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- Ancestral Voices -



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This is a Modern piece .

Ancestral Voices appears on the following albums:

    AlbumShakuhachiKotoShamisen
    Hear the Grass  (Listen)


      The third largest island on Earth, New Guinea shares between its two modern political halves, a traditional culture as diverse and colourful as its famous birds of paradise. Many tribes make many musics. In the Madang and Middle Sepik areas the tones and overtones of traverse flutes are said not only to evoke the spirit world, but to be the cries of the spirits themselves. The largest of these flutes - up to three meters long - are invariably played in pairs (sometimes regarded as male and female), but collectively given the name of one particular ancestor. These 'spirit flutes' are often accompanied by large slit-drums (garamut), which are also given an ancestral name. The garamut of New Guinea are made from a hollowed tree-trunk, but in other parts of Oceania slit-drums are also made of bamboo.



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