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.
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. 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." In a broader context, the difference between one type of block-and-duct flute and another is determined both by gross and finer structural detail.Ī pipe and tabor player and a double pipe player accompany a gymnast in this Medieval illustration.īlock-and-duct flutes have a long history: an example of an Iron Age specimen, made from a sheep bone, exists in Leeds City Museum. In the case of the recorder, their presence or absence often differentiates between mass-produced and artisan-built instruments. This can be offset by other structural details. This rigid structure affords intrinsically less dynamic and intonational flexibility than does, for example, a transverse flute embouchure. This passage is alternately termed a windway and ends at an opening referred to as a window, bounded by the edge on the opposite side. By definition, the duct is formed by a channel carved into the body of the instrument, and the block. The recorder can be used to illustrate further nuance in the design of block-and-duct flutes. One example of this is the set of finger holes that laterally pierce the body of a recorder and are opened or closed to change the length of the vibrating air column. Various additional structural details permit the player to alter both these factors. The dimensions of the entire body of the instrument determine its timbre and pitch. This ambiguity is detailed in the article headed Fipple in Grove Music Online, which concludes, "Since nobody can agree what the term means, to avoid further confusion its use should be abandoned." In the text below, what might otherwise be termed a fipple flute is referred to as a block-and-duct flute.Ī whistle sound is produced by the interaction between the air reed and the air column in the segment of the instrument that projects just beyond the edge.
#ROOSEBECK IRISH FLUTE CHIFF AND FIPPLE FULL#
That word is used variously to designate the block, the edge, the full block-duct-edge structure, and the entire instrument. Subsequent authors have designated recorder-type instruments as fipple flutes but differ in the element of the mechanical aggregate illustrated above that they regard specifically as the fipple. This provides historical justification for using the term "fipple flute" to designate a recorder and whatever else Bacon may have meant with the “&c". It is functionally, but neither morphologically nor terminologically, equivalent to the splitter in a transverse flute (the far side of the mouth hole or embouchure).
Some kinds of winde-instruments, are blowne at a small hole in the side, which straineth the breath at the first entrance…which performeth the fipples part, as is seene in flutes and fifes, which will not give a sound by a blast at the end, as recorders &c., doe.īy this description, the fipple is the splitter of the air stream in a recorder – the edge (aka lip or labium). Recorders…were it not for the fipple that straineth the air would produce no sound….
The first attested use of the term fipple is in a comparison between the recorder and the transverse flute by Francis Bacon, published in 1626. Common examples of this are the end-blown ney and the side-blown concert flute. These include the player's lips controlling the stream of air as it is directed to the edge, without mechanical assistance. Īs is clear from the Hornbostel-Sachs heading, there are several ways in which a duct can be formed. This flow-controlled "air reed" is a definitive characteristic of all flutes, which therefore all have an edge or equivalent air-splitting device. The edge splits the air in a manner that alternately directs it into and outside of the tube, setting the contained column of air into periodic vibration. The accompanying illustration of the mouthpiece of a recorder shows a wooden block (A) with a channel carved into the body of the instrument (B), together forming a duct that directs a ribbon of air across an opening toward a sharp edge (C). Cross-section of the mouthpiece of a recorder, indicating a block (A), duct (B), and edge (C)
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