Chiff and Fipple Forums

My son and grandson came back from the thrift store one day. "Thought you'd be interested in this." they said, and I was.

It seems to be some sort of walking stick flute. Five finger holes.

And a really weird mouthpiece.

You blow into the hole on the smaller tube and the air goes into the larger one, and over a channel similar to the one under the block in a Native American flute, but there's no block.

I forgot to take a photo of the channel. There are also two holes near the end, like direction or tuning holes.


I'm not entirely sure how to play it. You kind of have to hold the small tube to blow into it which leaves only one hand to cover finger holes. Not sure how you would do the lower ones.

Anybody ever see anything like this, or played one, or can even tell me anything about it? It has me intrigued.

It's a fujara of some stripe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujara

How cool is that? It also explains why I couldn't figure out how to play it. I was trying to blow it transverse, but the photo shows it to be played vertically. I'll have to work on this. Now, to find some sheep.

Just watching some YouTube videos about Fujara. Very similar to mine, but with some interesting differences. For one thing, I think I need a small mouthpiece and a leather tie to hold the sound pipe. For another, the ones played in Slovakia seem to be much bigger than what I have. But the main puzzle is that on mine, there are five sound holes, whereas the traditional Fujara uses three. Plus, mine are on the same side of the flute as the sound pipe. Not sure how you'd finger that. Definitely related, but there seems to be some divergence here.

It's apparently placed with some vocalization, much like the didgeridoo, from where much of the melody comes. At least that's what it sounded like to me. Guess I need to do more research.

Very cool, I had no idea such a thing as a Fujara existed.

Hello Michael:

Yes, it looks like a fujara. I tried a web search for "five hole" fujara but haven't found anything yet. I did find this website that has a lot of information on Slovak flutes: https://www.slavorum.org/fujara-and-oth ... ak-flutes/.

Being a folk instrument I guess a maker could use any length and number of fingerholes that met his requirements.

Frank P.

Hello Michael,

It's a Moseno, a bolivian flute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjn-8EvvIac

http://www.nativefluteswalking.com/mose ... risonchart

squirrel wrote:Hello Michael,

It's a Moseno, a bolivian flute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjn-8EvvIac

http://www.nativefluteswalking.com/mose ... risonchart

That's it! So interesting. Is the Moseno a fipple flute, or an embouchure flute? It's hard to tell from the videos and descriptions.

The first paragraph of the article says its a fipple flute.

squirrel wrote:It's a Moseno, a bolivian flute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjn-8EvvIac

http://www.nativefluteswalking.com/mose ... risonchart

I stand corrected!

Like the Fujara, there are similarities and differences. The Moseño in the video is larger than mine, and the blow pipe is proportionally longer. In addition, I see a key near the end. Mine has no key. Perhaps just individual variants, I don't know.

On mine, the place where you blow is on the same side of the flute as the sound holes. This makes it impossible to play vertically like the Fujara. When I get home, I'll try to play it at an angle like the guy in the Moseño video and see if that works better.

It's kind of amazing that this is so similar to instruments from such disparate locations as Slovakia and South America. I mention the latter because the Moseño is also associated with Argentina, Peru, and Chile.