Articulation/non-pitch-changing fingerings

[Goran]

There's a wind-instrument-specific fingering that I've seen and used on many instruments, though I'm having a hard time knowing how to describe it and name it. So, I'm seeking suggestions and comments from other pipers/kaval players/penny whistlers/flute players.

Here's what's happening (using gajda or smallpipes fingerings as an example). One can add an aural and rhythmic boundary -- an articulation, if you will -- to a note without changing its pitch or interrupting the air flow or the volume of the sound by application of a finger below the open hole. Sometimes, that covering-uncovering of the "hole below" can take place two holes below the hole that's producing the note to be articulated. It can be done so as to produce a rhythmic pulsation (kind of like a rhythmic trill or a phase change or a timbre shift -- but not intonational) that's perceptible to a listener. I know that it's done extensively on Bulgarian kaval using alternate fingerings to produce the same note; somewhat less often on Macedonian kaval and Romanian caval; and on gajda (djura & kaba gajda and Macedonian). I hear it used to great musical (and emotive) effect on Northumbrian smallpipes and Irish Uilleann pipes -- just for instance.

So, what do we call it? It's a shading of the timbre that (I think) causes different overtones to be foregrounded while others are backgrounded.

Ideas? Comments?


Goran (E. European kaval and gajda player)

[Peter Duggan]

Sounds like you're thinking of fingered vibrato, although there's definitely a (slight) pitch fluctuation there too if you are.

[MichaelLoos]

I guess you are referring to a technique called hlopka or sechene in Bulgarian kaval playing.
There is nothing comparable in Western music. Fingered vibrato comes nearest, although the effect is totally different from the vibrato used in kaval and gaida music, as the tone to be embellished alternates with a slightly lower tone, whereas in kaval and gaida music it changes to a slightly higher tone, this being done by "rocking" the next finger on its hole in the case of kaval, or by rocking the finger on the flea hole in case of the gaida.
Traditional Northumbrian piping employs (almost) no vibrato, although more modern players do use it. In Uilleann piping, it is used quite a lot for slow airs and other slow tunes, not so much in dance music.

[pancelticpiper]

I think I know what you mean on the kaval, going

x|xoo|oooo
x|xxx|xxxx

in the 3rd register. Both fingerings create the same note but the timbre is quite different.

You can sometimes do the same thing on an Irish whistle

xxo|ooo
xxx|xxx

On some whistles the pitch of the two is the same and you get that Kaval-esque effect.

What it is, of course, is playing the same note using two different harmonics (members of the harmonic series).

The uilleann pipes have something like that, though perhaps pipers aren't aware that they're doing it, nor do they seem to have a formal name for it.

When pipers "bark", say, going from A in the 1st register to F# in the 2nd register, the "bark" is a momentary closure of the chanter:

x|xxo|xxxx
x|xxx|xxxx
x|xxx|xoxx

Thing is, sometimes that D comes out a Hard Bottom D, giving the bark a strong growly barking effect, but other times it comes out a middle D, giving the bark a smoother effect.

If a piper could, in a controlled way, alternate quickly between two different ways of playing Middle D

o|xxx|xxxx
x|xxx|xxxx

it would be analogous to that Kaval sound.

Of course the uilleann pipes have the well-known Hard Bottom D/Soft Bottom D thing, where by using two different pressures you can get two very different timbres of the same pitch.

About vibrato on the uilleann pipes, it's very complex and interesting.

If you play Back D, then one at a time try doing vibrato with each finger, then try the fingers in various combinations, you'll see that sometimes the pitch is lowered, sometimes raises, and sometimes stays the same (the difference being one of timbre, not of pitch).