i'll have my kaval in a few weeks time, then i need to learn how to play it
Discussion
Interesting choice
well, i tried to make one back in 2015, and couldn't hardly get a consistent sound out of it so now i want to see if i can manage with a properly made one according to trad specs
i was living in bulgaria at the time... watched a few buskers playing them... they are the lowest register flutes you can get that don't require levers to lever down longer than your fingers can stretch
they are strongly associated with shepherds and goat herders also... kinda feel like i missed my calling in some ways... every time i see the face of a sheep or goat i melt
Maybe you haven't missed your calling 😊
when i was trying to do it before, it was hand made, from a polypropylene pipe... it wasn't exactly the same, probably, as a properly made standard instrument, and it is possible that my device was wrong in a critical way, and i managed to get sounds out of it, it just was really hard to get it to make a sound at all, i mean, at all.
most likely it was just too wide in the centre or something...
i remember studying the acoustics of tubes in physics in highschool... it was just probably too wide and too hard for my lips to form the sufficiently narrow hole and the right angle... i experimented a bit with changing the shape of the inner and outer parts of the thing
as this guy in the video says, it took him days to just get it to make a sound every time
i kept trying for maybe nearly 2 weeks before i gave up and tried making a second one with a standard side-blown aperture, using a end-closed flute and researched the dimensions to drill the finger holes for it
i mastered playing this tune when i had that second one:
holy shit i didn't know about this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK9yR6rINbU
man, that is sooo long.. i doubt my little hands would cope
i actually did have an opportunity once to work as a goat herder
but i got distracted by some dude asking me to go steal someone's plums!
this was near the bulgarian city of Shumen, in a little poor, mostly sunflower growing area to the southwest of the city
the dude who invited me there i met him randomly as i was sleeping in an abandoned semi-outdoor nightclub in Varna in amongst the "primorski park" area next to the sea
ah, yeah that was a funny time... 2019... just before the world turned to shit