Chiff and Fipple Forums

Hi guys,

been playing low d chieftain now for 6 months.. im getting used to finger holes and playing is improved, BUT, I cant play it in tune. It seems to be flat on more than one note.

Is this something common for low d whistles, or chieftains, do I have to blow it hard to keep it tune, or is the whistle faulty?

Many questions, thanks for your insights!

Mine is pretty much perfectly in tune across the whole two octaves. But there might be some variation of course between different specimen. It might actually be faulty. All of my Chieftains (V4, V5, low D Thunderbird, high C, D -- all non-tunable) are very well in tune. From my experience with the V5 it cannot be "blown in tune" as it will simply skip to the 2nd octave if you blow too hard in the first. The usable breathpressure for each note is rather narrow.

I would suggest you download 'Flutini' and play a few tunes on it without looking at the computer screen - then check it and it will show you how much each note is in or out of tune - if you watch it while playing you will sub consciously alter your pressure and not accurately see how the whistle is in tune without your trying to influence it. If it is out of tune for certain notes you can work on it and see if you can bring it into line or not http://www.novasession.org/Flutini/

Retired's suggestion sounds ideal, so you don't get the bio-feedback thing of correcting the notes by watching the meter.

I'm not familiar with Flutini, but we Highland pipers have an app called Braw Tuner that sounds similar.

With Braw Tuner you just play tunes and it creates a map of your scale showing where your average pitch for each note is. Braw Tuner is very sensitive and accurate. If you get your pipes perfectly in tune by ear it will be charted as perfect on the tuner, in other words it hears exactly what experienced players hear.

Personally I do just fine tuning whistles with an ordinary tuner, because I've been playing whistles for a long time and I have a very consistent way of blowing whistles.

But somebody new to whistles hasn't perhaps got the blowing dialed in yet. New players have to beware of blaming an instrument, when the tuning issue is due to their inexperience.

That being said, few whistles are perfectly needle-straight-up when played on a consistent breath from bottom to top.

Different makers have different approaches to tuning the octaves and you have to adapt to the octave-tuning of each particular whistle. All the various keys of whistles in my roll have been chosen or modified to have the same octave tuning, so I don't have to think about compensating when I grab a whistle at a gig. But when I pick up somebody else's whistle I'll have to adapt my blowing to it.

Beyond octave tuning, you might encounter a whistle with one or more bad notes in its scale. If the scale is good but the note emitting from one hole is a bit sharp you can put electrical tape on that hole to flatten it. If the scale is good but one note is a bit flat you can put tape on all the other holes to flatten them to match the one flat note, or you can carve out the hole that's giving the flat note.

Thank you guys!

FWIW cold whistles play flat and hot whistles play Sharpe....what is your room Temp?

mickey66 wrote: hot whistles play Sharpe

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