Has anyone else come across this fantastic yugoslavian instrument?
One of the girls in my band (“Split Heirs”) has one.
This one is in (very) LOW G. It only has three holes, so it plays a funky natural scale using harmonics.
It’s so long that you hold it horizontally and blow into a tube that sends air to the oversized fipple!
It sounds really breathy and beautiful.
Has anyone else discovered it?
(just discovered that you should hold it vertically! - try this url to see a picture of one!) http://bluyovo.misto.cz/_MAIL_/
Lark in the Morning sells one, for $1150 USD. They describe it as a 5.5’ long fipple flute. Here’s a link to their page - [http://www.larkinam.com/MenComNet/Business/Retail/LarkNet/Winds]fujara](http://www.larkinam.com/MenComNet/Business/Retail/LarkNet/Winds]fujara). Is this the instrument you are talking about? If so, post an MP3 sometime for us all to hear one.
The website I quoted has some cool playing on it!
Gordontait,
Wow. Your post just goes to show that a flower can bloom even between the cracks of “cool” graffiti on concrete. I just finished reading the “can’t play and still look cool” thread. I don’t need the instrument slammers. I need people like you to turn me on to an exotic instrument. The fujara reminds me a bit of the throat singers of Tuva, or the chants of the Tibetan monks.
Thank you so much for sharing that website–it made my day!
Lisa
Hey Lisa, glad I can broaden your horisons a bit!
Just thought I’d send this to the top of the board, seeing as not enough people have seen it! :->
The Fujara (pronounced “foo-YA-rah”)is the Slovakian version of a contra-bass Tabor pipe. The bore-length is made approx. 40 times the inner diameter to limit or eliminate the first octave notes.
By cross-fingering and overblowing the 2nd through the 6th octaves, the instrument can play a full 12 notes & half notes. If you wish some tech info and a full set of building measurements,you can look here…
MIMForum](http://www.mimf.com/library/fujara.htm%22%3EMIMForum) Fujara Discussion
The three oversized toneholes are each covered by 2 fingers held close together. The top hole by the index and middle finger of the left hand and the bottom 2 toneholes by the index/middle and ring/pinky fingers of the right hand,respectively. I like to play mine,but I’m a rank beginner and can’t play it well. I too,love the haunting sound.
Thomas Hastay.
I know this thread is an old one to be reviving, but having just stumbled across this wonderful instrument, I wonder if anyone has additional information about it?
Where to get one (anyplace other than Lark in the AM)?
Fingering/playing techniques?
Recordings available?
I’ve sent an e-mail to one of the prior posters to this thread, but in case anyone else out there knows anything about this haunting instrument, I’d love to hear what you know.
Thanks,
Aaron
Somehow I missed this thread the first time around. Sounds to me a little like a high-pitched didgeridoo.
Try Tibor Koblicek’s website. It’s also a slovak instrument, and Tibor builds slovakian bagpipes as well.
Thought I’d resurrect this thread. There is a fujara on ebay if anyone is interested.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2579199625&category=47102
Hi just was lurking, around, the best site i know is
I have one. Mine looks almost exactly like the one on eBay. The only usual way to get one is to find someone who makes them, in Slovakia.
It’s a weird/wonderful instrument, unlike any other. From the size you’d think it’s very low pitched, for example, but it isn’t, it’s actually pitched somewhere in the vicinity of the Ab, what we would call a low Ab whistle. Check the sound samples in http://www.fujara.sk.
As all Slovak words, the first syllable has the stress: FUY-yah-rah
Oh, the $400 price is very good. I’d say it’d cost you about $250 in Slovakia if you have good contacts, and you have to carry that inside the airplane and through customs, not a lot of fun.
There was a report on Arte a little over a week ago about this hungarian professor who besides his teaching and studies about the tradition also makes the Fujara’s. A little bit about the history of the instrument and showing him with a “Hollunder-trunk” going in the workshop (2 years drying time) and coming out on another scene with the hollow 2m trunk, taking the bark of and starting carving it. At the end of the report he demonstrated one. I also find they sound amazing and there is quite a bit of eastern European Music out to find with them. Sounds and feeling to a tune I find is quite similar to the willow-flutes (overtone-flutes) used in the Skandinavian tradition. Can be a very rythmically and driving instrument. And also looking at them, their carvings is eye-pleasing.
Brigitte
Yes, Brigitte, this is precisely it. You play the overtone series, basically. You can do melody or these stacatto percussive sounds, and the vibrato (done with the fingers) is amazing.
There are 3 large finger holes, which are usually played with the first finger of left hand (on top) then thumb and first finger of right hand (on bottom).
Wow, what a cosmic sounding instrument!
Dana
I can only imagine how beautiful it must sound in the mountains, where it’s from. When i picked up mine (a gift from my father in law, made by Andrej Dvorsky who sadly i later lost contact with), the maker played for us from the balcony of his apartment as we were walking away, and it was a truly awesome experience.
Now in Slovakia most people make fun of these things, because they’re connected to the old pastoral culture. Most fujara songs seem to be about sheep or “my poor old legs, so tired from walking”, that kind of stuff. I used to have fun singing about “my poor old sheep” (moje stare ovci!).
This same kind of wood shows up in a lot of Eastern European and Russian instruments. It’s a white wood that can be stained (with acid, i think) into interesting patterns by masking the areas you want to remain white.
g
Wasn’t there fújara music played in S. Paradjanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (aka Horses of Fire or Teni Zabutykh Predkiv) cast in a 19th century Carpathian village?
Thomas, I tired the link to the MIMForum but I didn’t see anything for the Fujara. Is there another link?