A nose whistle (also called a "nose flute" or a "humanatone") is a
wind instrument
A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...
played with the
nose
A nose is a protuberance in vertebrates that houses the nostrils, or nares, which receive and expel air for respiration alongside the mouth. Behind the nose are the olfactory mucosa and the sinuses. Behind the nasal cavity, air next passes ...
and
mouth cavity
In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on t ...
. Often made of wood, they are also constructed with plastic, clay, or sheet metal.
History
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
The Nambikwara (also called Nambikuára) is an indigenous people of Brazil, living in the Amazon. Currently about 1,200 Nambikwara live in indigenous territories in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso along the Guaporé and Juruena rivers. Thei ...
. 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.
The
Piaroa
The Piaroa people, known among themselves as the ''Huottüja'' or ''De'aruhua'', are a pre-Columbian South American indigenous ethnic group of the middle Orinoco Basin in present-day Colombia and Venezuela, living in an area larger than Belgium ...
by contrast used the instrument ("Chuvo" in Wötʰïhä tivene) alongside other flutes in ritual situations, where it represented
masculinity and was played during wartime.
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.
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
Beeswax (''cera alba'') is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive work ...
to extend the nose cup to accommodate an adult's larger
maxilla
The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. T ...
is one such technique.
Acoustics
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
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 flute ...
) 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
Helmholtz resonance or wind throb is the phenomenon of air resonance in a cavity, such as when one blows across the top of an empty bottle. The name comes from a device created in the 1850s by Hermann von Helmholtz, the ''Helmholtz resonator'', wh ...
, 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 .
Examples
File:Nose flute.jpg, Hand-carved wooden nose whistle
File:Nose whistle plastic back.JPG, Commercially manufactured nose whistle made in Germany
File:Noseflute-01.jpg, Wooden and plastic manufactured nose whistle
File:Nose whistle 3dprint.jpg, 3D printed nose whistle
See also
*
Nose flute
The nose flute is a musical instrument often played in Polynesia and the Pacific Rim countries. Other versions are found in Africa.
Hawaii
In the North Pacific, in the Hawaiian islands the nose flute was a common courting instrument. In Haw ...
*
Ocarina
*
Helmholtz resonance
References
Nose flutes
Toy instruments and noisemakers
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