Fipple
Encyclopedia
A fipple is a constricted mouthpiece
common to many end-blown woodwind instruments, such as the tin whistle
and the recorder
. These instruments are known variously as fipple flutes, duct flutes, or tubular-ducted flutes.
In the accompanying illustration of the head of a recorder, the wooden fipple plug (A), with a "ducted flue" windway above it in the mouthpiece of the instrument, compresses the player's breath, so that it travels along the duct (B), called the "windway". Exiting from the windway, the breath is directed against a hard, bladed edge (C), called the "labium lip" or windcutter, producing a Bernoulli effect or siphon
. The air flowing over the voicing mouth creates a flow-controlled valve, or "air reed."
Interaction between the air reed and the air column in the body of the instrument produces oscillation in the flow of air at the windway. This oscillation results in the "whistle sound" in ducted flue instruments. See wind instrument
and flue pipe
. A distinct tone color, determined by the dimensions of the instrument and the voicing mouth, is then slightly modified by the player's technique or embouchure
. In instruments such as the recorder, the player can vary the pitch of the resulting musical note by opening or closing finger holes along the bore of the instrument, thus changing the effective length.
The windway consists of the "wind canal" or "flue", the upper portion of the voicing/mouth as carved into the headjoint itself, and the ducted flue windway, as carved onto the top surface of the fipple block. The space created between the ducted flue windway and the labium ramp edge is referred to as the "mouth" or "voicing".
The size of the mouth (length, width and depth) is usually in proportion to the instrument's bore, depending on the model of instrument and specifically which original instrument is being copied (in the cases of recorders). Many mass-produced factory instruments feature a voicing of a rectangular or flat lozenge
cross section
. Such a flat and rectangular voicing however, produces a less-than-sweet tone and offers far less dynamic flexibility (pitch bending) than a flute embouchure. The recorder voicing was designed to limit pitch bending for a more stable tone with variations in breath pressure. Typically, a shallow ramp instrument, such as a tabor pipe
, will allow faster register changes, pitch bending and "flutey" tone, while an instrument with a deeper ramp will limit fast register changes, pitch bending and produce a more "reedy" tone.
Some modern recorder makers now produce curved labium lip voicings to add harmonic tone color. If the air stream strikes a curved "D" shaped lip, there will be slight turbulence created at the voicing mouth. This translates to extra sympathetic harmonics or "tone color".
The chamfer/rounding at the end of the windway that opens on the mouth/voicing is responsible for the quality of articulation
of the ducted flue instrument. It consists of one or both of the windway exit lips being rounded. This can be seen by looking through the labium (window) at the place where the windway opens out on the mouth/window. These rounded edges affect the responsiveness (tonguings) produced by the player. This enables the rhythmic and dynamic language of the instrument to be "spoken". Articulations such as "Ta", "Da", "Ra", "Ta-ka" and "Da-ga" and "Diddle" will be very clearly differentiated in a good instrument played by a good player. An inferior instrument lacking these modified rounded edges on the windway exit will greatly limit the dynamics of tone or create "dead spots" in the music. The lack of this feature will degrade the performance of a ducted flue instrument, regardless of the effort made by the player to correct tone, or his or her level of skill.
Embouchure on fipple flutes is centered around 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. The idea is to always resonate the full length and width of the bore with the airflow, focusing the air accordingly. At all times, closing the lips around the "beak" of the recorder or fipple flute will help to focus the air down the narrow windway. This is very important to tone production on any fipple flute.
While a tight seal between the lips and the "beak" of the recorder focuses the tone, a tight facial musculature will also produce a raspy sound (with recorders, specifically). The combination of a clean seal with the lips around the beak, with the relaxing of the cheeks and face muscles, while allowing the cheeks to puff out in response to the flow of air, will be ingredients in the greater recipe of factors which produce a focused, ringy tone. This "greater recipe of factors" includes not only embouchure, but posture, articulation, breathing and fingering technique alike. Care should be taken not to block the windway with the teeth, which filters and scatters the airflow, producing a less-than-focused sound with a fuzzy edge, so to speak.
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. It is largely intact, though not playable. A second more or less intact 14th century recorder was found in a latrine in northern Germany (in Göttingen): other 14th-century examples survive from Esslingen (Germany) and Tartu (Estonia). There is a fragment of a possible 14th-15th-century bone recorder in Rhodes (Greece); and there is an intact 15th-century example from Elblag (Poland).
Mouthpiece (woodwind)
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 and open flutes do not.-Single-reed instruments:On...
common to many end-blown woodwind instruments, such as the tin whistle
Tin whistle
The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, English Flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, Tin Flageolet, Irish whistle and Clarke London Flageolet is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is an end blown fipple flute, putting it in the same category as the recorder, American Indian flute, and...
and the recorder
Recorder
The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...
. These instruments are known variously as fipple flutes, duct flutes, or tubular-ducted flutes.
How it works
Siphon
The word siphon is sometimes used to refer to a wide variety of devices that involve the flow of liquids through tubes. But in the English language today, the word siphon usually refers to a tube in an inverted U shape which causes a liquid to flow uphill, above the surface of the reservoir,...
. The air flowing over the voicing mouth creates a flow-controlled valve, or "air reed."
Interaction between the air reed and the air column in the body of the instrument produces oscillation in the flow of air at the windway. This oscillation results in the "whistle sound" in ducted flue instruments. See wind instrument
Wind instrument
A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator , in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into a mouthpiece set at the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of...
and flue pipe
Flue pipe
A flue pipe is an organ pipe that produces sound through the vibration of air molecules, in the same manner as a recorder or a whistle. Air under pressure is driven down a flue and against a sharp lip called a Labium, causing the column of air in the pipe to resonate at a frequency determined by...
. A distinct tone color, determined by the dimensions of the instrument and the voicing mouth, is then slightly modified by the player's technique or embouchure
Embouchure
The embouchure is the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece of woodwind instruments or the mouthpiece of the brass instruments.The word is of French origin and is related to the root bouche , 'mouth'....
. In instruments such as the recorder, the player can vary the pitch of the resulting musical note by opening or closing finger holes along the bore of the instrument, thus changing the effective length.
The windway consists of the "wind canal" or "flue", the upper portion of the voicing/mouth as carved into the headjoint itself, and the ducted flue windway, as carved onto the top surface of the fipple block. The space created between the ducted flue windway and the labium ramp edge is referred to as the "mouth" or "voicing".
The size of the mouth (length, width and depth) is usually in proportion to the instrument's bore, depending on the model of instrument and specifically which original instrument is being copied (in the cases of recorders). Many mass-produced factory instruments feature a voicing of a rectangular or flat lozenge
Lozenge
A lozenge , often referred to as a diamond, is a form of rhombus. The definition of lozenge is not strictly fixed, and it is sometimes used simply as a synonym for rhombus. Most often, though, lozenge refers to a thin rhombus—a rhombus with acute angles of 45°...
cross section
Cross section (geometry)
In geometry, a cross-section is the intersection of a figure in 2-dimensional space with a line, or of a body in 3-dimensional space with a plane, etc...
. Such a flat and rectangular voicing however, produces a less-than-sweet tone and offers far less dynamic flexibility (pitch bending) than a flute embouchure. The recorder voicing was designed to limit pitch bending for a more stable tone with variations in breath pressure. Typically, a shallow ramp instrument, such as a tabor pipe
Pipe and Tabor
Pipe and tabor is a pair of instruments played by a single player, consisting of a three-hole pipe played with one hand, and a small drum played with the other...
, will allow faster register changes, pitch bending and "flutey" tone, while an instrument with a deeper ramp will limit fast register changes, pitch bending and produce a more "reedy" tone.
Some modern recorder makers now produce curved labium lip voicings to add harmonic tone color. If the air stream strikes a curved "D" shaped lip, there will be slight turbulence created at the voicing mouth. This translates to extra sympathetic harmonics or "tone color".
The chamfer/rounding at the end of the windway that opens on the mouth/voicing is responsible for the quality of articulation
Articulation (music)
In music, articulation refers to the musical direction performance technique which affects the transition or continuity on a single note or between multiple notes or sounds.- Types of articulations :...
of the ducted flue instrument. It consists of one or both of the windway exit lips being rounded. This can be seen by looking through the labium (window) at the place where the windway opens out on the mouth/window. These rounded edges affect the responsiveness (tonguings) produced by the player. This enables the rhythmic and dynamic language of the instrument to be "spoken". Articulations such as "Ta", "Da", "Ra", "Ta-ka" and "Da-ga" and "Diddle" will be very clearly differentiated in a good instrument played by a good player. An inferior instrument lacking these modified rounded edges on the windway exit will greatly limit the dynamics of tone or create "dead spots" in the music. The lack of this feature will degrade the performance of a ducted flue instrument, regardless of the effort made by the player to correct tone, or his or her level of skill.
Embouchure
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 flute. However, it is not true that no embouchure is required to make a beautiful-sounding tone.Embouchure on fipple flutes is centered around 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. The idea is to always resonate the full length and width of the bore with the airflow, focusing the air accordingly. At all times, closing the lips around the "beak" of the recorder or fipple flute will help to focus the air down the narrow windway. This is very important to tone production on any fipple flute.
While a tight seal between the lips and the "beak" of the recorder focuses the tone, a tight facial musculature will also produce a raspy sound (with recorders, specifically). The combination of a clean seal with the lips around the beak, with the relaxing of the cheeks and face muscles, while allowing the cheeks to puff out in response to the flow of air, will be ingredients in the greater recipe of factors which produce a focused, ringy tone. This "greater recipe of factors" includes not only embouchure, but posture, articulation, breathing and fingering technique alike. Care should be taken not to block the windway with the teeth, which filters and scatters the airflow, producing a less-than-focused sound with a fuzzy edge, so to speak.
History
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
specimen, made from a sheep bone, exists in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
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
Dordrecht
Dordrecht , colloquially Dordt, historically in English named Dort, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the fourth largest city of the province, having a population of 118,601 in 2009...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
in 1940, and has been dated to the 14th century. It is largely intact, though not playable. A second more or less intact 14th century recorder was found in a latrine in northern Germany (in Göttingen): other 14th-century examples survive from Esslingen (Germany) and Tartu (Estonia). There is a fragment of a possible 14th-15th-century bone recorder in Rhodes (Greece); and there is an intact 15th-century example from Elblag (Poland).
Instruments that use a fipple
Fipples are used in the following musical instruments:- DipleDipleDiple, dvojnice, or dvojanke are a traditional woodwind musical instrument in Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian music.-The flute:...
(or dvojnice) - FlageoletFlageoletThe flageolet is a woodwind musical instrument and a member of the fipple flute family. Its invention is ascribed to the 16th century Sieur Juvigny in 1581. There are two basic forms of the instrument: the French, having four finger holes on the front and two thumb holes on the back; and the...
(forerunner of the tin whistle) - FujaraFujaraThe fujara originated in central Slovakia as a large sophisticated folk shepherd's fipple flute of unique design. It is technically a contrabass instrument in the tabor pipe class....
- GemshornGemshornThe gemshorn is an instrument of the ocarina family that was historically made from the horn of a chamois, goat, or other suitable animal. The gemshorn receives its name from the German language, and means a chamois horn.-History:...
- HydraulophoneHydraulophoneA hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. Typically sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player's fingers...
- KhloyKhloyA khloy is an ancient traditional bamboo flute from Cambodia and more specifically the Khmer people. The khloy and other similar bamboo flutes can be found throughout Asia, due to bamboo’s abundance in the region. The khloy is a duct flute, about 15 inches long and 1 inch in diameter, with 8 or 9...
- KhluiKhluiThe khlui is a vertical duct flute from Thailand. It is generally made of bamboo, though instruments are also made from hardwood or plastic...
- KuisiKuisiA kuisi is a Native American fipple flute made from a hollowed cactus stem, with a beeswax and charcoal powder mixture for the head, with a thin quill made from the feather of a large bird for the mouthpiece...
- OcarinaOcarinaThe ocarina is an ancient flute-like wind instrument. Variations do exist, but a typical ocarina is an enclosed space with four to twelve finger holes and a mouthpiece that projects from the body...
- Organ pipeOrgan pipeAn organ pipe is a sound-producing element of the pipe organ that resonates at a specific pitch when pressurized air is driven through it. Each pipe is tuned to a specific note of the musical scale...
- Pipe (as with tabor)Pipe and TaborPipe and tabor is a pair of instruments played by a single player, consisting of a three-hole pipe played with one hand, and a small drum played with the other...
- RecorderRecorderThe recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...
- ShviShviThe shvi which means "whistle" in Armenian, is a fipple flute with a labium mouth piece. Commonly made of wood or bamboo) and up to 12 inches in length, it typically has a range of an octave and a-half...
- Slide whistleSlide whistleA slide whistle is a wind instrument consisting of a fipple like a recorder's and a tube with a piston in it. Thus it has an air reed like some woodwinds, but varies the pitch with a slide. The construction is rather like a bicycle pump...
(aka swanee or swannee whistle, piston flute, jazz flute) - Tin whistleTin whistleThe tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, English Flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, Tin Flageolet, Irish whistle and Clarke London Flageolet is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is an end blown fipple flute, putting it in the same category as the recorder, American Indian flute, and...
(or penny whistle) - TxistuTxistuThe txistu or chistu is a kind of fipple flute that became a symbol for the Basque folk revival. The name may stem from the general Basque word ziztu "to whistle" with palatalisation of the z...
- FrulaFrulaA frula is the Serbian name for a musical instrument which resembles a small recorder or flute. It is an end-blown aerophone. Similar instruments are played throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans...