The Limbe () is a transverse flute with six finger holes from Mongolian folk music, which belongs to the nomadic pastoral culture and is usually played with circular breathing by experienced players. The continuous playing of the flute to accompany "long songs" (urtin duu) lasting up to 25 minutes was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists in urgent need of preservation in 2011. Like most other Mongolian musical instruments, the limbe is traditionally only allowed to be played by men. The origin of the East Asian flutes such as the limbe and the related dizi in China could be traced back to the 1st millennium BC.
Origin and distribution The earliest flutes found in China include one that dates back to the Neolithic period around 6000 BC. A bone flute with seven finger holes from Wuyang County dated to the 5th millennium BC and other bone flutes with finger holes from the 5th millennium BC. BC, which probably served as an animal call. They were probably collectively called guan ("tube") in Chinese. Since the 1st millennium, guan has also referred to reed instruments. According to pictographs from the late Shang dynasty (around 1200 BC), yue stood for a panpipe. Clay vessel flutes from the 5th millennium BC. 500 BC, now known as xun, were excavated in Banpo, Shaanxi. Transverse flutes from this early period (up to around 2000 BC) are only known from written Chinese sources. Its old name is chi.Martin Gimm: China. I. Vor- und Frühgeschichte (bis 21. Jahrhundert v.Chr.) 3. Musikinstrumente. In: MGG Online, Juli 2018
According to these sources, the chi was a ritually used transverse flute with a large inner diameter. Two bamboo flutes, probably corresponding to the chi, with five finger holes, a blowing opening offset by 90 degrees and about 30 centimeters long were discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (after 433 BC).Wu Ben: Archaeology and History of Musical Instruments in China. In: Robert C. Provine, Yosihiko Tokumaru, J. Lawrence Witzleben (Hrsg.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Band 7: East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea. Routledge, New York 2001, S. 109 These are the oldest finds of transverse flutes. After all, they refute the popular view that the transverse flute was only brought from Central Asia to China during the Han dynasty (207 BC - 220 AD). During this period, the transverse flute was known in China as hengchui ("cross-blown") and was used by military orchestras for outdoor music. In the transverse flute of the Han dynasty, which was probably imported, the blowing hole and finger holes were in one line - as is usual with today's transverse flutes. From the 6th century onwards, the Chinese transverse flute spread under the name hengdi ("transverse flute") and was incorporated into the entertainment orchestras at the imperial court and into general Chinese music during the Tang dynasty (618–907).Alan R. Trasher: Di. In: Grove Music Online, 2001
Together with the Chang (konghou in China), the barbat (pipa) and the sorna (suona), the transverse flute was mentioned in Chinese sources of the 1st millennium as a musical instrument imported from the West. The historical work Sanguozhi, written by the Chinese historian Chen Shou (233–297) around 285 AD, shows that the transverse flute was a foreign musical instrument and was used in the 2nd century BC, and it was introduced from the "Western Country". The "Western Country" meant roughly the area from Xinjiang through Central Asia to Afghanistan and northern India. F. M. Karomatov, V. A. Meškeris, T. S. Vyzgo, 1987, S. 96
Transverse flutes were unknown in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, but were rare in Ancient Greece. The Greco-Roman plagiaulos ("cross-standing aulos") has been around since the 4th century BC at the latest. Like the longitudinal flute, it was a typical shepherd's instrument, was used as a call for hunting and for cultic purposes, such as the Egyptian Isis cult, but was of little importance for musical life overall.Andrea Scheithauer: Die Rolle der Querflöte im Musikleben der Griechen und Römer: Elmar Bringezu zum 50. Geburtstag. In: International Journal of Musicology, Band 5, 1996, S. 9–23, hier S. 16 Apart from the plagiaulos, no other transverse flutes are known from the Mediterranean region from the first centuries before and after Christianity. This makes the Indian transverse flutes the oldest, so that according to Jeremy Montagu (2013) it is obvious that the transverse flute spread from India westwards towards Europe.Jeremy Montagu: A transverse flute from Petra. In: Early Music, Band 41, Nr. 1, Februar 2013, S. 101–103
The above-mentioned finds of Chinese bamboo flutes in the margrave's grave probably have their origin in the local region, otherwise it is possible that the Central and East Asian transverse flutes also come from India, where they appeared in the ancient Indian Sanskrit literature of the 1st millennium BC. It is mentioned in the north as vamsha ("bamboo"). In southern India at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD, the transverse flute was known as kuzhal. Today's bamboo flutes such as bansuri and bansi are derived from the name vamsha.Alastair Dick: Vaṃśa. In: Grove Music Online, 2001 According to this hypothesis, the transverse flute made its way from India to China and further to Japan, where it was documented in the 8th century at the latest and is now available in several variants (such as ryūteki, komabue, yokobue, shinobue and nōkan).Jeremy Montagu: Origins and Development of Musical Instruments. The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland 2007, S. 48, 59
It is unclear when transverse flutes first appeared in Central Asia. According to Chinese sources, they were widespread in Central Asia at the time of the Han dynasty, as it is said that a Chinese embassy brought the flute and knowledge of how to play it back home from Central Asia. A well-known Chinese musician of the 2nd century BC. With this knowledge, he is said to have composed 28 new war melodies.F. M. Karomatov, V. A. Meškeris, T. S. Vyzgo, 1987, S. 144
During excavations in Afrasiyab near Samarkand, fragments of preserved terracotta figures of women playing music from the middle of the 1st millennium came to light. The Sogdian musicians, standing upright, grasp a long, thin wind instrument with both hands, which they hold vertically downwards and which is apparently intended to represent a rim-blown longitudinal flute. Other figures from Afrasiyab played flutes. It is particularly from such representations that we can gain insight into the form and use of the transverse flutes, as only a few original musical instruments have survived. On several terracotta depictions from Afrasiyab, what can be seen is a blowing tube attached to the side at a right angle on the transverse flutes, as was also typical of the Greco-Roman plagiaulos. Original examples of this type of flute were also unearthed. According to this, transverse flutes were widespread in Samarkand in the 1st millennium and were played by women and men.
A gilded silver bowl from Bactria dated to the 7th century shows mythological figures from Greek-Buddhist culture in relief, including a bearded Heracles. However, the monkeys playing music on the edge of the bowl are not part of ancient Greek art. One monkey beats a double-headed hourglass drum, the other blows a transverse flute that he holds with both hands. The number of finger holes is not visible; the playing tube appears somewhat shorter and thicker than on today's flutes. The oldest musical monkeys were excavated by the Sumerians (mid-3rd millennium BC), and here they suggest contact with Indian art.F. M. Karomatov, V. A. Meškeris, T. S. Vyzgo, 1987, S. 88; Agnes Spycket: „Le Carnaval des Animaux“: On Some Musician Monkeys from the Ancient Near East. In: Iraq, Band 60, 1998, S. 1–10, hier S. 8
Sogdia was influenced by Buddhism until the 8th century. Further north, in East Turkestan, numerous musical monkeys and, above all, important wall paintings have also been preserved from the Buddhist art of Central Asia. Murals depicting Buddhist paradises usually feature festively dressed musicians accompanying dancers in their midst. The musicians in one of the oldest Buddhist representations of paradise, a wall painting in cave 220 of the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang from the Tang dynasty, play different lutes, angle harp (tschang), board zither (cf. current), cone oboe (suona), pan flute, transverse flute, snail trumpet, mouth organ, chime (bianqing) and drums.F. M. Karomatov, V. A. Meškeris, T. S. Vyzgo, 1987, S. 152
The limbe is preferred by ethnic groups in the east of Mongolia, which include the Khalkha Mongols, who also live in the center of the country. The old Mongolian name bischgüür for longitudinal and transverse flutes today refers to the Mongolian cone oboe, which is related to the suona. Bischgüür, in Classical Mongolian biskigür or bisigür, is possibly derived from Persian bīscha or pīscha for a shepherd's flute made of plant cane.Andrea Nixon, 2014, S. 286 In addition to the Chinese dizi, transverse flutes corresponding to the limbe are the bamboo flute limba of the Buryats in Eastern Siberia, the lingbu in Tibetan music and the zur-lim in Bhutan. Lingbu, also known as gling-bu in Tibetan, refers to all Tibetan flute types and in the narrower sense a core gap flute. In particular, the Tibetan transverse flute with six or seven finger holes is called phred-gling or ti-gling and is only used in light music.Mireille Helffer: Gling-bu. In: Grove Music Online, 22. September 2015 Other flutes called lingbu are used in the Tibetan ritual dance ling dro (also gling-bro), performed by laypeople, together with the secular cone oboe sona (practically identical in construction to the sacred gyaling).Lin Lerner: Two Tibetan Ritual Dances: A Comparative Study. In: The Tibet Journal, Band 8, Nr. 4, Winter 1983, S. 50–57, hier S. 56
In southern Central Asia, the brass flute tulakJohn Baily: Music of Afghanistan: Professional Musicians in the City of Herat. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1988, S. 19 is also known in Herat, western Afghanistan, and the nai flute is known in the music of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (among the Karakalpaks). The nai is closely related to the Chinese dizi and the limbe, which is belied by the Arabic-Persian name adopted from the longitudinal flute nay. Roger Blench (2019) suspects that the name nai is a later adoption after the Islamization of the region in order to enhance the flute through a reference to Arab-Muslim culture.
Design The limbe is made of bamboo or brass, the modern one is often made of plastic. It has twelve holes: the first for blowing, the second - covered with a membrane - amplifies the sound, the next six are opened or closed with the player's fingers, the remaining four holes: two in the upper part and two in the lower part, when they remain covered, give the instrument a lower sound.
Eastern Khalkhais distinguish two forms of limbe, the female limbe which is narrower, and the male limbe, which is thicker and shorter.
Playing style and techniques
Mongolians feel like they belong to one people across the national borders of Mongolia, Siberia, China and Central Asian states. Regardless of this, the individual ethnic groups maintain different identities with their own musical expressions. In general, instrumental music is secondary to the various forms of unaccompanied vocal music. The limbe is a musical instrument well suited for nomads because it is small and can be easily transported when slipped into the belt.Carole Pegg: Mongolen. II. Volksmusik. d. Flöten und Maultrommeln. In: MGG Online, Dezember 2021