Easy Bamboo Panpipe Tutorial For Beginners

Carved Culture

In this video, you'll learn how to play the bamboo panpipes—specifically the 13-note siku panpipes handcrafted in Peru, each decorated with a woven band. Start by positioning your lips slightly over each pipe to direct airflow and produce a clear, consistent sound. The pipes follow a C major diatonic scale, though handmade variations may slightly alter the notes. Once you're familiar with the notes, we’ll play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" together as we explore the beautiful sound of the panpipes.   Explore our collection of panpipes here: https://www.carvedculture.com/collections/panpipes

Transcript

00:00In this video I'm going to be showing you how to play the bamboo panpipes.

00:04So these ones are known as the Siku panpipes and they are handcrafted in Peru. They have 13

00:11notes and each one has an assorted woven band. So the first thing we want to focus on is our

00:16blowing position because when I first started playing the panpipes I blew directly over the

00:23pipe and so if you're playing it like this then I want to show you the correct way of doing it.

00:29It's more like this sort of positioning. You want to be quite close to the pipe. You could even

00:34actually rest your bottom lip on the pipe a little bit but you don't want to just blow. You don't want

00:40to go like this. What we want to do is kind of have our lip overhang slightly and that just directs the

00:50airflow into the pipe. Each pipe has a completely different sound and it's because of the length

00:57of each pipe so it produces a different note.

01:08I would actually recommend just practicing that as much as you can especially considering that

01:14there is different notes and at first as a beginner it's very difficult to play one note and then switch

01:20to the next one whilst keeping a consistent clear sound. Sometimes if you're not blowing correctly

01:26you might get a whistle sound or you might just get an air blowing sound.

01:32And it all comes down to your lips, how you position your lips and the blowing technique.

01:37So now that we've established those two things we're ready to look at the notes.

01:41So typically the pan pipes follow the diatonic scale of C major. This note here is C and it goes D, E, F,

01:49G, A, B and then C again and it repeats. But because they are handmade and each pan pipe slightly vary

01:56in size even if it's centimeters, millimeters, this can affect the note. And so some notes may be sharps and

02:03some maybe regular notes. Now that we know the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, we can then use

02:12those notes as our music theory and we can play our first song. Before we go and do that I just want

02:18to show you quickly the notes vary depending on the pan pipes that you have. So if your pan pipes aren't

02:23like this one, it may be different for you. Our anteros pan pipes, this first note is a B and then

02:30this note is a C and it follows that same pattern but we start on the B. And then for our zampona

02:35pan pipes, this note here is the C. It doesn't go all the way along in order. It goes C, D, E, F, G, A,

02:44B, C and then so on. So it alternates between the rows. And actually I wouldn't recommend a zampona

02:51pan pipe if you are a beginner. It's more for advanced because there's a more complex technique

02:56that you have to learn when you're switching from this row to this row.

03:06So now we're ready to play our first song and I want to just quickly say that I am in the process

03:10of learning the pan pipes. I am by no means an expert but I am with you on this journey and we're

03:15going to learn together. This note here is a C, this one is a G and this one is an A. So with that we can

03:21play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

03:51And that's how you play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the bamboo pan pipes.

04:06Anyway, I hope you liked this video and if you did make sure to subscribe so you get to see the next

04:10video on our pan pipes playlist. See you soon.

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