Playing in the middle register is beautiful but there’s a lot more than just that! Let’s dive into it!

The Kaval has a range of nearly three full octaves. I said “nearly”, because it is not entirely chromatic. But what does that mean? The chromatic scale is a scale consisting entirely of half steps (semitones). The semitone is the smallest musical interval used in Western tonal music. If you want to know more about the chromatic scale you should check out some music theory lessons, because this matter is a little out of the scope of this course.

Take a look at this illustration. I’m sure that many people would disagree with me, because it really depends on the musician and the instrument. Some people might not be able to play the highest notes, others might be able to play notes even higher. In fact I can play higher notes, but this is the range that, in my ears, sounds good. It goes pretty high but not too high. It’s totally usable and playable.

You probably wonder what the D4 and C#7/Db7 mean? That is the American Pitch Notation System. In that system the Middle C is marked as C4. I’m going to use that particular system in this course, so let’s go through it quickly so that you can understand exactly what it is.

Using the Pitch Notation System allows us to identify frequencies using letters, numbers, and symbols and quickly refer to a specific pitch. This lets you avoid having to explain a note by its position on the staff, or by its relative location on the piano keyboard. For example, instead of saying or writing “the C# three octaves above middle C,” (which is the highest note we can play on the Kaval) you would simply write – C#7.

The Chromatic Scale on the Kaval

You already know what chromatic scale and pitch notation systems are. Now let’s connect that with the Kaval. You might have noticed already that raising one finger at a time (or uncovering a hole) raises the pitch by a half musical step, which could eventually produce the chromatic scale. The problem is that there are a few exceptions. Which means that in some cases when we cover or uncover a hole the pitch doesn’t change by a half step but a whole step, instead. (More information will follow in the next lesson) So we have a few missing notes from the chromatic scale. Of course there are extended techniques that can be used as a workaround to play those missing notes and I’ve provided some of them in the Fingering Chart in the next lesson.

Take a look at the illustration below. That’s the range of the kaval represented on a piano keyboard. The blue keys represent the notes that are a little trickier to play, the red keys are the ones that require extended technique and quite a lot of practice to master. Of course I’m saying all this as additional information. You won’t have to bother playing those notes for now. There’s a lot to be done before you get there.

Registers

Here are the basic registers of the Kaval:

• Low Register
• Kaba
• Middle Register (Low Middle and High Middle) 
• High Register

In addition to those there are a few, not so popular but pretty cool ones – the Clarinet Register, the Trumpet Register and the Persian Ney Register. Their names, of course, come from the instruments that they resemble in sound. Those three registers require a different embouchure, so I’m not going to go deeply into them in this lesson, but I will explain in detail about them in the future lessons and I will show you how to play them.

Exercise

• Take the kaval, assemble it, don’t put any fingers on the holes, don’t try to cover them, just hold it on the head joint and practice switching through the basic registers. I’ll go in depth about that in the next lesson but for now it’s good to start practicing switching between them.