I somehow missed this paragraph that David wrote in another thread, and I just noticed it while re-reading that discussion.
It is fascinating that mormorkas can work on flutes, not just on pipes. If that is the case, it would be really cool to see someone make a whistle with two thumb-holes (both with mormorkas) that was fully chromatic. Only 8 holes would be needed, and you’d have a whistle that could easily play in D or E flat (using almost the same fingerings for both), and most other keys would be quite playable as well.
I’d especially love to see this on a low whistle. No fancy keys or pinky holes needed. Just two thumb holes, and you have a full chromatic scale.
Maybe the reason this has never been tried is that the tuning wouldn’t be precise enough. But I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this.
All my experiments with making flutes and whistles have slowed down a lot - I’ve lost a lot of hearing in one ear and it generates buzzing with many notes, while also changing the pitch at which they’re perceived. It’s ruddy annoying.
That would be cool! I had no idea mormorki would work on flutes. (I’m guessing that’s the plural cf gaida/gaidi etc.)
As someone who has played Bulgarian gaida for many years I’ll say that that’s not how it works, at least on gaida.
Yes you get a partially chromatic scale but it’s not chromatic in the sense that orchestral woodwinds are. (And even with those it’s customary to have instruments in different keys, witness clarinets made in Bb and A.)
With gaida, a professional gaidar (piper) will have gaidunitsi (chanters) in several different keys. When I was really into gaida I used four gaidunitsi at gigs (in G, A, C, and D).
Rather, the mormorka allows you to play traditional Bulgarian dance-tunes which often switch modes, like
D E F# G A (D Major)
D E F G A (D minor)
D Eb F# G A (D Hijaz)
etc.
The Bulgarian flute, the kaval, has 8 holes, no keys, and is chromatic, but it doesn’t have a mormorka, rather the fingerholes themselves give a chromatic scale.
It is interesting that you’ll have a Bulgarian piper and fluter playing in unison, both instruments having 8 similarly-placed holes, but the two instruments are using completely different technology to get all the accidentals.
I’ve often thought how cool it would be to have an Irish flute or low whistle set up with kaval-like lower-hand hole placements, so that with no keys you have both F sharp and F natural right under your fingers.
xxx|xxxx D
xxx|xxxo E
xxx|xxoo F natural
xxx|xooo F sharp
xxx|oooo G
But the gaida only has one mormorka, right? I was talking about having two (as David mentioned) which could potentially allow you to move every note up a half step by uncovering both holes at once. Wouldn’t it? If not, at the very least it should allow for more chromatics than a gaida has.
Also, remember that the Lindsay system chanter has a mormorka that allows for more notes than the gaida (at least, I think it does). So not all mormorkas are created equal.
Thanks for that, I saw Donald Lindsay demonstrate the thing but darned if I could figure out how it worked.
My guess is that the Lindsay chanter is going to be the latest in a series of groundbreaking innovative instruments that end up with the inventor as pretty much the only one who plays it (cf Carlo Giorgi’s keyless chromatic end-blown orchestra flute).
In any case, at least with traditional Gaidi the mormorka doesn’t really work on the three lowest notes
x|xxx|xxxx G
x|xxx|xxxo A
x|xxx|xxoo B
x|xxx|xooo C x|oxx|xooo C#
x|xxx|oooo D x|oxx|oooo D#
x|xxo|oooo E x|oxo|oooo F
x|xoo|oooo F# x|ooo|oooo G
o|xoo|oooo A
(fingerings simplied)
There are modern neo-gaidi which have a modified bore so that the mormorka works all the way down.
One traditionalist dismissed them as “goatskin saxophones”.
Another old-school gaidar, seeing a young gaidar’s complex manipulations to play the low chromatic notes, asked “why do you keep trying to do that?”
I don’t know why you think that. Giorgi’s flute was apparently a pain to hold and play properly, required people to relearn existing fingerings and embouchure, and had few (if any) advantages over a normal 6-key flute to begin with. Lindsay’s chanter is no more difficult than a normal SSP chanter, if you’re just playing the normal 9 notes. It just gives you extra notes, when/if you want them. Plus, a lot of people seem to play the Lindsay system chanter already, and other makers have replicated the design (Malin Lewis even made one in wood, and it sounds amazing) - so it seems to be catching on, at least a bit. And to top it all, I’ve never heard anyone who’s tried the Lindsay system say anything negative about it.
It seems more likely to me that it’ll become a popular design for a niche community of SSP players who specifically want to play music that isn’t traditional SSP music. I certainly have trouble believing it’ll die out.
