Two Questions
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- Tell us something.: I've always been a string instrument player but I always wanted to learn bagpipes. My lips were too weak to form a seal. Lately I've been interested in wind instruments that are similar keys to the bagpipes.
Two Questions
Two questions for the whistle maestros here.
1: I'm plugging along on a Clarke Meg and having a great time. Learning breath control, getting a feel for overblowing. I'm learning the second octave, and I've got to admit that F and G can be pretty.... piercing. Is that just from beginner technique? The nature of the tin whistle in general or the Meg in particular?
2: I'm hoping to acquire a low D whistle in the future. Given my budget, it looks like it will be the Dixon non-tunable low D. I've read older reviews (some going back 15 years!) but how are they doing these days? I don't anticipate playing in a group. Maybe with my wife and her flute but normally I pick up the guitar at that point.
1: I'm plugging along on a Clarke Meg and having a great time. Learning breath control, getting a feel for overblowing. I'm learning the second octave, and I've got to admit that F and G can be pretty.... piercing. Is that just from beginner technique? The nature of the tin whistle in general or the Meg in particular?
2: I'm hoping to acquire a low D whistle in the future. Given my budget, it looks like it will be the Dixon non-tunable low D. I've read older reviews (some going back 15 years!) but how are they doing these days? I don't anticipate playing in a group. Maybe with my wife and her flute but normally I pick up the guitar at that point.
- DrPhill
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Re: Two Questions
I am nor an expert - there will be one along soon - but I have the Dixon tunable tapered bore low D and reckon it is the easiest I have played. It is an early model but I cannot image the design has changed a lot. Had I started on the Dixon rather than the KWL I started with I think that I would have learned a lot faster. There was likely nothing wrong with the KWL apart from seeming hard to learn.
Tony Dixon has said to me that his goal is to make affordable, approachable instruments and I think that with the tapered low D he has succeeded in his aim.
I mostly play my other whistles (Bleazey, Copeland) now but I have kept the Dixon mainly because one day someone close may want to learn, but I still enjoy playing it occasionally.
Tony Dixon has said to me that his goal is to make affordable, approachable instruments and I think that with the tapered low D he has succeeded in his aim.
I mostly play my other whistles (Bleazey, Copeland) now but I have kept the Dixon mainly because one day someone close may want to learn, but I still enjoy playing it occasionally.
Phill
One does not equal two. Not even for very large values of one.
One does not equal two. Not even for very large values of one.
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- Tell us something.: May 2022, I'm a second-time beginner to the whistle and low whistle after a three-year gap due to a chest injury brought to an end twelve years of playing. I've started on a high whistle and much is coming back quickly but it will be a while before I can manage a Low D again where my interest really lies. I chiefly love slow airs rather than dance tunes and am a fan of the likes of Davy Spillane, Eoin Duignan, Fred Morrison and Paddy Keenan.
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Re: Two Questions
I'm also a big fan of the Dixon tapered bore as a starter instrument. I've played Goldies since I started but like Dr Phill, I may have learned faster if I'd begun with the Dixon, a birthday present that sits by my desk where I use it to figure out tunes because it requires minimal warming and doesn't mind getting knocked around. It also has the advantage of a tapered windway which means that by inserting a thin piece of card into the windway you can change the voicing to play with more resistance. You have that choice. You'll find a Dixon tweak somewhere on the forum. It wasn't you that wrote it, was it DrPhill?
As regards the Meg, yes, soprano whistles can be fairly piercing in the second octave but not normally until you get up to A & B. By minimising the hole you make with your lips, and keeping the mouth cavity small, you can learn to play the second octave quieter. And don't put the fipple in your mouth. Merely balance the tip of it on your lower lip. That way you have much more control over the amount of air you blow into the whistle. I hope this helps a little.
As regards the Meg, yes, soprano whistles can be fairly piercing in the second octave but not normally until you get up to A & B. By minimising the hole you make with your lips, and keeping the mouth cavity small, you can learn to play the second octave quieter. And don't put the fipple in your mouth. Merely balance the tip of it on your lower lip. That way you have much more control over the amount of air you blow into the whistle. I hope this helps a little.
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Re: Two Questions
Meg is similar to Sweetone? Second octave was very harsh on mine.
- pancelticpiper
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Re: Two Questions
Wow if F and G are piercing, just wait till you get up to B.thx712517 wrote: I'm learning the second octave, and I've got to admit that F and G can be pretty.... piercing.
If you're blowing a note in the 2nd octave at the pressure at which the note is in tune, the tone-quality is what it is. Beginner or expert, there's only one pressure at which a given note will be in tune, and the volume and tone-colour is built into the design of the whistle by the maker.
If you mean the all-plastic conical-bore Dixon Low D, it's a sweet player, the ideal Gateway Drug to the world of Low Whistles.thx712517 wrote: the Dixon non-tunable low D
I don't think the Dixon all-plastic conical-bore whistle has been around that long.thx712517 wrote: I've read older reviews, some going back 15 years
Here's Tony and myself at the 2011 NAMM Show. I'm holding what he told me was a prototype of the all-plastic conical-bore Low D. It was fantastic.
Richard Cook
c1980 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle
c1980 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle
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Re: Two Questions
For the Dixon low D, I'm looking at the following.
https://www.tonydixonmusic.co.uk/products/tb003/d
The TB003 one piece tenor taper bore low D whistle. What a mouthful! After GBP to USD conversion it will run me around $80 and that's hard to beat. I'm halfway there already.
I've started using a smaller mouth cavity and pulled the whistle out of my mouth a good bit and that seems to give a less piercing tone. I find if I step away from the book's suggestion of starting each note as if I'm saying "too" and try a more... squishy tongue approach? Like a "hoo" or "soo" sound instead of a "too" then I have better control of the octave jump and the notes don't hit as hard.
This is where I'm at today.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DmNgfskd-eg
https://www.tonydixonmusic.co.uk/products/tb003/d
The TB003 one piece tenor taper bore low D whistle. What a mouthful! After GBP to USD conversion it will run me around $80 and that's hard to beat. I'm halfway there already.
I've started using a smaller mouth cavity and pulled the whistle out of my mouth a good bit and that seems to give a less piercing tone. I find if I step away from the book's suggestion of starting each note as if I'm saying "too" and try a more... squishy tongue approach? Like a "hoo" or "soo" sound instead of a "too" then I have better control of the octave jump and the notes don't hit as hard.
This is where I'm at today.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DmNgfskd-eg
- pancelticpiper
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Re: Two Questions
Yes that's the whistle the prototype of which I'm holding.
NB it's more usual (for musical instruments in general) to use the term "conical" referring to the bores of wind instruments; it's conical versus cylindrical.
Richard Cook
c1980 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle
c1980 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle
- benhall.1
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Re: Two Questions
He's using the term that Tony Dixon uses, Richard. Follow the link and see.pancelticpiper wrote:Yes that's the whistle the prototype of which I'm holding.
NB it's more usual (for musical instruments in general) to use the term "conical" referring to the bores of wind instruments; it's conical versus cylindrical.
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Re: Two Questions
Or 'conoid' if you're Jem...pancelticpiper wrote:NB it's more usual (for musical instruments in general) to use the term "conical" referring to the bores of wind instruments
But Ben's right, tapered is also used by some including Tony Dixon.
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Re: Two Questions
Many (? most) wind intruments with a conical bore are conical the other way - narrower near the end you blow from. 'Tapered' seems a good word for something that gets narrower further away from the end you interact with.
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Re: Two Questions
The Meg D I have has a pure-sounding second octave. It's the only whistle I have that plays pure all the way up to and a good bit into the 3rd octave. I rarely (well, never) need that, so I usually play other whistles - but sometimes I bring it out just to check that I didn't imagine it..awildman wrote:Meg is similar to Sweetone? Second octave was very harsh on mine.
- pancelticpiper
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Re: Two Questions
I'm sure there are more, but the ones that come to mind that are wide at the top and constrict toward the bottom aredavid_h wrote:Many (? most) wind intruments with a conical bore are conical the other way - narrower near the end you blow from.
-recorders
-Baroque and Classical flutes
-traditional whistles (rolled from sheet tin)
-Kenas
-Kaba Gaida chanters
Richard Cook
c1980 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle
c1980 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle
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Re: Two Questions
As a general rule, narrowing tapers appear on flutes and fipple flutes (air-reed instruments) while widening tapers appear on (cane) reed instruments and brass (lip-reed) instruments. Ironically, the reason is the same in both cases: to balance out the registers.pancelticpiper wrote:I'm sure there are more, but the ones that come to mind that are wide at the top and constrict toward the bottom aredavid_h wrote:Many (? most) wind intruments with a conical bore are conical the other way - narrower near the end you blow from.
-recorders
-Baroque and Classical flutes
-traditional whistles (rolled from sheet tin)
-Kenas
-Kaba Gaida chanters
Cylindrical flutes overblow near the octave, except the upper register tends to be flat because we like to blow the upper register softer than the lower in relative terms. Narrowing the bore (or narrowing the headspace diameter above the sound hole) helps balance out the difference.
Cylindrical reeds (like clarinets) overblow near the twelfth, well sharp of an octave, because of the physics of the reed and tube. Widening the bore away from the reed narrows this interval until we reach a taper where the instrument overblows at the octave.
The Kaba Gaida is an exception to this pattern. It doesn't overblow, does it?