Chiff and Fipple Forums

I've got a lovely Goldie mezzo 'A' that is my favorite whistle of the flock...except...it constantly clogs up. I warm it well up before playing. I've used a thick plastic strip with toothpaste to clean the windway and fipple and then rinsed it completely. I put a tiny dot of toothpaste in the windway and blown it through WITHOUT rinsing, I've warmed the mouthpiece in warm water, nothing helps. It's a hard blower and has a narrower windway than any other whistle up to high Eb and unless I'm blasting it in the upper octave it takes about two minutes to develop moisture in the mouthpiece and gurgle when played low and mild. I suck moisture out at pauses in playing, I'm playing inside a warm room, and it seems there's nothing to keep it from clogging. The only thing I haven't done yet is Duponol because A)I can only find it for sale in Germany and, B)I don't really want pure sodium laurel sulfate on my lips and mouth.

Anyone got any other tips? I've emailed Colin and haven't heard back and as much as I love this whistle I'm now playing all my tunes on a Bb Chieftan which never clogs. For reference, I have low D and high D Goldies and neither has ever clogged once.

-Peter

You didn't mention dish liquid soap. Is that what you used for washing the whistle?

For my Goldie doing the toothpaste+dish soap thing works great, and my whistle plays clog-free for months.

And there's a dental floss thing, which I've not tried.

I'll try the dish soap right after rinsing the toothpaste. And if that doesn't work, I'll go with floss. And if THAT doesn't work I'll be able to find work as a dental hygienist!

-Peter

You can also use Dupenol (sp)...it's for recorders.

Piper Joe

piperjoe wrote:You can also use Dupenol (sp)...it's for recorders.

Piper Joe

Dupenol is basically a very dilute soap.One advantage is that it comes in a handy dropper bottle. You can make pretty much the same thing with a drop or two of Dawn dishwashing soap in a cup of water. Just drizzle a bit of that through the windway and shake out the excess. I also have an A Goldie and this works well in addition to warming the whistle head.

First, the toothpaste treatment does work if done thoroughly, though in my experience it can take two or three treatments for it to "take" sometimes.

Second, while initial warming is obviously vital, a quick blast of air through the whistle with the window covered is necessary for any pause in your playing. You may already be doing that but the whistle will begin to cool after only a few seconds pause.

Third, you need to play the whistle as it wants to be played. I've heard Colin say that so many times, particularly that none of his whistles will clog when played as they are meant to be played. And I would think that especially applies with hard blowers, which will want to be driven throughout their range even at the bottom end. Check your embouchure and breathing. The fipple end should not be in the mouth, but resting on the lower lip with the lips relaxed but closed so as to produce the narrowest and fastest of air streams. To aid that the mouth cavity should be as small as possible and breathing should come from the diaphragm not the chest or throat. Breathing from the diaphragm will produce a much stronger stream of air.

You may find that with all these things if you're not already doing them, when taken together, the problem will go away. I hope so. Out of curiosity, since they never clog, what "strength" are your low and high D Goldies? Hard, medium or soft blowers? A hard blower, I would think, will more quickly highlight any weakness we have in our technique.

Mikethebook wrote:
You may find that with all these things if you're not already doing them, when taken together, the problem will go away. I hope so. Out of curiosity, since they never clog, what "strength" are your low and high D Goldies? Hard, medium or soft blowers? A hard blower, I would think, will more quickly highlight any weakness we have in our technique.

Thanks, I'll work on the technique though I've been playing wind instruments for over 30 years so it'll be a challenge if my method is way different from what the whistles needs. My high D is a hard blower and the low D a medium blower. I think since the A clogs every time, despite covering the windway and blowing, warming, cleaning, and trying to blow through the notes, that it's the extremely narrow windway that causes the issue. I did do toothpaste again and finished cleaning with dish soap and it seems to be better. Let's see how long I can play before it clogs this time. Hopefully I don't have to add soap every session!

-Peter

brewerpaul wrote:

piperjoe wrote:You can also use Dupenol (sp)...it's for recorders.

Piper Joe

Dupenol is basically a very dilute soap.One advantage is that it comes in a handy dropper bottle. You can make pretty much the same thing with a drop or two of Dawn dishwashing soap in a cup of water. Just drizzle a bit of that through the windway and shake out the excess. I also have an A Goldie and this works well in addition to warming the whistle head.

How 'dilute' it is depends on who manufactured it, likely. The duponol I have (which I got years ago) is a pretty high concentration of sodium laurel sulfate, and I imagine it's a much higher concentration than you get in dish soap. If I don't let it dry completely, the tip of my tongue tends to go numb(ish) for a bit when I play it.

One of the benefits of a duponol product instead of a dish soap is that it has no perfumes, thickeners, fillers, or any of the other stuff they put in soap that probably doesn't help with the condensation problem. That said, though I've never tried the soap trick, I imagine it works fairly well based on the surfacting agents in commercial soaps.

Here's the NIH page for SLS.

https://hazmap.nlm.nih.gov/category-det ... ts&id=7127

Mikethebook wrote: The fipple end should not be in the mouth, but resting on the lower lip...

My habit is to not put the mouthpiece in my mouth, but have the tip of the mouthpiece at my lips.

But with Low D whistles I've noticed that how deep/shallow you have the end of the whistle in your mouth can affect the tuning of the scale.

Particularly the note B, which on some whistles I've had will play flat if blowing the whistle by the tip, but be in tune if the end of the whistle is contained inside the mouth.

"Blowing the whistle as it's meant to be blown" indeed! Because the maker is tuning it according to the way he/she blows it, and if you blow it differently the whistle won't play as it was made to play.

I got some pure sodium lauryl sulfate liquid and that seems to have done the trick better than anything else. I rinsed clean with liquid dish soap, dried, then added a few drops and blew them through both ways of the windway. I can still see a little moisture in the windway but have no low-end warbling or clogging. Interestingly I seem to get a tiny droplet on top of the whistle head opening opposite the fipple. I suspect some of the condensation problems were at the opening end where moisture was rolling back into the opening. I must be a really wet blower!

Honestly it seems and sounds like a brand new whistle now--rich low end, clean balanced high end. I didn't realize how much the clogging distorted the sound, partially because I was pushing hard to try and constantly clear the windway. Between that, sucking out moisture, and keeping the head warm I was spending half my playing time coddling the whistle. Now I can spend that playing!

-Peter

Peter, glad the sodium lauryl sulfate did the trick!

Yes glad that... whatever it is worked!

I'm no chemist and I had to look it up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_laureth_sulfate

I bought mine here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012H ... W1J0eFEhsc

eskin wrote:I bought mine here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012H ... W1J0eFEhsc

omg, 8 oz of the stuff will likely last you until the rest of your life.
I've had a tiny bottle of the stuff for like a decade.