Play the Bird Flute!

by Howard Fosdick © FolkFluteWorld.com

Have you ever heard of the bird flute?

Several hundred years ago it was integral to French and English music.

People would play the high-pitched flutes to teach their pet birds to sing.

They might also play them outdoors to communicate with birds. And, composers wrote tunes that imitated bird songs and incorporated these into their compositions.

Today you can reach across the ages to those long-deceased musicians and participate in these activities yourself.

Play your bird flute to your local avians, and see how they respond! This article -- and the one that follows -- tell you how to do it.

This post explains what bird fluting is, and how it came to be. The subsequent article explains how to play, where to get an instrument, and everything else you need to know to enjoy the hobby of bird fluting.

Origins

Bird flutes date back much further than a few hundred years. The Natufians, a hunter-gatherer people who lived in the Levant between 13,000 and 9,700 BC, created bird flutes.

They took the bones from birds like the Eurasian teal and the Eurasian coot -- two duck-like birds -- and turned them into whistles by making fingering holes.

While often called "bird flutes," these are more accurately described as whistles or bird calls. They didn't play scales or music as we know it. Instead, they imitated bird calls, such as those of the Common Kestrel and the Eurasian Sparrowhawk.

Click on the image to hear what they sounded like.

These whistles were probably used for hunting. They could either scare or lure birds into the range of armed hunters. Some believe they were also intended to communicate with birds, or perhaps to spiritually commune with them.

Whatever the case, early humankind was clearly intrigued by bird whistles. Many that archaeologists have unearthed appear well-worn, indicating frequent use. Some appear to have been worn around the neck as ritual jewelry or totem animals.

The Modern Bird Flute Emerges

By the early modern period, musical instruments like flageolets, recorders, and early penny whistles had evolved and become popular. It was a time of musical discovery and experimentation, before instruments became standardized in the forms we recognize today.

Flageolets became especially popular among the French and English. The high-pitched among them were commonly called bird flutes. (See the photo examples.)

Bird flutes were tiny instruments, measuring between 6 and 10 inches long. Most were keyless, even though larger flageolets often featured various mechanical keys. Most were made from various woods, but ivory specimens exist, too.

They differed from recorders in their number of fingering holes. (French flageolets usually have four top holes and two thumb holes, while English makes traditionally have 6 top holes and the occasional thumb hole.)

These bird flutes were fully musically capable. They also continued the ancient traditions in that they enabled musicians to communicate with birds.

One of their uses was to teach pet birds to sing. Their high-pitched but sweet voices were ideal for the task. They can truly sound like birds.

Here's a video of Philippe Bolton, expert French flageolet maker, giving a first lesson to a bird with his bird flute.

These instructions from France in 1818 explain how to teach your bird to sing by using a flageolet.

They suggest it might take anywhere from two to six months to teach your bird to sing.

Bird flutes were also used to imitate bird songs. These were then incorporated into longer, more sophisticated musical forms.

Entire compositions would be dedicated to the "music of birds."

For an example, click on the painting of the two female flutists. The song is "A Prelude for the Birds". It was written by famous English composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695), and played here by Ensemble La Rêveuse, with Sébastien Marq.

People played music to wild birds outdoors, too. (This was an era when pet squirrels were common, after all.)

By the early 1900s, bird flageolets had faded into history.

Not only had penny whistles and recorders assumed their modern forms, but there was great emphasis on modern mechanized instruments like the concert flute, clarinet, saxophone, and all the rest.

But here's what's interesting... You can still play the bird flute today!

That's because it's assumed the form of the highest pitched recorder. Called the garklein, it is tuned one full octave above the soprano recorder.

The garklein recorder sounds very much like the bird flutes of the early modern age. Get a garklein, and you can play all the bird tunes of that era. Everything musicians did with a bird flute flageolet, you can do with a modern garklein. In fact, some call it "the bird flute."

Go out into the outdoors and startle your local avians with your new-found voice. Play to them, communicate with them, call to them. It's all possible with a garklein.

Last Thoughts

I enjoy playing my bird flute in my yard and in the woodlands. It really intrigues my local cardinal couple, while the house finches appear interested... but only at a wary distance. I look forward to seeing how my resident robin pair respond.

The next article tells you everything you might want to know about the garklein: what it sounds like, what makes it unique, how to play it, and which might be best to buy.

And, of course, how to use your bird flute to teach a bird to sing!

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