Siku

The Siku (Quechua: siku, Aymara: siku, also "Sicu," "Sicus," "Zampolla" or Spanish zampoña), is a traditional Andean panpipe. more...

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It accompanies the folk music of the high Andes, where it is widely used. It is one of the main instruments in Andean Huayno and the principal instrument in Sikuri and K'antu.

Design

Sikus are typically made from bamboo tubes, but have also been made from Condor feathers, bone, and many other materials. Additionally, different types of bamboo are employed to change the quality of the sound. Songo, or thin-walled bamboo, gives a louder, more resonant sound than regular thick-walled bamboo, but is less common due to its fragility.

Siku is split across two rows of pipes. One must alternate rows with every note in order to play a complete scale. Traditionally, two musicians were required to play the siku - each one taking one row of the instrument. One part of instrument is called ira, another - arka. It is considered that spiritually ira corresponds to male principle and arka to female. When many musicians divide in two parts, first playing ira and second playing arka, this gives Andean music a distinctive stereophonic sound. Hear example (MIDI, not a real sound).

Now it is more common to see one musician playing both rows of the instrument together, but real rustic ensembles retain traditional playing.

Varieties

The most widespread variety of siku, siku ch'alla, contains 13 pipes (7 in ira and 6 in arka), but less common varieties may have more and less pipes. Some of them employ extra open-ended reeds attached to the front of the instrument to change the sound quality. The Tabla Siku has all of the pipes cut to the same length, so the instrument is rectangular in shape, but has stoppers inside the tubes to adjust the actual resonant length of the chambers.

Scale and tuning

The Siku uses a diatonic scale. Siku ch'alla is tuned in E minor / G major, arca: D-F^#-A-C-E-G-B and ira:E-G-B-D-F^#-A.

There are a contemporary varieties of siku with chromatic scale having 3 rows, with pitch distribution similar to chromatic button accordion.

Sizes

There are multiple different sizes of Siku, typically tuned an octave apart. The smallest of the family is called Ika or Chulli (Quechua: ch'ulli). The next larger size, the most common, is called Malta (Quechua: malta). An octave lower than the Malta is the Sanka or Zanka (Quechua: sanka). The largest of the family is the Toyo (Quechua: t'uyu) or jach'a (Aymara: jach'a). The longest pipe of the Toyo is typically around 4 feet (120 centimeters) long.

Read more at Wikipedia.org