I freely admit that this is a bit embarrassing, but I have a foreign whistle and no name for it.
My friend went to Moldova this summer and came back last week. We went over to her house last night (the second time we’ve seen her since she got back) and her mantle was adorned with things she’d picked up in Moldova.
I spied a small wooden flute and said, “Oh wow! Can I play it?”
“More than that,” she said. “That’s what I brought back for you.” I was so excited, but then she got a little crestfallen. “I’m afraid I got the defect of the bunch. The blowhole is on the wrong side of the flute!”
I looked at it and realized that I had in my hot little hands a whistle similar to the one that little Romanian boy on YouTube (which has been discussed in a thread on Chiff, but that I can’t find for the life of me!) had and played so wonderfully.
So … All that to say, I have no idea what this is called. But I have one now and am having just a wonderful time playing it. It’s certainly in tune with itself, but I haven’t matched it against my tuner, which, unfortunately needs to be calibrated. [sigh!]
If anyone knows off the top of their heads what it is, please let me know. I’ll try and post some pictures tonight.
Not sure what it is called but I will do a little checking with my romanian friends. Moldova is a neighboring country to Romania so it makes sense that the whistle you have and the one seen on that video were of the same type. Research time!
The boy is Preda Bogdan and I first thought it was a romanian whistle called fluier, but that has only 6 holes.
He’s probably playing a kaval(with 7 holes in the front and a thumbhole in the back), I think there are people here that play it and might tell better.
It seems the kaval is rim blown like the ney, so it can’t be that.
Then I’d return to the first assumption that it might be a fluier. Maybe it’s another type with 7 holes or a modified version to better suit the barroque music that he plays
Yes, definitely sounds like it’s a fluier. Also called a fluyer, or floghera (φλογέρα) in Greece, or frula in Serbia, duduk in Bulgaria (as distinct from the double-reed Armenian duduk), and other names around the Balkans. The word just means “flute”. I have a jar full of them in various keys, “tourist trade” whistles from a friend who lived in Romania. Six holes, the fipple is on the underside, and the bore tends to narrow sharply at the bottom end. They’re mostly ornately carved, and the ones that are actually playable have a gentle, reedy tone.
As I understand it, there aren’t many recordings of fluier because it’s considered a mere peasant or pastoral instrument, and “real” musicians prefer the kaval for it’s greater range and expressiveness.
Maybe Adrian will weigh in here. He lives in northern Greece, plays the floghera, and is knowlegeable about whistles in that part of the world. And I believe that cadancer plays some kaval.
Yes, that seems to be a fluier with an added hole for bottom C, to cover the recorder range. Fluieraş are often home-made, so there are no hard and fast design rules. Some may have a hole for the left hand little finger as well. And that Bach piece actually sits pretty nicely on the whistle with a bit of chromatic cross-fingering and half-holing. Fun stuff!
Your summary is absolutely correct. Just to add that some players prefer seven holes to six. Also that they are often adiatonic, that is that they are often intentionally made not in tune with themselves in the western sense. Six same sized and equally spaced holes does not mean it is just a tourist whistle as the locals play them like that as well.
The use of these instruments is dying out now out in this part of the world since the advent of TV and CDs but the kaval is alive and strong and is played in a wide variety of music.
Some time ago I was trying to contact Feher Zsombor, the furulya player from the Kerekes Band (Pimasz Magyar Funk was doing quite well at the time) in order to ask about his instruments. Through his UK promoter I found that he had discovered a cheap source in Transylvania(!). Anyway, I never did get an email from him, which is a pity, because I wanted to ask about what sounded to me like vocalisation techniques that added growl to the whistle. You can hear the kind of thing that I mean here:
Of course, Feher absolutely piles the digital effects on lots of the pieces on Pimasz so it’s pretty hard to tell, but some of the Kerekes traditional pieces, and this one on Youtube seem to suggest that there’s something more going on than just blowing!
