Guìzhōu Province 贵州 · CHINA, June 2023.

 

Many years ago I read somewhere about a kind of instrument from Indonesia that was used by fishermen to communicate with each other when they were at sea. It is a kind of Wind Harp made of bamboo that generates a very interesting kind of sweeping sound. This type of "instrument" is now used (in Indonesia) on the tail of giant kites that are made in order to generate a trail of sound to accompany the kite's flight.

I always wanted to make one (I had already done some tests in the studio before), but in the village where I stayed in China, I met the sculptor LU 许露. She works with Bamboo, so we decided to collaborate and try to build the Wind Harps.

The bamboo was cut by Lu in the area, and we built the harps in the traditional way following a tutorial that I had saved a long time ago.

 

 

We decided to make two of these instruments to communicate and we went up the rice field hills and played them. But, we didn't just want to do it as a sound experiment, but as a kind of ritual dedicated to the place, the villages, the crops, the land and the people who live in this area. As it has been a time of drought, which is something that worries the inhabitants of the area, our sound interaction was dedicated as a song to the earth and to the rain so that it waters the fields.