Making a Dizi — The Chinese Bamboo Flute with a Buzzing Membrane

The dizi is a Chinese bamboo flute you blow across from the side. Its secret is a thin membrane over an extra hole that buzzes, giving the dizi its bright, reedy, singing voice.

Pick a straight bamboo tube about 45 cm long and a thumb thick, with a solid node left near one end to seal it. The far end stays open.

Push out the inner pith and nodes so the tube is clear — but keep the one node near the top sealed, just behind where the blowing hole will go.

A couple of centimetres below the sealed node, cut a round blowing hole. You blow ACROSS this hole from the side, not into the end of the tube.

A little below the blowing hole, cut a second round hole — the membrane hole. This one is the dizi's secret and carries the buzzing dimo.

Further down the tube, cut six finger holes in a line, spaced to fall comfortably under your fingers.

Near the open end, cut one or two extra holes. These set the lowest note and, on real dizi, hold the hanging tassels.

Take a small piece of thin dimo membrane — traditionally the inner skin of a reed. Very thin tissue or an onion skin will also buzz.

Brush a little garlic juice or weak glue around the membrane hole and lay the dimo over it with TINY wrinkles across the grain. The wrinkles are what make it buzz.

Blow across the blowing hole. The membrane trembles and adds a bright, buzzing shimmer to the note — that reedy rasp is the true voice of the dizi.

Cover all six finger holes for the lowest note and lift them one by one to climb. Blow harder to overblow into the higher register.

Press the wrinkles tighter for a mellow tone, or loosen them for a brighter, louder buzz. A fresh, taut dimo sings; a slack one rattles.

The dizi is a transverse, or side-blown, flute: you blow across the blowing hole so the ribbon of air splits on its edge and sets the air column inside vibrating — the same edge-tone that sounds a Western flute, and quite unlike the end-blown recorder or panpipe. The finger holes change the pitch in the usual way, by shortening the vibrating air column when you open them. What makes the dizi unique is the dimo: a thin membrane stretched over its own hole. When the air column vibrates it drives the membrane too, and the lightly wrinkled membrane buzzes at many frequencies at once, pouring extra high harmonics into every note — a bright, reedy shimmer. This is a mirliton: a membrane that buzzes in sympathy with a sound, exactly the principle of a kazoo or a comb-and-paper. Bamboo flutes are ancient in China — the bone flutes of Jiahu are about 9,000 years old — and the membrane dizi became the standard voice of Chinese music over the last thousand years. Tighten the dimo for a soft tone or loosen it for a rasp; it is the one part of the flute you can re-tune every time you play.