Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The story of the Pan Flute


It all started with this: The Lonely Sheppard by Gheorghe Zamfir and James Last, from the soundtrack of the film Kill Bill. I remembered how much i like this instrument which i figured out is called Pan Flute. The first time i heard this instrument played live was my 2nd christmas here when i went to San Antonio to visit an old highschool buddy. There in the River walk passage i saw a small band playing Latin American tunes and the sound that intrigued me the most was of the Pan flute.
Here's the old methodological story of how the pan flute was originated according to Ovid's Metamorphosis. Pan was the Greek god of shepherds, with legs and horns of a goat. Once in a pasture, he sees Syrinx, a beautiful nymph(human) known for her chastity. He chases her and she runs to the river's edge and asks the river nymphs to help her hide from Pan. An thus she is transformed into hollow water reeds that made a haunting sound when the Pan's frustrated breath blew across them. Pan could not find out which one of the reeds is indeed Syrinx, so he cuts seven of them and makes the first set of pan pipes, which were thence forth known as Syrinx. Claude Debussy wrote "Syrinx (La Flute De Pan)" based on Pan's sadness over losing his love.

5 comments:

Tameshk said...

Jeerjeerak Joonam
I too, like the sound of Pan Flute. More than that I like the Greek mythology and its hints on the musical and artistic world. It is interesting that Syrinx transformed to reeds in Apollo and Daphne's story, Daphne, also a nymph, transforms to a tree so Apollo cannot have her; this is one of my favorite Greek stories.

Esfand` said...

wow!

I have heard this music many times in Japanese movies .... itss soo soothing !!

I didnt know that the origin of this instrument was not the orient ... but greeks... wow!

A Fly on the Wall said...

nice story except.... what the hell!! Pan knew one of the reeds was his love and he still cut it???? in fact, he WANTED to cut her???
that's one evil dude! :-P

Unknown said...

This blog is amazing, I must to say that I love the flute, i think this instrument is very notable, i usually feel very relaxed when i listen a flute. Is absolutely wonderful. Actually I want to learn about how to play this instrument.
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Unknown said...

This blog is absolutely outstanding. I Think the sound of the flute is so relaxing that I prefer to listen with growing frequency. Becouse I heard that this sound has a restorate power. Actually when by boyfriend had problem in his sexual performance he decided to buy viagra, i remerber that he listened flute music all the night to stay relaxed and from there everything changed.