A handcrafted musical instrument, the scupina designates in the Upper Tavo Valley area — in the practice of the worker-peasant maker Cristoforo Lanesi of Macchie di Farindola — an aerophone composed of three distinct assembled elements: the river reed section in which the single beating reed called lancettë is carved, also known in its entirety as scupina, like the instrument itself; the chanter, locally called tromba, a melodic elderwood pipe with seven (six front and one thumb hole), nine (eight front and one thumb hole) or ten holes (eight front and two thumb holes) for the articulation of the melody, onto which the scupina is fitted; and the blowing mouthpiece, a reed tube of wider section, inserted in turn into the tromba so as to cover the reed, protecting it from rapid deterioration caused by frequent use of the instrument. The cane reed produces a dry and penetrating timbre, while the holes — at times more numerous than those of the best-known pastoral aerophones of central Italy — allow the performance of a broader scale, playable in some versions of the instrument using all the fingers of both hands: two opposing thumbs and eight fingers for melodic fingering.

Its construction requires an accurate knowledge of the material and a sensitive manual skill refined through decades of practice. Once selected, the reed segment is cut and cleaned of its external covering and internal membranes, leaving one node as a stopper at one end; near the opposite end, through a series of knife cuts executed with extreme precision, the vibrating tongue — the lancettë — is carved. The chanter, by contrast, is obtained from a branch of elderwood of fairly large section, a plant selected for the soft and spongy characteristics of its inner pith, which can easily be removed and thus allows the creation of a natural cylindrical channel. This channel is gradually widened with the knife according to a conical profile, narrow at the top and progressively broader towards the distal end, onto which the finger holes are subsequently made. Once fitted onto the upper end of the chanter, the reed is activated by the player blowing into the mouthpiece that protects it, itself made from river cane and shaped with a knife. The breath, pushed through the mouthpiece channel, sets the vibrating tongue into motion, producing the sound that the chanter modulates through the opening and closing of the holes. The knowledge governing the entire process is transmitted through immersion and observation and is concentrated above all in the precision of the tongue cut: a tongue that is too thick will not vibrate; one that is too thin cannot withstand pressure; one that is poorly aligned produces shrill sounds. Only the trained eye of someone who has crafted reeds throughout an entire lifetime recognises at a glance — even before blowing — whether the reed will function properly.

The musical use of the scupina was deeply integrated into the everyday and festive life of the rural world of Farindola. Construction practice was refined while accompanying the flock to pasture, and the moment of greatest musical expression occurred during Carnival, when the so-called Carnival bands — groups of village boys — walked through the streets, each carrying his own self-made instrument. These Carnival bands moved in spontaneous orchestral formation under the guidance of a band leader, carrying scupine, elderwood whistles (zufoletti), sheep-bone flutes (chioffëlë), frame drums made from wooden hoops and pigskin, and beech-wood plank idiophones (chiattillë). These instruments sustained for generations a communal musical life parallel to that of municipal bands and urban culture and are now transmitted thanks to the expertise of a small number of elderly bearers who still master the cuts, diameters, timbres, raw materials and retain a vivid memory of their use and function.

Cristoforo Lanesi transformed this early childhood musical self-training into an adult passion that made him both a player of the two-bass button accordion — the ddu bbottë of Abruzzese peasant tradition — and a maker of almost all his own aerophones and idiophones, as documented by the research of the ethnomusicologist Marco Magistrali. His home in Macchie preserves a collection of self-made instruments documenting a wide spectrum of the instrumental system of the peasant and pastoral musical culture of the Upper Tavo Valley, of which he represents one of the most significant interpreters and bearers.