Dvoyanka: Bulgarian musical instrument

The Bulgarian dvoyanka is a double flute that is produced of a single wood. It has six sound holes on one side of it and it is most frequently made of ash-wood, plum tree, cornel tree cornel or boxwood. The tune is played on the right side of the pipe while the left pipe gives a flat tone as an accompaniment. The playing pattern of the right pipe is similar to that of the music which is played by the kaval.

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The musical instrument has traditionally been an instrument that is favored by music shepherds. Line-dances and lively melodies are usually played on the instrument. It is a well-known fact that shepherds focused their flocks by their playing since it is said that sheep remember and recognize a melody in time. A shepherd could teach his flock how to start from pen towards the pasture toward one tune and to return back to the village with another tune. The musical instrument is quite similar to the dvojnica, an instrument that is found in the region of Central and Western Serbia and Serbian regions across the river Drina that is made and played in a slightly different way. The dvoyanka is a double pipe gaida that has a form of a rectangular prism or which is a little bit arranged form two parallel cylindrical tubes.

The instrument is about 30 to 40 cm long and all two tubes of the instrument begin with a bill formed nozzle in which the tone is made with an ordinary blowing of the instrument. When playing the instrument on a duduk, the two tubes of the instrument are temporarily blown.

The dvoyanka is a wind musical instrument in the shape of a rectangular prism and has a tow parallel channel. The pipe which has no hole sets the tone while the pipe that has the six holes reproduces the melody. The double flute is also known as “the little bagpipe”.  Some similar musical instruments are found in Macedonia like the “piska”, Greece like the “disavli” and Serbia like the “dvojnica” in one build and form or another. The difference could be that the Bulgarian dvoyanka is rectangular in shape and the two tubes are bored straight through a block of wood and the material that is found in between is intact while in Serbia, the wood between the tubes may be cut off so that they can resemble two separate pipes.