Fifă

The fifa is a Romanian folk wind instrument, a type of fluier, found in specific areas in the foothills of the Carpathians in northern Oltenia. It is an archaic end-blown flute without finger holes, closed at the lower end, which produces a single, constant tone.
The key feature of the fifa is the combination of its instrumental sound with vocal improvisation: its constant tone serves as a sonic support, over which the performer – traditionally a young, unmarried woman – sings an improvised melody using the hăulit technique, which resembles yodeling.
In ethnomusicology, the fifa is classified as an instrument that combines vocal and instrumental practice in equal measure. Its music is built on the steps of the natural harmonic series and is characterized by asymmetrical rhythms.
Typologically, the fifa is close to other flutes without finger holes, and by its construction, it is similar to the individual pipes of pan-flutes.

Classification and cultural context

The fifa is part of the extensive family of traditional Romanian pastoral flutes, known by the general name fluier. This instrument is considered autochthonous to the Romanian cultural space and is deeply rooted in pastoral culture. In folk consciousness, the fluier was imbued with magical properties and, according to legends, had a divine origin.
The fluier family includes nearly twenty varieties, which differ in construction, materials, and the presence of finger holes. In this complex typology, the fifa holds a special place, representing one of the most archaic types: it is a stopped end-blown fluier without finger holes.
Although the fifa is an extremely simple instrument, its belonging to the fluier family places it in a broad cultural context. It shares the ritual, signaling, and communicative functions historically inherent to pastoral wind instruments and is living evidence of the early stages of development of vocal-instrumental music in the Carpathian region.
The instrument was discovered and described by researchers relatively late, in the 1960s, in the Carpathian foothills of northern Oltenia.

History of study

The instrument was first scientifically described in 1964 by the Romanian ethnomusicologist under the name "hemlock whistle". Later, in 1975, the instrument was included in 's fundamental work on Romanian folk music under its folk name, "fifa". In 1999, ethnomusicologist Viorica Tătulea described the fifa in a survey of traditional musical instruments in Oltenia.
Additionally, the fifa and its performers were featured in the 1976 Romanian documentary film Cântecul pământului, in which the ethnomusicologist Harry Brauner participated.

Etymology and folklore context

The instrument's names and the material for its construction are closely linked to Romanian folklore. While the main name "fifa" is likely onomatopoeic, the alternative name dudină, as well as dialectal names for hemlock itself, have deep etymological connections to other folk wind instruments: buciniş and bucen are variants of the name for the pastoral horn bucium; in turn, dudău and dudoi are local names for a horn. Furthermore, duda in Hungarian and some Slavic languages also denotes a wind instrument, usually a bagpipe. A Romanian children's folklore rhyme has been preserved in which a child is asked to make a dudină from buciniş.
This connection is also recorded in Classical Latin, where the word cicuta meant both "poison" and "a pipe made of a hemlock stalk".

Construction

The fifa is the simplest type of fluier. Unlike most Romanian fluiere equipped with finger holes, the fifa lacks them. Organologically, the fifa can be considered an archaic form or "phase" in the development of the tilinca, which, unlike the fifa, is a tube open at both ends.
The instrument is made from the lignified cylindrical stalks of umbelliferous plants or elder, and more rarely, reed. Sometimes the instrument was made from pumpkin stalks, but such examples were not durable. Regardless of the material, before playing, the fifa had to be thoroughly soaked in water to ensure the complete uniformity of its walls and a proper sound.
The instrument is a tube 8–20 cm long with an internal diameter of 1–2 cm. The lower end of the tube is closed by a natural node of the stalk. The fifa's embouchure is an intermediate type between that of a tilinca and a fipple flute. The opening is formed not by one, but by two cuts: the upper end of the tube is cut diagonally into two uneven bevels located opposite each other. This asymmetry of the cuts creates two different lengths of the vibrating air column, making the instrument potentially two-toned. The performer's lips rest on one bevel, directing the stream of air onto the sharper edge of the opposite bevel, which splits the air stream and causes vibration.
This unique double-cut mouthpiece is extremely rare in global practice. Herțea noted in 1964 that the only similar analog he could find was a flute of the African N'Gapu people.

Playing technique and musical features

The playing technique of the fifa is based on a close interaction between the instrument and the voice. Although the embouchure's construction acoustically allows for two different tones to be produced, in musical practice, performers use only one of them. This single, stable tone of the fifa serves as a pulsating instrumental support, over which a melody is vocally improvised using the hăulit technique – an archaic, guttural falsetto singing, close in sound to yodeling.
The fifa is most often played solo, but "call-and-response" performances in pairs are also known.
The music of the fifa has a free, improvisational structure, yet it is limited in its musical means. It is built on short, similar melodic-rhythmic cells based on just a few notes. In this technique, the voice essentially becomes an extension of the instrument, compensating for its minimal resources. Together, they create a zigzag contour of a single melodic line.
Recordings of performers from different localities show that, despite improvisation, this music has a surprisingly similar character. Ethnomusicologists, notably, define this style as "fanfare-type melody". This term describes archaic melodies built not on familiar scales, but on the steps of the natural harmonic series. Just as a fanfare can only produce its fundamental tone and its harmonics, the melody of the fifa is also built on the steps of this natural series. The voice sings wide leaps over the single fundamental tone of the instrument itself.
This technique creates a strong contrast: the vocal part sounds "smooth" or "gliding," its pitch not being strictly fixed. The fifa's tone, in contrast, provides a precise and stable sonic reference. This combination of a "floating" voice and an instrumental "benchmark" is the characteristic feature of this archaic musical style.
Rhythmically, the music is built on short, asymmetrical, catalectic musical phrases. At the core of these phrases are only two durations – eighths and quarters. Iosif Herțea's research identified two types of such phrases, each with a total duration of eight eighth notes: series "A" and series "B". These phrases, in turn, are combined into asymmetrical strophes, such as AB-BB or BBB. Constantin Brăiloiu called this autonomous rhythmic system "children's rhythm", as it is widespread in children's folklore. However, as Brăiloiu noted, this system is not exclusively for children: it has archaic ritual roots and is found in the ritual and work songs of adults among various peoples of the world.
The fifa is the only Romanian folk instrument in which the vocal and instrumental elements are of equal importance.

Functions

In the spring, when girls returned from pasture or went to field work, they would sing, calling to each other from different ends of the village, and accompany their vocal calls and hăulit with the fifa. The sounds of the fifa traditionally served a communicative function: they were used for signaling, invitations, or expressing feelings of love.
Researchers suggest that the instrument may also have been used for magical-utilitarian purposes. In Romanian beliefs, the shade of hemlock is considered a favorite habitat for snakes. At the same time, incantations against snakes often mention the bucin, an instrument etymologically linked to the hemlock plant. It is probable that in the past, shepherds may have used the sharp sound of the hemlock whistle to drive venomous snakes away from livestock.
The living tradition of fifa playing is preserved in certain villages of Oltenia, particularly in the counties of Mehedinți and Gorj.

Similar instruments and performance techniques

Serbian ethnographers have described the playing of Vlach shepherdesses from the Homolje region on monotonal flutes called in Serbian dudurejš. The instrument consists of two cylindrical tubes of different lengths, made from hemlock and open only at one end. The dudurejš can produce only two tones. Traditionally, this instrument was played only by women. During a performance, they would stand facing each other and lightly press the tubes against their lower lip. They would perform a characteristic signal melody, accompanying it with a peculiar falsetto. It was believed that if the dudurejš sounded harmonious, it could attract the attention of young men. This practice was common from May to July in many shepherd communities of Homolje.
Another typologically similar instrument is the hindewhu from the Central African Republic. This name is not the name of an instrument, but rather an onomatopoeia used by BaBenzélé pygmies to denote the technique of alternating voice with a single-pitch papaya stem whistle. The instrument itself is a tube, closed by a natural membrane at the node of the stalk, and emits only one sound. The hindewhu performance technique is analogous to the fifa, representing a "fusion between vocal and instrumental art". The music is built on the continuous alternation of the whistle sound, which, having an unchanging pitch, constitutes the "inevitable melodic axis" around which the melody gravitates.
Herțea pointed to the morphological kinship of the fifa with the individual pipes of a nai. This same type of instrument includes the Lithuanian, the Komi kuima chipsan, the Russian kugikly, and the Ukrainian kuvytsi. The pipes of the skudučiai, like the fifa, have an asymmetrical double-cut mouthpiece.
The strongest connection is evident in the archaic performance technique that combines the instrument and the voice. Playing the kugikly and kuvytsi, like the fifa, can be accompanied by vocal exclamations. Notably, shouting "fif-kaf" while playing the kugikly is called fifkanie. Lithuanian researchers note indirect evidence that skudučiai playing was similarly accompanied by vocal elements in the past.