Playing whistle in Australian humidity

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Dianabreit
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Playing whistle in Australian humidity

Post by Dianabreit »

Any suggestions about playing the whistle in heavy humidity. A friend in Australia is having a very difficult time with this as her whistles are forming so much moisture almost immediately that she is unable to play them. She has a new low D that she is very eager to play and is hardly able to get one note out. The present weather report from where she lives is 14 C at noon and they are getting a lot of rain these days.
Pressure: 30.07 "Hg
Humidity: 67%
Dew Point: 46 °F
She does not have central heating but has a small heater going when it get colder. Thanks.
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Mr.Gumby
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Re: Playing whistle in Australian humidity

Post by Mr.Gumby »

The present weather report from where she lives is 14 C at noon and they are getting a lot of rain these days.
Not unlike the Irish Summer, or at least some of them (in fairness, even if today isn't great: so far, so good this year). But seriously, 67% is not really very high humidity, not where I live anyway (in comparison, the local reading : 15 C at noon, humidity 94%, dew point 16 C. The hygrometer in the room points to 82 at the moment).

My guess is humidity does not particularly affect the whistle as the air you blow into it is always saturated with moisture to begin with. What does make a difference is temperature, warm saturated air ( breath) will condensate on cold surfaces.

Try warming the whistle before use and look up threads about cures for clogging (search : soapy water, toothpaste etc).

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brewerpaul
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Re: Playing whistle in Australian humidity

Post by brewerpaul »

Yeah, what Mr. Gumby said, plus check the windway of the whistles and make sure there's no bits of debris in there which could catch moisture.
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Dianabreit
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Re: Playing whistle in Australian humidity

Post by Dianabreit »

Thanks for the suggestions. I've shared them with my friend. She told me the house she lives in is brick and has water under it that does not drain well. There is very little, to no wind now and she described it like living under a wet blanket. It is unusual for their weather it seems. Nevertheless she is going to try all the suggestions as she's never had this problem with her whistles before and uses the soap and warms them before playing. Also all of her whistles are having the problem which is unusual, aye?
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Re: Playing whistle in Australian humidity

Post by Mitch »

My experience is that it is not so much the ambient humidity so much as the process of the whistle gaining equilibrium with it.
In high-humidity environments, the "warming-up" process seems to take longer.
For instance, if you play a whistle in a foggy environment, it will sound a bit "furry" for a while until the whistle warms enough to counter the external moisture content of the air.
This does not seem to matter between materials a lot - except with wood which seems to take longer.
I presume that has something to do with the greater surface area in the bore os a wooden instrument PLUS the grain reactions to Moisture.
I find that all whistles when warmed to equilibrium perform as expected - but the warming gets longer in high-humidity.

This is very subjective - so I'm interested in the experiences of others on this count?
All the best!

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Maaxxx
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Re: Playing whistle in Australian humidity

Post by Maaxxx »

I was playing at a gig last night in Central Victoria. I was using 5 different whistles, 3 high Ds, an A and a Low D, each with a smalll degree of clogging while warming into the tunes. I reached for the Sindt D and gave it a once through before miking it up. It wasn't happy! The C nat was totally feeble and the rest of the notes started washing out. I gave it a good blow through to remove any possible clogging but it made no difference. In fact, a small vibration became evident and got progressively worse. It was clear that something was fluttering in the windway. (Annoying, as I had cleaned it thoroughly, or so I thought, 2 days earlier and hadn't played it since.) So the Sindt got sidelined for the night. On getting it home, I put a strong light to it and, sure enough, there was something in the windway. I gave it a decent working through with a slip of paper and, eventually, a small spider did a runner out of the mouthpiece and disappeared into the chaos that is my study. I'm amazed it managed to hang on despite my best efforts to clear whatever was in there at the time. Not sure it had anything to do with temperature or humidity but it sure put my whistle out of action for the night. It's amazing how something so tiny can have such a drastic effect on the air flow and the performance of the whistle. :lol:
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Re: Playing whistle in Australian humidity

Post by pancelticpiper »

My initial reaction to the OP was that 67% humidity was fairly normal. To see if my impression was accurate, I looked at what the average annual humidity levels are in various major cities around the world.

The site gives the annual average daily high, which is evidently is usually in the early morning, and the average daily low, in mid-afternoon.

Taking the afternoon/low humidities, the site gives:

Dublin 73%
Edinburgh 69%
London 70%
Vancouver 70%
Calgary 48%
New York 54%
Los Angeles 64%
Phoenix 23% (yikes!)
Melbourne 52%
Sydney 56%

So it seems to me that your 67% is just about what Irish and British made whistles would be designed and made in.

(Especially with uilleann reeds disaster often results when you try to play in a drier climate than the reeds were made in.)

The whole question is interesting, because I've not noticed that whistles play differently when our local humidity changes (it swings between 70% and 10% depending). My uilleann chanter plays markedly differently when the humidity changes only a bit, say at one gig where the "green room" was around 10% more humid than the stage. For sure my chanter doesn't like humidity any less than 50%.

Anyhow sorry for the rambling musings about humidity.
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Tor
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Re: Playing whistle in Australian humidity

Post by Tor »

The listed humidity numbers for those cities would almost certainly be outdoor humidity. As soon as you go indoors it'll change dramatically, as the temperature increases. Just a couple of degrees will make a very noticable difference. Where I am now, for example, shows about 90% outside, but indoors I have to take care to keep it over 40% (which I must, because of solid wood instruments). Sometimes, instead of using a humidifier, I just set the thermostat down two degrees celsius and the relative humidity level goes up from maybe 38% to 43%.
In my office it's currently below 20% (the limit of my hygrometer), the difference from my home is that it's 25-27 C in my office. I keep it at 18-20C at home.
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