Watch Shaping Bamboo (1979) Online

For the 'Are'are people of the Solomon Islands, the most valued music is that of the four types of panpipe ensembles. With the exception of slit drums, all musical instruments are made of bamboo; therefore the general word for instruments and the music performed with them is "bamboo" ('au). This film shows the making of panpipes, from the cutting the bamboo in the forest to the making of the final bindings. The most important part of the work consists in shaping each tube to its necessary length. Most 'Are'are panpipe makers measure the length of old instruments before they shape new tubes. Master musician 'Irisipau, surprisingly, takes the measure using his body, and adjusts the final tuning by ear. For the first time we can see here how the instruments and their artificial equiheptatonic scale-seven equidistant degrees in an octave-are practically tuned. Read More

Watch Shaping Bamboo online. Featuring 'Irisipau and Supamae 'Irisitapa'a, Shaping Bamboo is classified as Documentary and Music genre movie with an average rating across the web of 0. It is available for streaming online in the USA on 1 services such as Kanopy. The movie was filmed in Solomon Islands and was released on 1979. Shaping Bamboo was directed by Hugo Zemp. Read Less