龍笛
Liner notes
The name is usually explained by its sound, likened in Japanese sources to the cry of a dragon rising into the sky. It is also called ōteki, the transverse flute.
The instrument
The ryūteki is about 40 centimetres long, with a blowing hole and seven finger holes. The body is made of a slender bamboo, and the head is a separate piece of thicker bamboo joined to it. The bore is lacquered inside, and the outside is bound with strips of cherry bark and coated in black lacquer. A lead weight inside the head balances the flute, and a cloth-covered plug closes its end. Players cover the holes with the pads of their fingers rather than the tips, which makes it easier to half-cover a hole and reach notes between the standard pitches.
The ryūteki spans about two octaves. With the same fingering, a player can sound a lower tone, fukura, or an upper one, seme, by changing the breath.
How to listen
In the ensemble the hichiriki carries the main melody, and the ryūteki does not simply double it. It follows the same line in its own way, ornamenting and winding around it with its wider range, while the shō holds chords beneath both. A piece often opens with a ryūteki solo played by the leader of the section.
Flute parts are learned through shōka, a sung notation written in katakana, and the ryūteki melody stays close to that of the hichiriki. Besides tōgaku, the flute also accompanies the sung court forms saibara and rōei.
Related flutes
Gagaku uses two other transverse flutes. The komabue (高麗笛), smaller and a whole tone higher, plays in komagaku, the music of Korean origin. The kagurabue (神楽笛), larger and a whole tone lower, plays in the native ritual songs and dances. Japanese sources regard the ryūteki as the ancestor of the country's other transverse flutes, including the nōkan of noh theatre and the shinobue.
A short history
The ryūteki belongs to the continental, Chinese-derived side of gagaku. Tradition names Owari no Hamanushi, a court musician of the Nara period, as the player who did most to establish it, and he is honoured as a founder of flute playing. In the twentieth century composers outside Japan began to write for it: Hans Werner Henze called for it in El Cimarrón, and Karlheinz Stockhausen used it in the gagaku-ensemble version of Jahreslauf. Alongside bamboo instruments, beginner flutes are now also made of resin or wood.
Start with
The 1941 Taishikichō chōshi is a prelude in the taishiki mode for shō, hichiriki and ryūteki. Listen for the flute moving above the reed melody, high and free against the steady chords of the shō.
Questions
- What is a ryūteki?
- The ryūteki is a Japanese transverse bamboo flute about 40 centimetres long with seven finger holes. It is one of the three wind instruments of gagaku and is used mainly in the Chinese-derived tōgaku repertoire.
- Why is it called the dragon flute?
- Ryūteki means "dragon flute". Japanese sources explain the name by its tone, which is likened to the cry of a dragon soaring upward.
- What is the difference between the ryūteki, komabue and kagurabue?
- All three are transverse flutes used in gagaku. The komabue is smaller and a whole tone higher and is used for Korean-derived komagaku. The kagurabue is larger and a whole tone lower and is used for native Japanese ritual song and dance.