Tandroy vocal music features rich polyharmonic melodies. The unique traditional dances of the Tandroy are performed with spears and accompanied by distinctive music punctuated with shrill whistles and fipple flutes.
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While the precise history of the low whistle is often debated, it is known that various kinds of vertical fipple flutes have existed in antiquity. The fipple flutes developed during the 16th century were the ancestors of today's low whistle, carrying through from early transverse flutes the six-holed design tradition and conical bore shape. They were originally of wooden construction, but the late 17th century saw more extensive use of metals such as brass and nickel. The metal was usually rolled and soldered, and further developments included the use of a tuning slide.
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With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece, with 1/4 of their bottom lip covering the embouchure hole. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician.
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Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006. , in the 16th century. Secular music included the use of musical instruments such as fipple flutes and string instruments, and was usually played on holidays initially by skomorokhs – jesters and minstrels who entertained the nobility.
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Fipple of a Catalan recorder A fipple is a constricted mouthpiece common to many end-blown flutes, such as the tin whistle and the recorder. These instruments are known as fipple flutes (or duct flutes or tubular-ducted flutes) and are indicated by the code 421.2 in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification.
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The clarytone is a musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes — whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle and ocarina. It is about the size of a cupped hand. It sounds like a flute or ocarina (round flute) and has a single funneled hole. It has a note range of almost 4 octaves (4th to 8th octave).
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According to Ardal Powell, flute is a simple instrument found in numerous ancient cultures. According to legends the three birthplaces of flutes are Egypt, Greece, and India. Of these, the transverse flute (side blown) appeared only in ancient India, while the fipple flutes are found in all three. It is likely, states Powell, that the modern Indian bansuri has not changed much since the early medieval era.
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Soprano saxophone mouthpiece The mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument is that part of the instrument which is placed partly in the player's mouth. Single- reed instruments, capped double-reed instruments, and fipple flutes have mouthpieces while exposed double-reed instruments (apart from those using pirouettes) and open flutes do not. The characteristics of a mouthpiece and reed can play a significant role on the sound of the instrument.
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Neolithic bone fluteAccording to Ardal Powell, the flute is a simple instrument found in numerous ancient cultures. There are three legendary and archeologically verifiable birthplace sites of flutes: Egypt, Greece and India. Of these, the transverse flute (side blown) appeared only in ancient India, while the fipple flutes are found in all three. It is likely, states Powell, that the modern Indian bansuri has not changed much since the early medieval era.
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Low whistles operate on the same principles, and are generally fingered in the same way as traditional pennywhistles although for many, a "piper's grip" may be required due to the distance between the holes. They belong to the same woodwind instrument family of end-blown fipple flutes. Though the tone of this instrument varies subtly among makers, low whistles are generally characterised by a more breathy, flute-like sound than traditional tin whistles.
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The flute is perhaps the oldest musical instrument, other than the human voice itself. There are very many flutes, both traversely blown and end-blown "fipple" flutes, currently produced which are not built on the Boehm model. The fingering system for the saxophone closely resembles the Boehm system. A key system inspired by Boehm's for the clarinet family is also known as the "Boehm system", although it was developed by Hyacinthe Klosé and not Boehm himself.
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Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi and bansuri; and end- blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends.
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Folk wind instruments of the area include the Cantabrian pitu montañés, a kind of conical-bored shawm with seven holes in the front and one in the back, which is played in a similar manner to the bagpipe chanter. While it was traditionally made in E-flat, the instrument has been revitalized by Antón Corral, who makes them in D. A transverse flute with six holes is called a requinta; it is similar to the fife. It is usually in G, or sometimes a high C. Traditional Galician wind instruments include the pito pastoril (galego), literally (Galician) shepherd's whistle. Despite the similarity in name, this instrument belongs to a different family than the Cantabrian pitu montañés, namely that of the fipple flutes, which also includes the tin whistle and the recorder.
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A pipe and tabor player and a double pipe player accompany a gymnast in this Medieval illustration. Fipple flutes have a long history: an example of an Iron Age specimen, made from a sheep bone, exists in Leeds City Museum. L.E. McCullough notes that the oldest surviving whistles date from the 12th century, but that, "Players of the feadan are also mentioned in the description of the King of Ireland's court found in Early Irish law dating from the 7th and 8th centuries A.D." The Tusculum whistle is a 14-cm whistle with six finger holes, made of brass or bronze, found with pottery dating to the 14th and 15th centuries; it is currently in the collection of the Museum of Scotland. One of the earliest surviving recorders was discovered in a castle moat in Dordrecht, the Netherlands in 1940, and has been dated to the 14th century.
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The tin whistle in its modern form is from a wider family of fipple flutes which have been seen in many forms and cultures throughout the world. In Europe, such instruments have a long and distinguished history and take various forms, of which the most widely known are the recorder, tin whistle, Flabiol, Txistu and tabor pipe. Almost all primitive cultures had a type of fipple flute and is most likely the first pitched flute type instrument in existence.The tin whistle tutor Edition: 3 - 1991 By Michael Raven Examples found to date include a possible Neanderthal fipple flute from Slovenia, which according to some scientists may date from 81,000 to 53,000 BC;The Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle By Grey LarsenThe Neanderthal Flute, Crosscurrents #183 1997 Greenwich Publishing Canada a German flute from 35,000 years ago; and a flute, known as the Malham Pipe, made from sheep's bone in West Yorkshire dating to the Iron Age.
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Closeup of a khlui phiang aw's blowing end, showing blowing hole, block, and fipple Because of the fixed position of the windway with respect to the labium, fipple instruments can make a musical sound without the kind of embouchure required with (for example) the transverse flute. Embouchure on fipple flutes is centered on the idea of focusing the air inside the instrument's windway and bore alike, following the shape of the bore. Thus, a bore with a wide "bell" at the bottom of the instrument (as with Renaissance recorders) responds best to holding the throat wide open, to direct the airflow in a wide current so as to resonate the entire length and width of the bore. A bore which tapers down to a narrow "bell" (such as in Baroque-modeled recorders and school instruments) sounds best when the lips are used to focus the air to a tighter stream, to focus the air to the narrower "bell" at the bottom of the instrument.
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