I’ve been playing Irish tunes on the tin whistle for about 5 years now.
This Christmas, a friend gave me a hungarian or ukranian droan whistle.
Actually two whistles together. One side has the traditional six holes, the other side is a droan with only one hole near the bottom. I believe the Ukranian name of the whistle is a “Dvodetsivka.”
I have been unable to figure out how to finger the single hole on the bottom of the droan side of the whistle.
Has anyone out there seen one of these? or knows how to finger the bottom hole?
I would also be interested in hearing some folk music recordings of this unique whistle.
Unfingered, the droan works well with minor key Irish tunes.
I have a Hungarian version of the whistle that you describe, though it doesn’t have the drone hole. My whistle was made by a fellow named Ban Gyorgi. Does your whistle have any markings?
Whistle is a rectangular wood block, just 12 inches long, 1 3/8 inches wide, and about 3/4 inch thick. Drone is on the left side of the block with one finger hole on the side near the bottom. The melody whistle is on the left with six oval holes of equal size and evenly spaced starting in about the middle of the whistle. Two holes, 5/16 inch are bored the length of the block, about 5/8 inch on center apart. It is a little sharp of Middle C.
The chiff and fipple are “upside down” from the typical tin whistle.
The edges are lightly scribed with longitudinal lines and semicircles on the top and bottom, and just the longitudinal lines on the sides.
There is a hand written lable on it that is either the name/type of whistle or location it was made - Dvosnica.
Well, I can’t say for certain, but it is likely that it is a tuning hole, not a hole to be covered. It sounds like the maker may have tuned the drone to function in the minor as opposed to the major scale (as you already mentioned). Then again, I may be wrong.
Hey, you beat me! I’m only Zubivka, sorta low whistle. But now Dvodentsivka!
Window upside down is typical ; not bad idea to let the juices out…
Single finger hole on the drone is uncommon.
Now, Dvosnica… I wonder if the instrument couldn’t be Romanian, in the largest sense (i.e. including Moldavia)? Anyway, Carpaths were a barrier for the laws, never stopped the culture interchange in the area…
That single finger hole on the drone may raise the pitch of the drone to some convenient note such as a fourth or fifth above the fundamental. Depending on the harmonies in a tune, you would cover or uncover the hole as needed. A friend of mine makes double barrel Native American style flutes and sometimes uses holes on the drone barrel in this way.
I think they are cool!! And, ErikT, the recording is beautiful!!! I think I’ve seen these whistles in Lark in the Morning so maybe the Lark website (www.larkinam.com) might have some info on them? Just a thought.
ErikT got it right; that hole on the drone side isn’t meant to be covered. It’s a tuning hole. If you want to experiment with a different drone note, you can try plugging that hole with a piece of clay or sticky-tack or something. I think it sounds better with that tonehole left open, though
(I play this instrument, as well, and know it by the name “dvoyanka”, and I’ve seen “troyanka”, as well: the same thing, but with two drones. All are neat, and have a sort of primitive bagpipe-y kind of thing going. . .)
The drone side of the Whistle is has the single hole. Un-covered it is D and matches the D on the “melody” side of the Whistle.
Covered it is C and matches the C on the melody side. At least according to my electronic tuner. Whistle is a C whistle, a little on the sharp side.
So I would suspect that the hole is not just for “tuning” the drone side.
Actually, that doesn’t tell us one way or the other. All it tells us that it was tuned to play minor when open. Since the two sides (according to your previous description) are the same length, it would be expected to play the tonic when closed.
I would guess that it is designed to play one or the other depending upon the mode of the tune, but doubt that it is intended to be modal during play (that is, to have you use one of your fingers to cover it). But again, that’s just my guess.
Did you check the site I mentioned above ? There’s this quite interesting pix of “pivtoradudka” * (sesquiflute ?) where the drone is half the length of the melodic whistle. High octaved drone.
Another interesting point is the square shape (drilled with cylinders) of the instrument. Could help fingering…
*venturing “sesquiflauta” as possible translation. Though it could mislead to one and a half serving of sorta enchilada… Or worse.
This is where I found the name dvodentsivka -The picture of the Pivtoradentsivka looks like mine if you make the drone side the same length as the fingered side.
Pivtoradentsivka
The Pivtoradetsivka is translated as one and a half dentsivkas. It consists of two dentsivkas joined together into one instrument. Only one of the pipes has fingerholes. The other acts as a drone. The drone pipe in a pivtoradentsivka is usually shorter than the playing pipe. The instrument has the same fingering as the standard dentsivka.
Pivtoradentsivka from “Hraj Muzyko”
Dvodentsivka (Dubeldentsivka)
The dvodentsivka means literally two dentsivkas and this is what it is. Two dentsivkas are joined together into one instrument but still only one has playing holes. The other pipe, although it is the same length, has no holes and acts as a drone.