The construction of pipes

Mariana Preda

In order to build a pipe I followed the following steps.

I bought 3 PVC tubes of different dimensions.

Then I measured my pan flute biggest pipe, C1, which is 36cm long with a diameter of 2,4cm.
I also measured other two pipes who were visibly matching the C2 and C3 pipes of my instrument.
C2 is 17cm long with a diameter of 1,7cm. C3 is 10,5cm long and has a diameter of 1,3cm.
I then cut the PVC pipes to these measures.
The next step was finding some rubber caps for C2 and C3. For C1 I used a wine cork.
It is extremely important to make the caps fully cover the end of the pipe so that the air doesn't go out.
In this way you get a good sound because when blowing into the tubes the air hits the caps and the
walls of the pipes making them vibrate.

The next step was to make the embouchure and tune each tube with a tuner and bees wax.
I had to play a lot with fixing the embouchure with a cutter and sand paper in order to make it match
my lips for getting an open and clear sound from each tube.

In conclusion I can say that this assignment was really interesting and helpful because it made me
understand how the pan flute is built and that each detail is key to create a good instrument.