The ''Diwas'' is a native

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitch ...

from the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

that is a variation of the well-known

pan flute A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

or panpipes. It is made of bamboo, with one end closed with bamboo nodes. It does not have finger holes (or tone holes) like other popular aerophones, such as

flutes The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

. The Diwas compensates by grouping pipes of graduated lengths together. The player shifts from one pipe to another to produce sounds with varying pitches. In Kalinga, these individual pipes are known as ''saggeypo'', which is why the Diwas is sometimes called saggeypo. The number of attached saggeypos can range from five to eight.

Playing techniques

The instrument is played by blowing on the embouchure of the instrument. The embouchure has two distinct sides, but either can be used to play the instrument. When playing on the side with the shorter cut, the instrument produces a higher pitch than when playing on the side with the longer cut.

Science behind panpipes

How the instrument produces its sound can be explained by the concept of closed-end pipes/tubes. When the player blows on the embouchure, air jets enter the body of the instrument and create vibrations. The slanted cut in the embouchure controls the airflow in the body. The time for this vibration to reach the end of the body and get reflected back determines the frequency produced by the instrument. Therefore the length of the tube determines the frequency produced by the instrument.

Instrument variations

Most of the variations of the Philippine bamboo panpipes can be traced to northern Luzon, where the instrument is known by different names. In Balangaw, the instrument is called ''dad-ayu''. In Bontoc, it is known as ''diwdiw-as.'' In Tingguian, ''dwdew-as.'' In Kankanai, ''diwas''. In these variations, the number of pipes ranges from five to eight. The size, length, and radius of the instruments vary from one ethnic group to another, but exact measurements are not required. The aesthetics of the instrument also varies from one group to another.

Saggeypo

In Kalinga, "saggeypo" and "Diwas" are the same because "saggeypo" refers to the individual pipes of the "Diwas". There is no significant difference in the physical features of the saggeypo and diwas. However, since the diwas is a group of saggeypo strung together, the lengths of the pipe are more fixed. Typically, saggeypo has no fixed length.

Physical features

Production of the Diwas does not depend on exact measurements. This affects the generality of the music in

Indigenous peoples of the Philippines The indigenous peoples of the Philippines are Ethnic groups of the Philippines, ethnolinguistic groups or subgroups that maintain partial isolation or independence throughout the colonial era, and have retained much of their traditional pre-col ...

. Unlike Western music tradition, which depends largely on

musical notes In music, notes are distinct and isolatable sounds that act as the most basic building blocks for nearly all of music. This discretization facilitates performance, comprehension, and analysis. Notes may be visually communicated by writing them in ...

in producing

melody A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...

, Indigenous music in the Philippines depends highly on

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

. This is why sizes, length, radius, etc. of instruments in the Philippines have no fixed value where these values are important in producing pitch.

References