A nose whistle (also called a "nose flute" or a "humanatone") is a wind instrument played with the nose and mouth cavity. Often made of wood, they are also constructed with plastic, clay, or sheet metal.
A nose whistle (also called a "nose flute" or a "humanatone") is a wind instrument played with the nose and mouth cavity. Often made of wood, they are also constructed with plastic, clay, or sheet metal.
Nose whistles, possibly with different sound producing mechanisms, are used traditionally by various South American indigenous groups in the Amazon rainforest, such as the Nambikwara. While representing fertility or war by some groups within the Nambikwara, the nose flute ("ta tãu sư" in Nambikwaran) was not used as a ritual instrument, and was more commonly a children's toy. [1] The Piaroa by contrast used the instrument ("Chuvo" in Wötʰïhä tivene) alongside other flutes in ritual situations, where it represented masculinity and was played during wartime. [1] However, a clear connection between the nose whistles used by South American indigenous and the models described in this article, in terms of working principles and cultural transmission, has not been fully established.
In spite of its possible ethnic background, models were conceived and patented in the 19th and 20th centuries. James J. Stivers, co-founder of the Humanatone Company, is credited to coining this instrument as a "Humanatone". Operating out of New York City, his nose whistles were made of tin plates. [2]
Today, nose whistles are often sold as children's novelties and are made of plastic, although enthusiasts use techniques to modify instruments for easier use by adults, as well as better sound. Using beeswax to extend the nose cup to accommodate an adult's larger maxilla is one such technique. [3]
The nose blows air into the instrument's open nose cup, from where it is channeled through an air duct towards a sharp edge (fipple) positioned over the player's mouth opening. The placement of the edge helps to create a vortex that excites the acoustic field into the player's mouth cavity. The pitch and tone is then changed by the musician via moving their mouth and tongue, as well as variating air flow. The mouth cavity is the functional resonance chamber determining the tone of the instrument, as opposed to the chamber's volume and length being altered by holes or buttons, as is the case with flutes and recorders. The nose-whistle behaves acoustically like a Helmholtz resonator, the closest conventional instrument being an ocarina.
Effectively, the nose whistle may produce an extense glissando, in a rather wide range of more than three octaves . [3]
The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, flutes are edge-blown aerophones. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist or flutist.
The tin whistle, also known as the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. A tin whistle player is called a whistler. The tin whistle is closely associated with Irish traditional music and Celtic music. Other names for the instrument are the flageolet, English flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, tin flageolet, or Irish whistle.
A whistle is a musical instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a large multi-piped church organ.
An aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes, and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound.
The ocarina is a wind musical instrument; it is a type of vessel flute. Variations exist, but a typical ocarina is an enclosed space with four to twelve finger holes and a mouthpiece that projects from the body. It is traditionally made from clay or ceramic, but other materials are also used, such as plastic, wood, glass, metal, or bone.
Overblowing is the manipulation of supplied air through a wind instrument that causes the sounded pitch to jump to a higher one without a fingering change or the operation of a slide. Overblowing may involve a change in the air pressure, in the point at which the air is directed, or in the resonance characteristics of the chamber formed by the mouth and throat of the player.
The nose flute is a musical instrument often played in Polynesia and the Pacific Rim countries. Other versions are found in Africa.
The term fipple specifies a variety of end-blown flute that includes the flageolet, recorder, and tin whistle. The Hornbostel–Sachs system for classifying musical instruments places this group under the heading "Flutes with duct or duct flutes." The label "fipple flute" is frequently applied to members of the subgroup but there is no general agreement about the structural detail of the sound-producing mechanism that constitutes the fipple, itself.
The stub-ended Swanson tonette is a small, end-blown vessel flute made of plastic, which was once popular in American elementary music education. Though the tonette has been superseded by the recorder in many areas, plastic Tonettes are still in use in elementary schools around the nation due to their price, durability, and simplicity. The range of the tonette is from C4 to D5. A skilled player can produce notes above the principal register by overblowing and half-covering holes. Similar instruments are the song flute, flutophone, and precorder.
A steam whistle is a device used to produce sound in the form of a whistle using live steam, which creates, projects, and amplifies its sound by acting as a vibrating system.
The 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, in which Gemshorn means a "chamois horn". According to Etymologist Francesco Perono Cacciafoco, the form could have prehistoric origins and come from Proto-Germanic *gămĭtă-χŭrnă-n < Indo-European *gʱŏm-ĭdó-ḱrhₐ-nŏ-m > Gämshorn, indicating a "'specific' wind instrument, crafted by using the horns of ungulated animals and different from a hunting horn or a signaling horn".
Helmholtz resonance, also known as wind throb, refers to the phenomenon of air resonance in a cavity, an effect named after the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz. This type of resonance occurs when air is forced in and out of a cavity, causing the air inside to vibrate at a specific natural frequency. The principle is widely observable in everyday life, notably when blowing across the top of a bottle, resulting in a resonant tone.
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, and producing sound from the sound hole. While the original, general term for this stringed instrument is guitar, the retronym 'acoustic guitar' – often used to indicate the steel stringed model – distinguishes it from an electric guitar, which relies on electronic amplification. Typically, a guitar's body is a sound box, of which the top side serves as a sound board that enhances the vibration sounds of the strings. In standard tuning the guitar's six strings are tuned (low to high) E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4.
The music of the ancient Mayan courts is described throughout native and Spanish 16th-century texts and is depicted in the art of the Classic Period. The Maya played instruments such as trumpets, flutes, whistles, and drums, and used music to accompany funerals, celebrations, and other rituals. Although no written music has survived, archaeologists have excavated musical instruments and painted and carved depictions of the ancient Maya that show how music was a complex element of societal and religious structure. Most of the music itself disappeared after the dissolution of the Maya courts following the Spanish Conquest. Some Mayan music has prevailed, however, and has been fused with Spanish influences.
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 or near the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of the effective length of the vibrating column of air. In the case of some wind instruments, sound is produced by blowing through a reed; others require buzzing into a metal mouthpiece, while yet others require the player to blow into a hole at an edge, which splits the air column and creates the sound.
A shepherd's whistle is a specialized, modulatable, variable-pitch whistle used to train and transmit commands to working dogs and other animals. Unlike other whistles, they are placed inside the mouth. The pitch is controlled by the placement of the tongue; physically, shepherd's whistles are vessel flutes with the tongue forming one side of the resonating chamber, and controlling its size. Like tin whistles, while simple, they can be used as musical instruments in their own right.
Taonga pūoro are the traditional musical instruments of the Māori people of New Zealand.
The hand flute, or handflute, is a musical instrument made out of the player's hands. It is also called a hand ocarina or hand whistle. To produce sound, the player creates a chamber of air with their hands, into which they blow air via an opening at the thumbs. There are two common techniques involving the shape of the hand chamber: the "cupped hand" technique and the "interlock" technique.
A vessel flute is a type of flute with a body which acts as a Helmholtz resonator. The body is vessel-shaped, not tube- or cone-shaped; that is, the far end is closed.
A whistle is a device that makes sound from air blown from one end forced through a small opening at the opposite end. They are shaped in a way that allows air to oscillate inside of a chamber in an unstable way. The physical theory of the sound-making process is an example of the application of fluid dynamics or hydrodynamics and aerodynamics. The principles relevant to whistle operation also have applications in other areas, such as fluid flow measurement.
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