Literally meaning ‘dragon flute’, the ryūteki (龍笛) is pure and beautiful sounding traditional Japanese bamboo flute (or ‘fue’) designed to evoke the mythical creature, used in Shinto classical music gagaku, associated with Japan's imperial court. Its sound is said to express the flight of the dragon as it flies in the skies between the heavenly lights (represented by the shō) and the people of the earth (represented by the hichiriki). The ryūteki is one of the three flutes used in gagaku, with a relatively high, but the middle of the three, its pitch lower than that of the komabue but higher than that of the kagurabue, but has a comparably wide range of two octaves. The instrument dates Only around 40cm long, it has seven holes, with a technique not using the finger tips, but the fatter parts of the fingers to allow for half-covering of holes for semi-tones.
Let’s hear a short unaccompanied piece title Cry of The Dragon, played by Ron Korb. Note the control with delicate, slow glissandos at the beginning, and plenty of subtle semi-tones:
And here in an ensemble, flautist Keiko Masuda plays a theme from the animated film Princess Mononoke, a Studio Ghibli production directed by Hayao Miyazaki with music by Joe Hisaishi:
And here is another renowned player, Naoya Yoshimura, in concert:
Here is a chart showing the range and finger positions:
Ryuteki fingering
And hitting the highest range with a ghostly and at times shrill, but highly evocative piece, western player Rosamund Plummer plays three pieces, the first by contemporary Japanese composer and player Takeshi Sasamoto, titled Ikisudama, followed by Trois Chansons sur des Themes Japonais.
So then, any more pieces featuring the distinctive sound of the ryuteki? Feel free to share any further ones from any form of music, or even film, art or other contexts in comments below.
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