Guy Mendilow & Mendilusian Wine
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Bamboo Flute (Andy
Bergman): Bamboo
flutes have been common wherever bamboo grows naturally, most notably Asia (e.g.
China, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia). The contemporary bamboo flute used in the band
is constructed in a style more similar to Native American flutes than East Asian
ones, but it retains the distinctive sound qualities of bamboo. Bamboo is especially
well-suited as a flute material due to its inherent durability, lightness, hollowness,
and ease of cultivation. Yet flutes are, generally, such a basic instrument type
that almost every available sturdy material has been used around the world to
make them, a trait that has enabled them to survive long after instruments made
of softer organic materials (e.g. wood) have deteriorated. The oldest playable
instrument in the world, for example, is a 9,000 year-old flute of hollowed bird
bone found in Henan province, China.
