Our instruments are endangered !!

[Tor]

Bamboo is the only truly sustainable life-based material suitable for woodwinds, at least that that I can think of. Now try selling that across the board.

I think my bamboo dizi, in black, is beautiful. It appears to be handling various temperature and humidity conditions very well too. So as far as I'm concerned, bamboo is good. But admittedly just saying 'bamboo' may make people think of cheap flimsy things. Old camping chairs.. but bamboo is a fantastic material. When I go cross-country skiing in mountains, days away from people and phone coverage, I only use bamboo ski poles. They are extremely strong, and can be made stronger by covering the 'joints' (with tape or whatever - they do that with the dizi too), and, if it does break it can be fixed with tape. Nothing of that works on a metal or fiber pole.
I like bamboo.

[Nanohedron]

Bamboo is the only truly sustainable life-based material suitable for woodwinds

You mean with a harvesting cycle short enough for a modern 'I want it now' economy?

Naturally. Under present conditions I don't foresee that culture changing any time soon, whatever I might do myself. But there's also a lot of waste built into the wooden instrument-making process that could be lessened using species that are already tubular to begin with. I do recognize the proposition's unlikelihood, however, because for Western instruments this would mean a sea change from long-established building methods, and as Tor pointed out, bamboo carries none of the material cachet of exotic hardwoods for what we think of in the West as fine instruments. A hundred years hence, though - who knows?

[david_h]

Under present conditions I don't foresee that culture changing any time soon

So far as 'our instruments' are concerned is it that bad? The timber is slow growing but whistles and flutes are items that have long lives that can be extended by repairs using modern materials. They don't, I hope, often end up in landfill when a fashion changes.

At present the differential in labour cost between the maker in the developed world and the forester is large. So a hike in materials costs (passed along the line by some sort of fair trade arrangement) that would make sustainable management economically viable might not increase the 'cost per tune played' enough to put off a player who wanted "the material cachet that exotic hardwoods have for what we think of in the West as fine instruments". For the less well-off makers might offer lower-cost materials

How much more would we have to pay for 'our instruments' so that once projects like this http://www.blackwoodconservation.org have got the techniques and business models established they would propagate to other areas and timbers on a purely commercial basis?

[Nanohedron]

So far as 'our instruments' are concerned is it that bad?

I don't recall making a value judgment, only an observation.

For the less well-off makers might offer lower-cost materials

To me, this brings us full-circle to the idea that perfectly good whistles like Generations, etc. are not to be sniffed at if they're good enough for the greats. I confess I do wonder why whistlers shell out for fine tonewoods (I've never liked the feel of wooden whistles, personally, but that's about it). But far be it from me to stick my nose into other people's business.

[david_h]

I don't recall making a value judgment, only an observation.

Oh, sorry. Maybe I misinterpreted your "whatever I might do myself". And there I was, thinking I was offering hope

[Nanohedron]

I don't recall making a value judgment, only an observation.

Oh, sorry. Maybe I misinterpreted your "whatever I might do myself". And there I was, thinking I was offering hope

Oh, trust me - I'll still take all the hope I can get, these days.

[pancelticpiper]

Here's a US list, it takes some working through the various levels, annotations, and scientific names for the various woods.

https://www.fws.gov/international/plant ... ecies.html

Happily all my whistles are metal, some with plastic bits.

[Mitch]

I'll just observe that the fine tonewoods we use in making whistles were harvested years ago.
Otherwise we should not be using them.
Collections of properly seasoned tonewoods are dwindling and will soon become either prohibitively expensive or simply gone.

The import restrictions of endangered woods work in phases according to the appendices of CITES (I, II and III).
Last time I looked, all of the Dalbergia species (including blackwood and cocobolo) are listed under appendix II, and can be imported unless your country has restrictions above the CITES requirement.
Local restrictions can make distinctions between raw material and finished goods or commercial/non-commercial import.
If in doubt, ask your local government .. sometimes they know this kind of thing at post offices.

Wood is a potentially renewable resource if you can think in terms of the lifetime of a tree.
Plastics are currently a petrochemical product - decidedly non-renewable.
Brass(copper) is also a dwindling resource.

Bamboo is indeed fantastic stuff, but difficult to standardize .. and I'm not sure how one would go about installing a tuning slide into a bamboo whistle. Perhaps the art of "rushing" will become fashionable again?

Another factor that might come into play is the increasing extremity of weather shifts.
Each species of wood is evolved to survive specific climatic bandwidths defined by temperature, humidity,(etc) and how quickly these factors swing between extremes.
It could well be that current wood species will not endure as they once did - as species and as wood-products.

For myself, I am looking more and more at plastics (Delrin) for the immediate future.
One adapts at needs, but options for adaptation are not obvious in the medium to long term.

Hope this helps!

[Tor]

Bamboo is indeed fantastic stuff, but difficult to standardize .. and I'm not sure how one would go about installing a tuning slide into a bamboo whistle.[..]

My bamboo dizi has a tuning slide.. most of them have. Some guy came up with the idea of a copper joint somewhen in the 1920s. A tuning slide made of bamboo itself may be more difficult, or impossible, but I don't have hands-on experience with woodwork.

As for wood, the worst danger doesn't really come from instrument making. It's more about furniture etc. In the past boats, yachts, even ships, have been made of teak or other exotic wood. You can make a lot of instruments from the wood that goes into a single furniture set. From a boat-sized set? Wow..

For wind instruments the sound isn't much affected by the material, fortunately. It's a different issue with guitars and similar instruments. Somebody tried to make a guitar from bamboo, one of the big makers - Yamaha, possibly. Very dull sound, from the reviews I saw. There are graphite guitars, they're not bad at all, if you like them - I have tried a 'high end' one, but I have better wood guitars. One of my wood guitars is just a fraction of the cost of the graphite one, but runs circles around the graphite one sound-wise. The sound is just different. But maybe the future is there, if we give it a couple more decades.

In short, for acoustic stringed instruments the situation is slightly more problematic than for wind instruments.

[brewerpaul]

A number of years ago I came across some bamboo (don't remember where) which had walls thick enough that they had enough "meat" for me to bore them out to my normal .5" and later turn the outside down to my usual OD. I made a couple of really nice whistles from that material. I turned a black acetal head fitting and used black waxed threads instead of metal rings to bind the joints, shooting for a bit of the Shakuhachi esthetic.

[Tommy]

Bamboo is not wood. It is a grass with thousands of species.

[puipui]

I came across some bamboo which had walls thick enough that they had enough "meat" for me to bore them out to my normal .5" and later turn the outside down to my usual OD.

How about to forget using your lathe?
You can work a bamboo body into a whistle finger tube as you work a brass pipe.

You can buy bamboos as you buy brass pipes, also.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%E7%AB% ... 9%E5%A3%B2

[Tommy]

Several years ago (20) I used bamboo as an alternative to rebar when making a concrete sidwalk for my home. It is still there with no defects.

[Nanohedron]

Bamboo is not wood. It is a grass with thousands of species.

Which probably means special uses for each, and that's a lot of usefulness. I'm surprised more whistles aren't made of it. We had a Korean couple here who made all-bamboo whistles, really nice ones. They sounded great, and they also had a very sensible but utterly unique fipple construction that I'd never seen before, so they looked great, too. Fine craftsmanship, it was. No tuning slide, though. Haven't seen hide nor hair of the couple since.

Never heard of using bamboo for rebar before. I wouldn't have even thought of it.

[benhall.1]

Several years ago (20) I used bamboo as an alternative to rebar when making a concrete sidwalk for my home. It is still there with no defects.

Had to look up "rebar". I don't think I've ever seen that word before.