Nose Flute Missing

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31768, 27 August 1968, Page 8

Nose Flute Missing

All his life Andrew Tracey, Oxford graduate in social anthropology, musicologist and star of . the musical happening “Wait a Minim,” which will open in the Theatre Royal on September 10, has wanted to play a Maori flute, preferably with his nose. While the company was in Auckland he almost realised his ambition. With advice from the Auckland Museum’s enthnologist, David Simmons, on fingering and tonguing, he blew lustily on all sorts of flutes —koauau and putorino—but by mouth because the museum has no nose flutes. There were stone flutes and wooden flutes, flutes made from albatross and whalebone, and even one from the thighbone of Hinemoa’s uncle—but no nose flutes. As a consolation Mr Tracey was offered some yard-long puffs on pukaea, or war trumpets, and from the east wing of the museum Issued the sound of “Come to the Cookhouse Door, Boys!” “What a lovely tone,” said Andrew Tracey. "With a smaller mouthpiece I could play a Bach fugue.”