G'day again Alison,

I did mean to ask if the flutes you have are fixed pitch or tunable. Most ti tzu I have seen are made of a single piece of bamboo. The simplest and cheapest are only as long as the tube needs to be for the required pitch and are decorated by shallow patterns incised in the bamboo then filled with paint.

The next step up usually has decorative bands of silken thread around the barrel (quite like old bamboo fishing rods) and some lacquer panels. The best instruments have the silk bindings and are longer, with the tube terminated with a pair of holes towards the lower end and extra holes below the effective barrel of the flute for looping through the attachment cords of coloured silk tassles. These swing along with the eprformance.

The very best of these also has a tuning sleeve, created by turning down the lower section and padding its circumference with cork while fitting a brass sleeve over the upper portion. This gives a friction fitting section that allows some degree of adjustment. This style was quite rare about Sydney when I bought mine some 20+ years back.

I have not heard anyone other than ethnic Chinese performers play with the bamboo membrane fitted, to create the authentic 'buzzing' Chinese sound. Most others, like me, are more guang lo than gung ho.

Regards,

Bob Bolton