Playing basics
The Fujara is played standing with legs spread apart slightly. The Fujara is held mainly by your left hand, particularly by your thumb and forefinger: grasp the Fujara with your left hand approximately where the top hole is located, prop it up against your right thigh and place the fingers of your left hand as follows - thumb on the back and fore-finger on the front of the Fujara flute main pipe holding the main weight. Then cover the upper hole with your middle finger and place your ring and little finger slightly to the left side of the Fujara main pipe. Now you should hold your fujara with the help of your right thigh firmly.
Your left hand should now be located somewhere near your navel. Cover the middle hole with the thumb of your right hand (root of your thumb on FS Fujara) and the bottom hole with your middle finger. The forefinger of your right hand lies softly on the front of the flute main pipe - it is closer to middle finger than to thumb. The ring finger leans softly against the right side of the main pipe. The little finger doesn’t need to touch the pipe at all. Using your hands prop up the Fujara against your body: lowest part of the main pipe is propped up against the outer /right/ side of your right knee, then against the front of your right tight, the middle part of Fujara main pipe should be propped up against your chest /or sometimes your belly/ and with the mouthpiece in your mouth and the air pipe propping up slightly against the left side of your nose, sometimes propping also slightly against your forehead you can finally start to play your gorgeous Fujara. But while reading this “theory” don’t forget that in the end it is you who will play it, thus adjust your holding of your Fujara to suit your needs so that you feel as comfortable as possible. I wish you endless hours of fruitful and comfortable playing.
Unique Fujara ornaments.
Scatter is a high-intensity ornament particular to the fujara overtone flute that is often used at the beginning of songs. It begins with a high-intensity, repeated percussive blow that can be made by saying something like “DA DA DA Da Da Da da da da...” Where the pressure of each “Da” gets less and less and the fujara descends through the overtone scale. An ornament added onto the end of some notes in a song. It is done with a steady, rapidly increasing blow of air that cause a very fast ascending scale up the fujara.
Fujara fingering technique.
Fujara has a range of four octaves, where in its two middle octaves, modern Fujara flutes can play major diatonic (7-note) scale by fingering the three Fujara side holes. All the traditional fujara melodies develop within these two basic and easily playable fujara octaves (on G Fujara: g - g^(1) - g^(2)), mostly around the middle of the Fujara scale (on G Fujara: d^(1)-d^(2) in mixolydian mode). Sometimes the melody is played on the lowest fujara notes creating thus special effect called “humming”. These two basic fujara octaves start with the 2nd and end with the 8th overtone. The forth, highest fujara octave, is played merely by overblowing the overtones creating thus a harmonic scale - overtones played with all holes closed. Fujara is a folk instrument and due to its construction it is not always possible to play all these notes precisely. So, it is not a fault of your Fujara flute if it plays some of the notes little higher or lower! If you require precise tuning on all tones, look for our precisely tuned Folkart Slovakia fujara marked with 5 stars in tuning. Find out more about Fujara flute tuning. Though it is still possible to play higher or lower tones not included in this scale, they are more difficult to play and therefore not used in traditional melodic playing. The higher in fujara scale one goes, the less important becomes the fingering and on contrary more important becomes the precise strength of the in-blown air by overblowing the flute’s overtones. Fujara is traditionally played in its mixolydian mode.
How to blow the Fujara?
When you are holding your Fujara flute comfortably, blow directly into the mouthpiece hole. Fujara is basically an overtone flute, where the height of tone is controlled mainly by the strength of in-blown air. As you can see in the fingering chart above, e.g. with all holes closed you can play 6 different notes - (on G Fujara: g d^(1) g^(1) h^(1) d^(2) g^(2)). The difference between these notes is the strength of in-blown air only. This applies to all the notes sharing the same fingering, with a rule that a higher note requires higher air pressure.
Little exercise: Take your fujara flute, adjust your position to hold it comfortably and close all three fingering holes. Now, try to find all these notes (= harmonic series of overtones, on G Fujara: g d^(1) g^(1) h^(1) d^(2) g^(2)... download, all the fingering holes are closed) by changing the strength of your breath only: 1.First, blow your fujara overtone bass flute really gently and try to find the Fujara fundamental (2nd overtone - g on G fujara) 2.Pause blowing and start to blow little stronger to get the next overtone (d^(1) on G fujara). Pause again, and blow even little stronger to get the next one (g^(1) on G fujara). Try to get all these successive overtones (from 2nd to 8th) by pausing the breath and then heightening the blowing pressure (little by little) for each next overtone. It is important to separate the overtones by pauses in breath (legato mostly doesn’t work) to “hit” the note correctly.
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