My Pan Flutes' Development
by Douglas Bishop

    The ideas for my pan flutes' material and design first came to me years ago, when I was a wandering minstrel. Traveling in many diverse climates, I had to fight a constant battle against the elements in order to keep my wooden and bamboo pan flute from being ruined by moisture and dryness, and there was always the risk of breakage, cracking, fraying, and all the other problems associated with wood and bamboo. I kept thinking, "There has to be a way to build pan flutes capable of withstanding such conditions". Such a solution seems at first obvious: use a manmade material. This approach, however, presents its own challenges, most notably in terms of tonal and resonance quality.

    As many pan flute builders are aware, manmade materials often leave much to be desired in terms of resonance and sound quality. A glass artist friend of mine told me he had found a way to solve this problem, but I was initially extremely skeptical. After he sent me some sample material with which to build a prototype pan flute, I was amazed at the sound quality. He made a believer out of me! He told me he had borrowed the idea for the formula from the techniques potters used for tempering their pots - pieces of old pots ground to a powder and added to the wet clay for strength. He used a temper of glass crystal (a highly resonant material) ground to a powder, and he mixed the powder with the polymer base material while it was still viscous. The rest was easy. He cut a mold out of steel, and he molded 150 cm sections of tube to my specifications (wall thickness, diameter). It worked! The resulting pan flutes are larger and heavier than wooden or bamboo pan flutes, but the tubes can stand up to incredible punishment, they are invulnerable to weather conditions, and they deliver very earthy and rich tonal quality.


24-tube same diameter pan flute range (built by Douglas Bishop)
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    The tubes that produce the higher notes on a traditionally-styled pan flute become thinner as well as shorter, and this often results in piercing and very strident, unsubtle tones, resembling a child's whistle more than a fine soloist concert instrument. I used an innovation of my own to soften the high notes. I keep all of the tubes the same diameter. They require more breath, but the tones are bolder, with enhanced timbre, and a wider range of tone colors becomes possible. I got the idea from the Japanese bamboo flute, the Shakuhachi, which has only five very large finger holes, but produces an astonishing range of tone colors. From a scientific point of view, widening the tubes to create a less strident note makes sense: when an air column is forced into a thinner tube, the air will be under greater pressure, and the sound will be more shrill. The opposite is true of wider tubes.

24-tube same-diameter pan flute range (built by Douglas Bishop)

G  A  B  C  D  E  F#  G  A  B  C  D  E  F#  G  A  B  C  D  E  F#  G  A  B

22-tube scaled-diameter alto pan flute range (standard Romanian Nai)

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    One of the inherent characteristics of a pan flute, whether same-diameter or scaled-diameter, is the high notes will sound disproportionately loud to the lower notes. However, there are two methods I know that can lessen this tendency:

    1. The use of a less tightly-concentrated air stream by the player (using greater air output in combination with relaxed lips) can reduce the perceived volume of a given high note, provided that one gains enough proficiency with such a blowing technique. The diameters of a scaled-diameter pan flute can be quite small in proportion to the same pan flute's lower notes, and this smaller diameter creates the necessity of a smaller lip position (emboucure) to play. For beginners, this can lead to difficulty in relaxing the lips in order to produce clear notes, since the necessary muscles are forced to contract. On the other hand, a wider tube diameter will require a wider lip position, which will naturally require less contraction of the muscles that are used for this purpose. A more relaxed (and therefore more effective) lip position is more easily achieved.

    2. The design of the pan flute can alter this tendency. The standard range of a 22-tube, scaled-diameter Romanian nai has very high notes, and these are the notes which tend to give beginners the most difficulty. I, myself, began my pan flute studies at the age of ten, and I began learning with the Romanian nai, and a Romanian teacher. In time, I devised my same-diameter design for all the reasons I have already written. As a result, the usable range of my pan flutes became greater. I also learned the necessary techniques for playing same-diameter pan flutes, partly through my own research, and partly through learning the techniques used by players of other pan flute forms. The Romanian nai and other scaled-diameter pan flutes are fine instruments, but it is my view that the same-diameter pan flutes have the potential for much broader musical applications, beyond the music forms typically associated with the pan flute (Romanian folk music, classic, Andean folk music, etc.).