Tuning Slide - Teflon Tape v. Cellophane Tape

[Tyler DelGregg]

Thanks all, for your input. I rewound the teflon tape on my expensive aluminum and it's doing well; I worked the teflon better into the grooves. In the past, I have used a little bit of cellophane on a cheapie, but I'll stay away from cellophane now.

[brewerpaul]

you should never need to tune your alloy whistles

in which case you should probably just buy a non tunable whistle ...

Not necessarily-- sometimes you might want to play with an instrument that's not quite in tune with your whistle but is impractical to retune. Piano or hammered dulcimer come to mind. It's a whole lot easier to retune the whistle a tad.You might even be playing with a player whose whistle is not in tune with yours but isn't tunable.

[Steve Bliven]

Or a banjo player with bad ears....

Best wishes.

Steve

[bogman]

Good bit of quoting me out of context there Highwood.

[highwood]

you should never need to tune your alloy whistles

in which case you should probably just buy a non tunable whistle ...

Not necessarily-- sometimes you might want to play with an instrument that's not quite in tune with your whistle but is impractical to retune. Piano or hammered dulcimer come to mind. It's a whole lot easier to retune the whistle a tad.You might even be playing with a player whose whistle is not in tune with yours but isn't tunable.

I totally agree - perhaps my comment was not clear, or too sarcastic, or...
There are definitely times it is invaluable to have a tunable whistle i.e. any time you are playing with others!

Good bit of quoting me out of context there Highwood.

Unless you're playing in extreme conditions such as hot direct sunlight or high altitude when the air is thin, you should never need to tune your alloy whistles. Even in extreme cold you still have to warm the mouthpiece up to working breath temperature before playing so you shouldn't be pushing in the slide to compensate for the cold. Usually if you see someone farting about with their tuning slide at a session all they're really doing is just farting about. When you've set your whistle up to be in tune with normal breath temperature then it should pretty much always play the same in normal conditions, it's just the player that plays out of tune.

Just reread - I still read that a whistle player should be able to just play in tune (under normal environmental conditions) without adjusting the tuning slide. What I was trying to say is that there are both conditions i.e. temperature where adjusting a tuning slide helps and where others are tuned differently than the whistle players normal, be it a mistuned piano or whatever when it is invaluable to be able to tune your whistle.
A is not always 440 (or 880) !

[bogman]

That's fair enough about playing with instruments that are out of tune, though that's very unusual these days, depending on where you live I suppose. But if you want to nitpick that what you're actually saying is you need a tuning slide if you need to play out of tune at a session.

[Mr.Gumby]

Call me pedantic but I don't think I'd call not playing at A=440 'playing out of tune'.

[bogman]

You're right Mr Gumby, I should have said concert pitch.

[Mr.Gumby]

I've told the story here a few times how we, perhaps five of us, all local players, were playing one night, tuned to the concertina of a young player that was perhaps tuned around A=337. In walks a man with a bouzouki, who then sits down and starts tuning his instrument to a tuner. Once that was done he joined in mid-set, and loud too. Despite the obvious friction he kept going until the set was finished and the nsaid very loud in a strong Dublin accent 'yez are all out of tune!'. Ehh.. no we weren't, we were fine.

[bogman]

Visiting a session and joining half way through a set without even saying hello! He deserved his red face!

[benhall.1]

the concertina of a young player that was perhaps tuned around A=337.

Just checking ... that's got to be 437, hasn't it?

[Mr.Gumby]

Obviously.