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It's so strange that I just sat here and watched a long program on Buddhism on PBS. It's a three-part deal, and I've seen all the parts numerous times. I spent much of my youth going from library to library all over the country to read books and learn about Buddhism. Now, they bring it to my house on the TV set, and the internet has more material on Buddhism than I could possibly read or study in a hundred lifetimes.
I wasted my life. I could have just waited for that world to come to me. A half-interested person could learn more about Buddhism by half-heartedly watching these programs for three hours, than I did with thirty years of wandering and wondering about suffering as source of my befuddled amusement.
I wanted intensely to know the truth, and when I found out, it was just something else I already knew in advance of the seeking. Sure, now I know that I knew all along, but the thrill is gone now that I know that I gnow. I'm addicted to the ritual of finding out what piques my curiosity. The end game is not often ecstasy, but the initial stage of acquiring disdain toward the dynamic that first engaged my interest.
Finding out that I'm not really a closer is not anything new to me. My curiosity has limits. I seem to be only interested in most things up to a certain point. If my interest in some topic or subject up to that point builds to a crescendo of some force, it has a real shot at be-co-me-ing an obsession. If my curiosity begins to peter out at the point of no return, my loyalty toward maintaining my initial interest crawls back in my pants.
This morning I was browsing YouTube to find some video to amuse myself with. Like millions of other users I have my own account, and because it uses my Google password I'm always logged in. When I click on the YouTube Bookmark it loads my account page with recommended videos just for me based on my viewing record. Logging into YouTube introduced me to the Fujara. Here is a link to hear the sound a PVC improvised Fujara makes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HymIzcdd4Y
Below is a link to the Slovakian native instrument being played by a real shepherd. The video also explains it's tradition. It can be sad and mournful like Appalachian love songs. I like the potential of the PVC variation above mo' bettah:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VFlS_dHWPA&feature=related
As usual I didn't stop there, but explored the instrument with the determination to learn how it worked. I looked for videos on how to make one myself. Probably of PVC. Like the one this guy shows how to build from PVC, a short length of 1/2" garden hose, and a wooden dowel he carved into a tipple.
This is a very good example of why I don't see myself as a closer. After I thoroughly understood this instrument and how to make a cheap version, I pretty much lost interest. I've reached that point of return I mentioned earlier. There is not enough interest for me to make my own Fujara. I am not obsessed enough to follow through. My house is filled to the brim with unfinished projects. What miracles more are needed?
I still have some interest in tipples. I've never successfully made a tipple that worked. Tipples are the part of a whistle that makes the sound the other parts of the whistle vary. On wooden recorders, it's the beveled rectangular hole just below the mouthpiece. You blow into the mouth piece and it funnels the air you blow across the tipple, and it creates a sound. It's like blowing across the opening of a jug or a soft drink bottle.
The Fujara is labeled a "overtone" or "overton" flute. When I first got interested I though Overton was the name of the inventor. Not so. They just left off the expected "e". As I started Googling things up I soon realized that there are lots of overtone instruments. Like a bugle. A bugle plays only the overtone notes because it has no way of changing the notes from what you always hear played on a bugle.
The odd screeches and wailing sounds produced by the Fujara seem to be accomplished by the length of the flute. It does have three holes to introduce a variation on the overtone register. I watched a lotta videos before I began to grasp that the entire instrument is really a long flute with a tipple and three holes.
The three holes are on the opposite end of the long flute from the tipple. That's what the garden hose in the How-To video explains and shows moving pictures of is for. The player can't blow directly into the end of the long tube of the flute and still reach the three holes on the other end from the tipple.
The traditional Slovakian Fujara is beautifully carved and etched wooden instrument. When I first saw it in the original video by the Library of Congress it looked like it had two tubes, and I couldn't tell from watching the video what the player was blowing into. The camera angle was always a frontal shot, and the player's mouth was always behind the instrument.
That why I needed to see a video on how they're made. The second tube of the traditional instrument served the same purpose as the piece of garden hose. It provided a passage for the air from the players mouth to get to the top of the instrument where the tipple was. The second tube has only to be as long as needed for the player to reach the three holes and still blow. I gotta learn to make a simple tipple.
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