Personally, I think it’s a bong. 
Seriously, though, Sean Folsom, are you out there? Can you enlighten us?
It’s a vacuum " Russian fartpipe" student model.Made for deaf pipers.
There’s an umbrella in fullset , i heard.
Two weeks ago I have played with my band in Chisinau in Republica Moldova, and there was a guy - Lubomir Jorga, on a nearby marketplace where he has some whistles for sale. He has this “mystery pipes” (or something very similar) made by himself. Unfortunatelly I don’t remember the name, but it sounds funny, just like a eastern bagpipes
This is a zhaleika a single reed hornpipe. If you were to add a bag it would be a volynka or another Russian bagpipe that I think is called a chavash looks very similar but has two hornpipes similar to a tulum. A bunch of these simple hornpipes were made into bagpipes in Eastern Europe. It is very close to the more well known Welsh pibgorn. Often a pig bladder was added or a gord to make kind of a sub-bagpipe.
- Jason
Yes it’s a Russian Hornpipe. I have one in my collection (without the gourd windcap). The single reed and body are made of plastic, the horn is HORN from a COW. It plays an A Major scale of one octave starting at A=220 and ending at A=440 and it is loud, due to the smooth 5/16th bore, there is a small, short length, plug that reduces the bore at the distal end to 5/32nds internal diameter, the same sort of thing that you’d find in the construction of turned, wooden, Balkan whistles, "Frulya"s and even the “modern” (non-cane construction) Quena, in Bolivia, etc. I think it comes from the far node of the cane being left on, and a small vent hole poked into the soft center of the node. You can find this on the cane frulyas in Northern Greece. The Mosul whistle of Morroco, leaves the distal node intact and the finger hole,just above the node, acts as a vent.
The use of the gourd windcap on the Zaleika, adds to the “sale-ability” to tourists who respond to the “romance” of the good old Indian Bin (Pungi, Murli) of snake charmer fame. The interior bore of my (selfmade) Elderwood Pibgorn is very bumpy, full of pits and valleys and boy, does that make the tone softer! I made it in D major and used it on the album
“Holy Well” by Sheila na Gig, playing the Welsh jig “Drive the World Before Me” which is the “ur-type” version of the Irish jig “The Maid At THe Spinning Wheel”. You can see my hornpipes on Oliver Seeler’s hotpipes site, under the Sean’s “other instruments” section.
Hornerly yours… Sean Folsom
Hi Sean, a few questions of questions if you’ve got the time.
Is the inclusion of the last not for strengthening reasons?
What is does ur-type mean?
When making single reed Hornpipes are the holes roughly in frequency ratio-length-ratio positions?
Cheers
John S
Dear Jonh S Yes leaving the node on on cane flutes does make the distal open end resist crushing (something that a plain, open ended cane tube is prone to get from mis-haps). Then there’s the shorter end factor, limiting the bore in that locality means that you don’t have to have the length below the last finger hole, before the open end, and you sometimes have a quieter “bell note” to some extent. I have found that the bottom note is very elastic in pitch (variation in reed moisture etc.), going sharp at every opportunity, so to quiet the bell note and to tune in this “Bottom Note” I use a tobacco “Pipe Clearner” cut short and bent into a “U” shape and narrowing the bore in that area, for fine tuning, you can move the U bend in and out of the bore to tune the bottom note.
“Ur-text” is a German, Baroque music term for the “First”, simple, unadorned, printed melody, with none of the melodic variations, trills, turns and other ornamentation etc. written in.Some music publishers have a knowledgable (or not so knowledgable) musician write all this out. In the end, it’s really on the musical taste and ability of the player.
Materials: Cane (arundo donax) already has a hollow internal bore but Elder has to have the PITH knocked out of it to make a hollow center. you use a drill rod etc. and leave the pits and valleys in the bore, do not sand or reem out the bore to smooth it up. Get only the splinters and hairs hanging down inside the bore. Strip off the exterior bark.
As for scientific dimensions, I found that the mid point between the two ends of a given size tube, had the 4th scale degree, just below the mid point and the 5th just above. I would lay on my fingers 3 up and 3 down, and the left hand, back thumbhole for the octave, is slightly above the uppermost hole in the front (above the left index finger hole). You can also site your right little finger for a natural “lead tone” eg C sharp to D, or B natural to C etc. or a FLAT lead tone (like C natural to D or B flat to C etc. you have to have some room on the length of the tube to distribute the holes UP from the bottom or distal open end. You can run out of length quickly and not have enough for all the finger holes. In fairly thick walled Elder you can scallop out the finger hole to sharpen the top of the holes (reducing “stack height”). On drilling the finger holes, leave the holes in a under-sized diameter, and open the holes up more as needed for (sharpening pitch / loudness). If the largest finger hole diameter matches the bore diameter, at the location just below the opening of the hole, that will be the loudest that hole will sound. Carve tenons for the two horns The wind cap and the bell…and AWAY YOU GO ! Sean Folsom
I’ve worked a lot on setting up elder drone reeds, one thing I do is plug the end initially with beeswax, after further cleaning you can pull it out and seal it up more permanently. You need to strip the bark right quick, the wood can stay green for a long time.
Anyway I’ve gotten some very buzzy reeds with rough bores, in fact I’m maybe regretting having cleaned up a lot of my twigs! The best for really cleaning out the insides is with an electric drill, set out all the twigs of a given size and bore 'em out good. You want to select stock that’s fairly straight too of course. Also before you clean the insides you can put the reed itself into the drill and clean up the outsides in a big way too, also you can conicalize (is that the word?) the end so it’ll fit good into the reed seat.
All that rot!