Chiff and Fipple Forums

In my mind any player of wind instruments plays by ear and uses ear/had/breath coordination vs as an ongoing process that comstantly corrects and adjusts what is going on.


Anyhow, earlier in this thread I said:

with a little bit of flexibility it's not a big problem to overcome

In the light of several comments complaining about the sharp C I felt I had to test my notion that the Sindt doesn't present me with a problem in that regard. Playing into a tuner I got a result similar to other whistles I play a Cnat around 25 cents flat of equal temperament, pretty much spot on a C in just intonation that I would also use on the pipes.

I make no conscious effort to achieve this, as far as I am aware.

Make of that what you will.

Mr.Gumby wrote:In my mind any player of wind instruments plays by ear and uses ear/had/breath coordination vs as an ongoing process that comstantly corrects and adjusts what is going on.


Anyhow, earlier in this thread I said:

with a little bit of flexibility it's not a big problem to overcome

In the light of several comments complaining about the sharp C I felt I had to test my notion that the Sindt doesn't present me with a problem in that regard. Playing into a tuner I got a result similar to other whistles I play a Cnat around 25 cents flat of equal temperament, pretty much spot on a C in just intonation that I would also use on the pipes.

I make no conscious effort to achieve this, as far as I am aware.

Make of that what you will.

An interesting observation. I've commented in the past (as have others, it's not an original thought) that through listening and practice you should develop your relative pitch, but not to overthink it. Intonation becomes an unconscious process through practice.

Personally, as a child I don't think I was aware a cross-fingered C even existed. I just half-holed, and mostly still do. It was only pointed out to me that some people thought what I was doing was odd when I played with another tin whistle player on a recording and she wondered how I was sometimes sliding into or out of a C natural (it was the English tune "Ladies Pleasure").

Do people shade the top hole? I realised some time ago that on flute I was often holding the pitch of the C natural down by not raising my top finger as much. Haven't played much whistle recently but I just tried a few tunes where I knew I did it and I'm sure I would do the same without thinking. The C natural pitch issue just goes away - apart from the hard part of getting the aesthetics right.

Intonation becomes an unconscious process through practice.

I think that is pretty much what it is. I remember posting here at some point during the first year with the sindt I was put off a little bit by its equal tempred scale. Some time later I found I had settled into the wistle and had softened some of the notes (notably F and B).

I remember one of the old fiddlers aropund here who maintained all the music and all the tunes were already held within the fiddle, it was your job to 'bring them out'.

Do people shade the top hole?

Yes, I know I use a fair amount of shading ion several holes to control tone and intonation. I do it extensively on the pipes but have brought it over to the whistle. It has become second nature.

That fiddler quote must have been inspired by Michaelangelo:
The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.

Sedi wrote:That fiddler quote must have been inspired by Michaelangelo:
The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.

And perhaps Michelangelo’s quote was inspired by a similar thought he’d read or heard from a musician.

who knows...

Alright, finally got my Sindt. It was in pretty rough but serviceable shape. The head was completely fused to the body with tarnished brass; definitely the most trouble I have had getting one unstuck but it finally came free with no damage. Phew. Dings and dents on the bell end were pretty easy to massage out and lightly file and a serious clean made it good as new. I've been playing my Killarney for the past few weeks in anticipation of a comparison and honestly; it would take a way better ear than mine to tell them apart. Subtle differences are the shape of the mouthpiece that sits on your bottom lip. Sindt has a slightly more concave shape that is really comfortable. I also find that overall it is a bit more stable to play than the Killarney.

I probably didn't need two almost identical whistles but there you have it.


IMG_1220 by Pat McInnis, on Flickr

Sedi wrote:I'd hardly call any of those fingerings "abnormal". Maybe except for oxxxxo. The rest is standard stuff.

True. Actually my default flute/whistle C natural fingering is

oxx oox

due to my old habit of leaving the lower-hand ring finger on much of the time.

And coming from piping

oxx xox

is second nature too. But I don't consciously switch fingerings to compensate for different whistles, I fix the whistles to play in a consistent way.

Mr.Gumby wrote: ...any player of wind instruments plays by ear and uses ear/had/breath coordination vs as an ongoing process that constantly corrects and adjusts...

For sure, as a friend who is a professional Tuba player told me "the perfect wind instrument cannot be made".

It's quite amazing to me how the professional musicians with perfect pitch always play right in tune no matter what the instrument they're playing is like. I've been at gigs where there's a professional "reed man" with an absolutely horrid old Generation whistle with a bad scale and bad octaves, a thing I wouldn't consider taking to a gig, and he will play it in perfect tune. Having perfect pitch he has the exact pitch in mind and achieves it. It's done without conscious thought or effort.

A University music professor told us about his attempts to make a flute. He said he got frustrated and gave up, because no matter where he drilled the holes he got the same notes.

I'm the opposite, coming from Highland piping where the entire goal is to blow dead steady and adjust the instrument to be in tune when thus blown. So when I play the scale of a whistle or flute any tuning issue is clear.

It's interesting how all those years of fluteplaying and the continuous unconscious adjustments has bled into my Highland piping. As the chanter warms up it gets sharper compared to the drones, and I don't realise that I've been backing off the blowing to keep the chanter on pitch until the chanter cuts out. I think most good Highland pipers would keep blowing steady so you would hear the pitch of the chanter steadily rising but never cutting out.

On uilleann pipes I've got used to shading Low E, which is usually a hair sharp on my chanter, and giving a slight pressure boost to High E, which is usually a hair flat on my chanter. Other than that my chanter is right in tune if blown in a steady consistent way.

In line with PanCeltic's approach, I find it very helpful to play along with constant electronic drones (there are several available either on the web or as apps). For me, it's taught how to adapt my blowing to "keeping in tune" (with the drones at least) while the flute/whistle adapts to changes in temperature or moisture. That ability then helps in other situations with the slightly out of tune (meaning different from me) fiddler or wind instrument.

Best wishes.

Steve