The willow flute, also known as sallow flute (, or ''sälgpipa'', or ''pajupilli'', , ), is a Nordic folk

flute 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 th ...

, or

whistle A whistle is a musical instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It is a type of Fipple, fipple flute, and may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a s ...

, consisting of a simple tube with a transverse

fipple 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 flut ...

mouthpiece and no finger holes. The mouthpiece is typically constructed by inserting a grooved plug into one end of the tube, and cutting an edged opening in the tube a short distance away from the plug. Similar but not identical instruments were made by peasants in Poland, usually using a different method described in sources as "''kręcenie''" (that nowadays means literally "rolling", at that time possibly also "drilling-gouging"), "''ukręcanie''", "''ulinianie''" (nowadays literally meaning: "making moulted"). Such instruments are mentioned in folk poems or songs. The willow flute is a type of overtone flute. It is played by varying the force of the air blown into the mouthpiece, with the end of the tube being covered by the finger or left open. The tones produced are based on the harmonic series. Playing the instrument with the end of the tube covered produces one fundamental and its

overtone An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. (An overtone may or may not be a harmonic) In other words, overtones are all pitches higher than the lowest pitch within an individual sound; the fundamental i ...

s, playing it with the end of the tube left open produces another fundamental and series of overtones. Willow flutes cannot play an

equal tempered An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system that approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into steps such that the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same. This system ...

scale. Modern willow flutes are typically made of plastic (

PVC Polyvinyl chloride (alternatively: poly(vinyl chloride), colloquial: vinyl or polyvinyl; abbreviated: PVC) is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic polymer of plastic (after polyethylene and polypropylene). About 40 million tons o ...

tubing is often used), but the original willow flutes were made from sections of bark cut from green

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

branches. Willow flutes could only be made this way during the spring, and became unplayable when the bark dried out. There is also a

Karelia Karelia (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; , historically Коре́ла, ''Korela'' []; ) is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Russia (including the Soviet Union, Soviet era), Finland, and Sweden. It is currentl ...

n variant of the willow flute that is made in

Finnish Karelia Karelia (: ) is a historical province of Finland, consisting of the modern-day Finnish regions of South Karelia and North Karelia plus the historical regions of Ladoga Karelia and the Karelian Isthmus, which are now in Russia. Historical Kare ...

and the Russian Republic of Karelia. It is made the same way as the willow flute, but instead of willow bark, it is made out of

birch bark Birch bark or birchbark is the bark of several Eurasian and North American birch trees of the genus ''Betula''. For all practical purposes, birch bark's main layers are the outer dense layer, white on the outside, and the inner porous layer ( ...

. The Karelian Folk Music Ensemble, based out of

Petrozavodsk Petrozavodsk (, ; Karelian language, Karelian, Veps language, Vepsian and ) is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, which stretches along the western shore of Lake Onega for some . The population of the city is 280,890 as of 2022. ...

in Russian Karelia, uses this instrument in their music.

Kalyuka

The kalyuka (or kolyuka,

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: калюка, колюка) is a Russian and Ukrainian overtone flute, lacking playing holes. Traditionally, kalyukas were made from hollow plant stems, such as motherwort, or

angelica ''Angelica'' is a genus of about 90 species of tall Biennial plant, biennial and Perennial plant, perennial herbaceous, herbs in the family Apiaceae, native to temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, reaching as far north as ...

. Modern versions of the instrument are usually made from

, an inexpensive and durable substitute. The upper end of the kalyuka is open, and although it has a built-in

to produce sound, a player should also partly close the opening of the tube with the

tongue The tongue is a Muscle, muscular organ (anatomy), organ in the mouth of a typical tetrapod. It manipulates food for chewing and swallowing as part of the digestive system, digestive process, and is the primary organ of taste. The tongue's upper s ...

. The lower end of the tube is also open and occasionally there is a small side hole near the end. The side hole and/or end are opened and closed while playing to produce different notes (like the Slovak koncovka). Higher tones are reached through over blowing. In Eastern traditions, the kalyuka was played on summer evenings after the

hay Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticate ...

harvest Harvesting is the process of collecting plants, animals, or fish (as well as fungi) as food, especially the process of gathering mature crops, and "the harvest" also refers to the collected crops. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulses fo ...

when the suitable weeds, cut with a

scythe A scythe (, rhyming with ''writhe'') is an agriculture, agricultural hand-tool for mowing grass or Harvest, harvesting Crop, crops. It was historically used to cut down or reaping, reap edible grain, grains before they underwent the process of ...

, were available to make one, and was accompanied by

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

instruments. The existence of the tradition was uncovered in 1980 by students of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Conservatories.

Noted artists

Noted modern willow flute artists include the group Hedningarna and Anders Norudde of Sweden. Other Nordic groups that use the Seljefløyte in traditional arrangements include

Eivind Groven Eivind Groven (8 October 1901 – 8 February 1977) was a Norwegian composer and music-theorist. He was from the traditional region of Vest-Telemark and had a background in the folk music of the area. Biography Groven was born in the village ...

, Steinar Ofsdal,

Lillebjørn Nilsen Lillebjørn Falk Nilsen (born Bjørn Falk Nilsen; 21 December 1950 – 27 January 2024) was a Norwegian singer-songwriter and folk musician. He was born in Oslo, and was considered by some to be the leading "voice of Oslo", thanks to numerous c ...

, Groupa, Bask, Ruumen, Ojajärvi Blom Ojajärvi, Hurja Halla, Tuultenpesä and Tapani Varis Collective.

Bibliography

*Ivanov A.N. ''Volshebnaia fleita yuzhnorusskogo folklora. Sokhranenie i vozrozhdenie folklornykh traditsyi''. 2nd edition. Moscow, 1993. *Banin A.A. ''Russkaia instrumentalnaia muzyka folklornoi traditsii''. Moscow, 1997. (p. 85)

References

{{Authority control Russian musical instruments Finnish musical instruments Internal fipple flutes Overtone flutes Nordic folk music Sámi musical instruments Swedish musical instruments

Kalyuka

Noted artists

See also

Bibliography

References