The eagle is an auspicious animal, the commander-in-chief of the birds, and a symbol of loyalty, love, boldness and bravery. Since the time of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, the eagle has been used as a symbol of the royal family. Eagle worship widely existed in many ancient peoples, especially the steppe nomads. The eagle is a bird of prey. It has superb flying skills and ferocious grasping skills. In the face of the cruel natural environment, the hunting nation imagines that it has the same skills as an eagle. With the development of hunting industry, hunters have domesticated eagles as their assistants, and eagles have become their indispensable support. Starting with the topic of eagles, the next thing to introduce is a musical instrument about eagles - the eagle flute.

Eagle flute, let's start with a tragic story: a pair of lovers were chased and killed by a rich man. After the girl died, she turned into a flying eagle, pecked and killed the rich man, and the rich man shot her with an arrow. Before she died, she asked her lover to make a pair of flutes from the bones of her wings as a souvenir, and said that the music played on the pair of eagle flutes was the proof of their eternal love. This is the legendary eagle flute, the tone is desolate and distant, the melody is rough and unrestrained, strong and powerful, like a swooping eagle, flying proudly among the valleys, even if it expresses longing or sadness, it will never whimper low back, so It can best show the heroic and enthusiastic personality of Tibetans.

The eagle flute in the Maqu grassland is also called "turtle bell", which has a long history of more than 1,700 years. Its sound is very penetrating and infectious, but it is difficult for us to see the real eagle flute in our daily life. In the eyes of the Tibetan people, the eagle is a divine bird. According to legend, the eagle will fly towards the sun in the last moments of its life until it is reduced to ashes. Therefore, it is difficult to see its bones on the ground. However, occasionally because of the extreme weather, the eagles were frozen to death because they failed to fly over the snow-capped mountains, and people found their bones on the snow-capped mountains above 4,000 meters above sea level.

In ancient times, the ancient ancestors used local materials to make living utensils from animal bones, which is a reflection of their wisdom in using materials flexibly. About 8,000 years ago, the ancient ancestors who lived in the present-day Henan area have made a bone-made single-pipe wind instrument, which is called "bone flute" by scholars. Since the use of bamboo flutes in Yale music in the Zhou Dynasty, the ancients often used bamboo and occasionally bone to make flutes. However, in the remote Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the rare fire of making eagle flutes is preserved. It is really exciting and emotional to replicate the memories and skills left by the ancestors of that distant era for us.

When making the eagle flute, first scrape off the meat on the wing bones, saw off the joints at both ends, smooth the upper and lower nozzles, and remove the marrow. The process of opening the sound hole is very important. The folks often use the width of the index finger and the middle finger flat on the bone canal as the standard distance. "Eagle flute" is not only different in length, but also in the size of the orifice, and the distance between the sound holes. Whenever the "Eagle Flute" has finished opening the sound hole, it is necessary to carve patterns or inscriptions on the white and handsome flute, just like a delicate handicraft. What is even more peculiar is that after the eagle flute is made, it cannot be used immediately. It should be placed on the beam in the house and let the smoke from the naan pit smoke for the first half of the year. The color of the eagle flute changes. The milky white turns to a light bronzer, and you're done. This will not only look good, but will never have odor and deterioration, and the sound will be fuller and more rounded.

Traditional eagle flutes are made in pairs. Usually a pair of wing bones of an eagle is used to make two pairs of eagle flutes with the same size and opening. When played, the tones are exactly the same. The twin dolls are quite ethnic. Due to the different eagle bones used in eagle flutes, there are also differences in sound. Eagle flutes made of eagle bones have hard bones, fine bone lines, smooth surface, long and thick bone tubes, low pitch and strong timbre; The eagle flute made of eagle bone is not as good as the eagle bone, the bone tube is short and thin, the pitch is high, and the tone is bright. The Eagle Flute can be played solo, in ensemble, or accompanied by singing and dancing. The folk eagle flute band usually consists of four people, two men play the eagle flute, and two women accompany the hand drum.

When playing the eagle flute, the artist presses the upper hole with the middle finger of the left, and the two holes with the index finger and middle finger of the right; Impact the wall of the tube to vibrate the air column in the tube and make sounds by pressing the hole with your finger. Both flat blowing and super blowing are used, and the vocal range is d1-e2, up to nine degrees. The tone is high-pitched and bright, and the whistle is vivid... The eagle flute is a musical instrument from nature and is nourished by the spirituality of nature. Modern musical instruments cannot replace the music and art genes that have been contained in thousands of years. It is the legacy of ancestors. precious cultural heritage, we should continue to inherit and develop it.