Lotos Lab: reviving the most popular musical instruments of humanity

Nine doublepipes and four singlepipes revived from archaeological finds: complete instruments from Stone Age, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman worlds. From thousands of finds in museums, these are the reed pipes I currently consider most worth learning to play. Why? Because they deliver greatest value for effort, musically. Whether you are a school teacher, musician, researcher, or hobbyist, they offer fantastic rewards for your investment of time and money.
The experience of engaging with these pipes is like a lotus: growing out of a dark sludge of ignorance, fertilised by a rich soup of evidence, twisting and turning through water and air on an adventure towards light that is moving, warming, and seasonal. Potentially, some petals may one day open in sunshine, giving others joy. Seeds may form. But any beauty on the sonic surface - any power to move listeners - would be impossible without a deep tangle of roots, without the chaotic wrong turns of pioneers, without the multiple lifetimes of love and energy that lie out of sight. The doublepipes revival is a majestic muddy symphony of interconnected creativity.
The Lotos Lab website is under construction, but any of these instruments can be ordered by emailing [e-mail]. I work on behalf of makers and customers gathering energy, knowledge, and momentum to uplift the revival of ancient reed pipes. The 28,000-year-old Isturitz pipe can also be sounded like a ney or a trumpet, but is much easier to play with the addition of a reed.
Filmed at Marco Sciascia's home in Orte, Italy, 6 July 2022.
Pipe makers: Robin Howell (Elgin, Pydna), Thomas Rezanka (Berlin, Louvre), Marco Sciascia (Ur, Maket, Poseidonia, Selinus, Turin 8-hole and 6-hole, Panopolis), Chrēstos Terzēs (Megara),
Zexuan Qiao (Isturitz)
Reed makers: Callum Armstrong (Berlin), Barnaby Brown (Ur, Megara), Robin Howell (Louvre, Poseidonia, Selinus), Marco Sciascia (Maket, Elgin, Pydna, Turin, Panopolis, Isturitz)

[@prometheusjones6580]

Those dionysian cats in the background are too cute.

[@kammernator]

Your enthusiasm for the subject and the content you introduce is greatly appreciated. Please continue sharing your passion and knowledge!

[@helizagreos3370]

Everything about this video is amazing: Entourage, Barnaby Brown himself, Aulos and playing cats on a background. I wish I could hear all the instruments in a video like this. Thank you for a good work!❤

[@ElGuerreroAsirio]

I love it too! All of that. In fact I'm here by an improbable reason: I'm studing the British accent, and I came across with a short video of Armand D'Angour and his team and became very interested seeing how Barnaby pronounce the English language, because he emphatize a lot the consonants and vowels and so that give me a good sample of how the words can be stretched and how they can't. So... I'm here to study british English in first place! All else is a plus :-D

[@rachelblech9808]

Fabulous!!! Such passion and commitment and expertise!

[@malelemonade5979]

Your unbridled enthusiasm is a deluge of inspiration and awe, please keep gifting us with more of your showcases, I always look forward to connecting to the past, and you are one of the threads that lead back!

[@SpektralJo]

great video. Is the lotos lab website online?

[@ElGuerreroAsirio]

Sorry Barnaby... what did you said about those flutes? I get distracted by the kitties playing behind you... XD In fact I'm here for an improbable reason: I'm studying the British accent, and weeks ago I came across with a short video of Armand D'Angour and his team and became very interested seeing how Barnaby pronounce the English language, for because the enthusiasm of Barnaby he emphatize a lot the consonants and vowels and so that give me a good sample in real time of how the words can be stretched and how they can't, something that to me, a non native speaker, is not easy to imagine. So... I'm here to study British English with Barnaby in first place! All else is a plus :-D

[@leholie93]

Dear Barnaby, I've been following your content for a while and with every update you still amaze us. I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask you and hopefully get answered in your own time since I'm not even a beginner - the only wind instrument I've played was a flute back in school. I was surprised to not see Max Brumberg on the makers list. He is or was supposed to hold a workshop along Callum Armstrong this summer which I was looking forward to it but haven't goten any updates yet. You see, I'm afraid of investing myself to only be left dependant on the reeds. I'm extremely delighted you're able to provide for so many people this revival of cultural experience. I would very much like to obtain one of these reed instruments, reed making kit and be part of the zoom group. I'll research the instruments you mention in this video as much as possible since it makes sense to try on the wedding dress before buying it. I think people would really find it helpful and appreciate hearing them to know their differences. Do you think that's something possible? If so, I'll prefer to wait until then to decide which instrument to acquire. Thank you so much for sharing your passion.

[@chehotrao]

Thank you for your encouragement and good suggestions. At least one video presenting each pipe is the plan and has been since last September. Like you, I miss not having any Max Brumberg instruments to be playing and learning with. That will change... Reed development eats up time with a dragon's appetite! I think the pioneers would all appreciate finding a way to be more efficient, reaching further through teamwork than is possible alone. Lotos Lab seeks to build strength by interweaving customer feedback with research and development - engaging with all stakeholders, logging every experiment (reeds and pipes) systematically and democratically, accumulating collective wisdom, capturing insights from multiple owners, diverse ages, varying levels of expertise, and a multitude of learning styles. Using the digital revolution to raise quality and combat "bad othering". I find that with every additional 10 hours of practicing, new horizons of technical possibility open up. My advice would be to start with the pipe you are most likely to practice, because it is the practising (not the possessing) that reaps rewards. A regular practice - part of your daily routine or weekly rhythm - is what enhances wellbeing. That is the basis on which to choose. There is a huge advantage to having two pipes: harmony and polyphony. The making is also great fun. By mid-August, we should have the first batch of Isturitz pipes and reed-parenting kits ready to ship. The idea there is to have a budget starter instrument with which 8-year-olds and 88-year-olds can lead dancing and accompany singing, belonging to a wider present and deeper past.

[@farcenter]

Love this so much. I'm really curious about the use of the Phorbeia. Have you experimented with anything like that or do you even have a concept as someone who plays the instrument as to what it's benefit or use would have been? I've seen a few different theories online mostly having to do with assisting in sound production and limiting lip fatigue , but I just don't organically understand how it would really help or achieve this. That said, I don't play any reeded instruments so perhaps I can't easily intuit it, and thought that you may have a better idea of it. Thanks!

[@maxbrumbergflutes]

Great to see all those pipes! I still think that only the (lower)mid section and below are worth using as reed material but this might differ depending on where the phragmites has grown and what sound and dynamics one expects from the reeds. ..and I must have done something wrong if making reeds is so easy, those thousands of hours on experimenting went by fast the last years and only now I slowly feel I understand what’s going on… but well others might be faster.

[@chehotrao]

Ease is not an absolute, it is dependant on your relationship with the result. You are a master. I am in awe of your attention to detail and respect for ancient evidence in all its diversity and complexity: this is a rare quality among makers, who often look at drawings rather than photos, reading translations and interpretations rather than engaging with original source material with curiosity. It is easier, far easier, to look at the evidence through a smokescreen of other people's work, forever putting human bias, inherited misconceptions, and compounded error between present and past realities. My greatest regret making this video is that there is neither a Max Brumberg pipe nor a Max Brumberg Theophrastian yoke represented. Please could I order (at full price) a couple of yokes of reeds from you, as a performer customer, for whichever of these instruments you are most interested in. There are reeds for skimmers who practice 2 hours a month, dippers who practice 2 hours a week, and divers who practice 2 hours a day and receive fees for concerts and workshops. All three groups are vital for a healthy doublepipes revival and I think we should value their different needs equally, learning through two-way humility on the edge of the unknown. I also hugely respect the need to narrow down options (for high-level results) and choose one path when there are many. Collectively, therefore, it is more efficient if we all choose different paths and share results, building a richer picture, avoiding dogma, fundamentalism, and "bad othering". There are so many variables and life is an ecology, not a monoculture! Lotos Lab needs a methodology leader: how to harness the intercultural creativity, diverse skills, beliefs, and hypotheses of many, in multi-lifetime experiments that benefit from the data generated at every stage. Using technology, like cuneiform star diaries, to keep learning resilient to death and disorder - a scientific lineage connecting us to the Babylonian astrophysicists to whom the Greeks felt so indebted. Here is my level of delight with Max Brumberg reeds: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aYqsfJtuo9mJpdk I write this reply from Loch Awe, Argyll, where pipers have for centuries (probably millennia) made children's practice chanters by squeezing oat straws and sticking these in Phragmites pipes, much as the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians did, probably our Paleolithic ancestors too. It is about a thousand times easier to make music on the Hohle Fels radius bone with an oat straw reed, compared to playing it as a flute or as a trumpet. Frankly, the scale possibilities are vastly more compelling too. Playing the Isturitz pipe as a flute or ney requires tampering with the evidence (sharpening the opposite edge) to a degree I find troubling.

[@chehotrao]

If anyone would like to lead Lotos Lab data gathering, harnessing horses of every hue to a chariot of scientific learning that outlives us all, please get in touch. What does a gold standard of experimental method look like for a community of reed makers, pipe makers, and players who are in that chaotically messy place, the frontier of knowlege?

[@victordelegrego3748]

Were ancient pipes mainly composed of reed instruments? Are there examples of fipple flutes?

[@chehotrao]

I am aware of Greek transverse flutes, Egyptian neys, and the Jiahu flutes (doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00113432 ). The Paleolithic finds can also be sounded like nays, although a squashed straw seems a more compelling solution, particularly for the thinner bones. Reed instruments may have enjoyed greater popularity because they are loud enough to lead community dancing and singing.

[@MontisciLauneddas]

Really interesting!! what an amazing job you are doing! If I can say my opinion, I believe that you cannot play the instrument well because you have not trained enough and not because the distance between the holes is very large.

[@leholie93]

I wonder if he’s alright after all this time 😢

[@leholie93]

Still wondering

[@gonzalorodriguezrojas4045]

thats an amazing work mr Barnaby!!!i also make archeomuicological researches in Peru with all kind of flutes and panpipes,also im a ney player and im interested to contact with you! best rewards, Gonzalo

[@chehotrao]

Are there any reed-making traditions in South America we could learn from? Forgive my ignorance! The reciprocity of group music making is an area of huge interest to me: how musical activity reflects and reinforces social values. Having only half the notes on your panpipe means you HAVE to cooperate; selfishness, separation, and individualistic behaviours have no nourishment.

[@gonzalorodriguezrojas4045]

@@chehotrao hello mr Barnaby actually we dont have this reed making tradition but i work with river cane (arundo donac and p.australis)since 5 years to make quenas and panpipes from 8000 to 500 years from all cultures from Peru,the nazca panpipes habe this micritones too and olay with some disonances,lets get in contact if is posible,maybe a zoom call or email