FAIRY TALE

Click here for full screen version

After you read the story you can do these exercises:

THE TXISTU

In ancient times a Basque inhabitant made his first "Txistu" with a bird bone, but the first evidence of the Txistu goes back to 1864. The three-hole flute has been used in many cultures and civilizations, and nowadays it exists in many places.

The Txistu has three holes and it is played with the left hand. As you need only one hand to play it, the other hand is used in many cases to play a percussion instrument. It is traditional to play the "danbolina" with the other hand in the Basque Country. Also we have to mention the case of Zuberoa, where there is a variant of the Txistu called "Txirula". This instrument is smaller than the Txistu and it is accompanied by the "ttun-ttun". 

Nowadays we have three different sizes of Txistu: the "txistu" (tuned in "F"), the "Silbote" (tuned in Bb, B or C) and the "Txirula" (tuned in C). Apart from the Txirula, which is made in one piece, the others are made with a changeable inferior part to change the tune. Ebony wood or plastic is used to make Txistus and it has some metal pieces for decoration and to tune the instrument. People think that you can only play a few rural melodies with the Txistu, but this is not true. More than one thousand melodies for the Txistu are published. The preservation of such valuable treasure, transmitted in most of cases from parents to sons, is due to humble "txistularis" without any musical instruction, mainly in Navarre.

There are different types of melodies to play with the Txistu, for example, Groups of Serenades, Dancing-Games, Solemn Dancing... There was a band of "txistularis" in most of the cities of Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia. In general, small villages had a couple of "txistularis" and a drummer, whereas bigger towns used to add one "Silbote" to the formation, constituting little by little the current band of "txistularis": two "txistus", one "silbote" and one drum (usually called "atabal"). 

The name of the traditional concert of "Txistu" in the festivals of villages and cities in the Basque country is "Alarde". The Association of Txistu- players in the Basque Country was founded in 1927, and nowadays it has around two thousand members. This institution has played a decisive role in the development of the activity of the "txistularis". It is commonly said by "txistularis" that this instrument has lost ground in the past few years. They say that the Txistu is heard less and less "in the street", it has been substituted by groups of "trikitixas", "txarangas", "bands"...

In my opinion we have to change this, because the Txistu is part of the culture of our country.