How to play a zampoña - lesson 1

How to untie a pan flute (zampoña)

How to tie a pan flute (zampoña)

Chacon Brothers (Road of llamas and El Condor pasa)

How to tune a quena

Talking to our friend, musician and maker of wind instruments, José Chacón. He explained us how to tune a quena, the first thing to do is a hole in the bottom end of the quena. It should expand and refine the hole to achieve the note pitch. If quena we are making is in the scale of SOL, to make this hole should give us the note SOL. Master Chacón uses to tune quenas a diapason. Then he proceed to open the second hole. This hole is the first hole near the bottom hole of the quena. We have to tune it until we reached to the note LA. And so, we continue with the other holes from the bottom to the top, Si, Do, Re, Mi, Fa #, and finally the thumb hole, Sol Some tips from our friend Chacón for the care of our quena are: be sure to dry before storing. Avoid putting in extremely hot, no place in the sun, it can crack the quena. we should keep our quena in a case to avoid damage and lose pitch. Also this will prevent the dust from quena, which can be sucked at playing quena. In cold weather, the pitch of quena will be a little lower. It is advised that accompanying zampoñas and antaras are also a slightly lower tone. Here we can see Master José Chacón playing a quena tuned in FA.