpiece type (duct, ductless, rimmed, notched, cross-blown). Examples include shakuhachi, nai, kaval, panpipe, ocarina, bansuri, kena (quena), fujara, recorder, pennywhistle, and Native American flutes.
Citing many examples from folklore, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and literature, presented in their entirety or in excerpted form, Olsen shows how the world’s cultures have endowed flutes with great power and magic. He contends that this is the case primarily due to the “direct use of the musician’s breath to produce a sound, and breath is the source of life itself,” and that therefore a flute’s sound is, in fact, “the sonic manifestation of the player’s soul.” While he never devalues other instruments or singers, he points out that they produce sound by use of a “secondary apparatus or technique such as a reed, buzzing of the lips, or vibration of the vocal cords,” implying, perhaps, that their music may be less vitally tied to the player’s life essence.
The stories Olsen gives us reveal how flute and whistle sounds extend beyond the limitations of human speech, song, and chant, functioning as direct vehicles for theurgy or communication with supernatural entities. He contends that flutes are the instruments most often chosen for such metaphysical functions. In fact, the flute players in the stories are not only children, men, and women, but often animals and supernatural beings as well. Of the human players portrayed, Olsen observes that many of them could be considered to be of low social status, and that “[s]urprisingly, ‘middle-class’ people, such as merchants, day workers, landlords, and the like, are seldom flute players in folklore.”
The book is organized into fourteen chapters, preceded by a prelude and followed by a conclusion. Each chapter covers a broad flute-related topic: flute types and flute making, flutes that talk, gender roles, sexuality and love magic, animals and nature, origin myths and heroes, protective powers, death, ethical and unethical behavior, socio-religious status of flutes and flute players, and flute sounds, timbres, and texture. Each chapter begins with a piece of flutelore related to its theme. Twenty-three illustrations and photographs enrich the text, and thorough notes, references, and indices round out this comprehensive work.
As a scholar who has traveled and studied widely, a flute collector and a player of many world flutes, Olsen commands a thorough knowledge of his subject matter. His presentation, synthesis, and interpretation of the material are deeply insightful, thought-provoking, and accessible both to the lay person and to the academic. This book will be a valuable addition to the libraries of institutions of learning as well as to all who love music and folklore. For us flute players, it offers an opportunity to discover how the cultures of the world have cherished the magical process we practice and love—the direct transformation of our breath into music—and incorporated it into their views of the world.
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[Review length: 656 words • Review posted on December 10, 2014]