New style whistle heads

[stringbed]

The sharpest thing a flute has is the angle at the far edge of the embouchure point, and it's somewhere not much less than 90 degrees. And we Irish don't aim at it anyway, we aim at the bottom of the hole.

Aiming at the bottom of the hole reasonably changes where in the ribbon of air the splitting occurs, when compared with top aim. It does not follow from this that the splitting is done by anything other than the far edge of the embouchure in either case.

[david_h]

FWIW, as I have it out to measure, the 'blade' on the c.2007 Silkstone soprano D is a 45 degree (approx) cut across the tube, followed by 10mm of tube surface without a slope and then a steeper step of a mm or so. So geometry is something like the brass Setanta. That 10mm or so is acoustically significant as a ball of blu-tac in there quietens the whistle - not sure what it does to tuning as I haven't done it since I have had RTTA.

[Terry McGee]

Hi stringbed.

It's hard to know for sure if the trigger for the switching action of the jet when blowing downwards is the top edge, or perhaps even hitting the wall is enough? And hard to know what proportion of the jet airflow switches over from "inside" to "outside". We know it's only a small proportion of the wave cycle - that's what makes the cycle distinctly asymmetric, rather than sinusoidal, and that in turn leads to the edgy tone, the low proportion of fundamental, the high proportion of the partials, and the (subjective? real? who cares?) increase in power.

But the point I was trying to make was that, in the flute, there is no sharp "blade". The flute "edge" is close to a 90 degree angle. If you blow "at the edge", it's probably presenting something like a +/- 45 degrees to the jet. But if you're blowing down, it's going to be more like "close to parallel to the wall" to "the blunt edge of the top". Shall we guess at +30, -60 degrees? "Blunt edge" seems to be what Tunborough is talking about in the ramp-free whistle context.

Now, a few years back, there was a bit of a fad in the flute world about "cutaways". These were a flattening of the normally curved surface beyond the embouchure hole, so as to present a much sharper edge at the edge. This was a step towards the notion of "dividing the jet". The same notion that Tunborough seems to have leveled his 40 pounders against. Like I'm sure many flute makers, I tried it, at least twice. I have two heads still in my workshop drawer which attest to the fact it was not a success. At least in my way of blowing.

Now, here's an interesting conundrum. When I look straight down the windway of the whistles I like best, I see the ramp. I don't see down through the body of the whistle unless I really tilt the whistle to force that to happen. When I look down the windway of the whistles that are twitchy, I see some windway but I can also see down through the body. I'd be interested if others find the same, or find differently.

So, if I am right, the whistles that work well for me direct initial air up through the window to the outside world. Or, at least don't send it down the bore. But the whistles that work badly for me split that airflow between bore and outside. Yet, when I "give the auld flute a blast", I'm shooting the initial airflow way down into the bore, confidently expecting that the returning pressure wave will redirect it to the outside. So, on the face of that, the physics of flutes and whistles seem inverted. This doesn't seem likely. Where have I come unstuck?

[stringbed]

The physics of how an edge tone induces vibration in an air column are well understood. Marvelous photographs were published no later than the 1960s of the system of vortices at the business end of an organ flue pipe with transparent walls, and smoke rather than air blown into it. The same dynamics apply to the production of sound by blowing across the top of a soda bottle, so the splitter clearly does not need to have an acute angle.

As you note, the essential aerodynamic detail is that the stream of air along the outer side of the splitter lowers the pressure of the air inside the resonator until the differential becomes great enough to pull the "air reed" into the resonator. That then reverses the force and the reed is switched back to the outside of the instrument. If that action results in a regular and stable oscillation, by definition, we've got ourselves a flute.

I've looked down a prodigious number of recorder windways while taming this behavior. There is a fairly predictable correlation between visible structural detail and the resulting sound. However, it's not hard to skew that mightily without being able to see what’s responsible for the change.

Before positing that the principles of sound production in transverse flutes differ fundamentally from those of duct flutes, it might be worth investigating how the conceptual model of "shooting the initial airflow way down into the bore" maps into the actual physics of the vibrating system. If one changes from blowing across the top of a coke bottle to blowing into the bottle, its timbre and pitch will also change — but the basic acoustic dynamic hasn’t been inverted.

[Tunborough]

Now, here's an interesting conundrum. When I look straight down the windway of the whistles I like best, I see the ramp. I don't see down through the body of the whistle unless I really tilt the whistle to force that to happen. When I look down the windway of the whistles that are twitchy, I see some windway but I can also see down through the body. I'd be interested if others find the same, or find differently.

When I point the beak of a whistle to the light, and stare up the bore from the bell end, what I want to see is a paper-thin sliver of light between the underside of the splitting blade and the bottom of the windway. If I don't see any light at all, I expect the whistle won't sound well, or at all. If I see a broad flood of light, I expect to hear a harsh tone from the whistle. I understand that's one of the tweaks that Jerry Freeman does on his whistle heads, lowering the blade so it is just above the floor of the windway.

[paddler]

As far as I can tell, the precise shape and sharpness of the splitting edge doesn't make much difference to a whistle's ability to speak.
I'm not sure it even makes much difference to the quality of tone in terms of the mix of partials, but I do think that it contributes to
what is sometimes referred to as the non-musical aspects of the sound, for example, breathiness etc. Whether this is really non-musical
is another one of those questions that is subject to taste. For instruments, such as recorders used in a certain musical genre, it may be
considered a bug, whereas in others is may be a desirable feature.

The sight-based approaches to evaluating windway floor and blade alignment seem to rest on the assumption that the wind way floor
is flat, and that it aligns with the axis of the bore. I doubt that these assumptions are acoustically necessary, but they do generally hold
true for many whistle construction methods. I have wondered if a carefully constructed arc of the wind way floor might enable a quieter
second octave (more balanced volume between octaves), by deliberately introducing some inefficiency as the whistle is blown harder.
I think that might be a fruitful area for research. I hate playing whistles that are too loud in the upper second octave. So much so
that I pretty much avoid any of the wide bore whistles. To my mind, no amount of improved quality of tone in the bottom end can
compensate for an obnoxiously loud top end that is simply unmusical. Sorry, end of rant.

I think the reason it is bad to see a big air gap below splitting edge and above it (i.e., the blade located part way up the wind way height)
is because it makes it difficult for the pressure oscillations within the bore to fully push the air stream above or fully pull it below the edge.
Such whistles are inefficient, to the point of not working at all sometimes, because you end up with some air flowing in the wrong
direction during each oscillation phase, and hence weakening the amplitude of the oscillation.

[stringbed]

It might be useful to bring chamfer into this discussion. This is one of the details in kkrell's labeled drawing and is a major determinant of the air reed's switching behavior. It also directly affects the balance between responsiveness at the lower and upper extremes of a duct flute's range. Too little makes it difficult for the lowest notes to speak easily and too much has the same consequence for the highest notes. The chamfer on the block has a clear effect at both extremes and the chamfer on the roof of the windway is more relevant to upper range behavior.

I'm making these pronouncements on the basis of familiarity with recorder voicing but note that the whistles in my arsenal behave as would be expected on the same basis. The ones that are really powerful at the lower end and awkwardly screechy at the top, have the largest block chamfers and no upper chamfers at all. The whistles with the best balance between the extremes have more modest chamfers in both positions. Unsurprisingly, the mediocre performers don’t show any signs of their makers having ascribed particular significance to that design detail.

[Terry McGee]

Heh heh, and what about the slight protrusion of the end of the block past the end of the windway? I imagine you've come across that in recorders, stringbed. Has it relevance in whistles (and if not, why not?), and does the degree of relevance vary with the pitch of the whistle, or any other factors? And how much protrusion, and why?

Again, comparing flutes and whistles, with flutes, the player has control over so many of the parameters. More, probably, than they could ever realise. In whistles, these parameters have to be coded into the hardware. Once you look down that road, you realise how many decisions have to be taken by the maker. And hopefully not regretted by the player...

[stringbed]

what about the slight protrusion of the end of the block past the end of the windway? I imagine you've come across that in recorders…

The block determines the end of the floor of the windway so I'm assuming that you're asking about the effect of it being offset from the end of the roof of the windway. But is the question about what happens when the block is shifted on an instrument that was voiced with the two ends in alignment, or about the utility of the offset as a voicing device?

In the former case, moving the block a smidge further into the instrument makes it harder for the upper notes to speak and renders the overall sound slightly more diffuse. I've never tried deliberately offsetting the ends of the windway as a design element and can't comment on it. However, I'd be quite surprised to learn that tin whistles behave differently in this regard than recorders do — or the English flageolets that bridge the gap between them.

Again, comparing flutes and whistles, with flutes, the player has control over so many of the parameters.

For sure — and it makes the late-19th-century piccolo-flageolets all the more interesting. These give the player the choice of a flute or whistle mouthpiece on the same body. There's more detail about them, including a demo recording and a general discussion of the proximity between small flutes and whistles at https://loopholes.blog/fife-flageolet/.

[Terry McGee]

Have you come across any of these piccolo-flageolet combinations that worked well in both modes? I have a period one here which is a dismal failure in both. I reckon it's proof only that charlatan makers existed back then as well as more recently. Probably significantly it has no maker's mark (it was never going to attract return business!), but looks like the kind of instrument made popular by William Bainbridge.

I have restored and upgraded a period flageolet to a reasonable level of performance. It was by Wallis, from memory, so at least from a recognised maker. I had to graft on an extension as the D notes were annoyingly sharp. I couldn't just retune the other notes to the Ds as some of those were tending sharp already, but I was able to tweak the others to all come together pretty well. The voicing wasn't bad, but the overall performance was still not outstanding, probably due to the combination of small bore, small holes and thick body walls.

Because I haven't found a piccolo / flageolet combination that works, I wonder even is it a practical idea? We know that the taper of the flute is needed to correct the tuning between the octaves. Would that same taper work for the flageolet mouthpiece as well, or would it overcompensate, driving the upper octave top notes sharp with the higher pressures one needs to get up there? Anyone had practical experience of this?

[Terry McGee]

Ah, and a sudden memory of an English Flageolet that did work. Old Tim Whelan was an Irish musician who came out to Australia in the late sixties, and settled in South Australia. Back in Ireland he was a dance-hall musician, and played sax, flute and tin whistle. Frustrated that the whistles available to him didn't provide the kind of power he wanted (these were the days before sound systems, hence the sax), he conjoined an English Flageolet body with a large windway recorder head. Then played with a powerful, throbbing vibrato that really lifted the volume and presence of the instrument so it could easily compete with the other instruments.

Tim is passed on now, but remembered by his fiddle-player son, also named Tim, at: https://timwhelanmusic.wordpress.com/20 ... helan-snr/

There is a recording of old Tim on that page, but to my reckoning, Tim is playing pretty sedately there, which was generally not his style! And in Dm and C, which probably makes it less likely that he was playing the recorder/flageolet. But it's nice to have reason to remember him.

[stringbed]

Have you come across any of these piccolo-flageolet combinations that worked well in both modes? I have a period one here which is a dismal failure in both.

I would have thought that jemtheflute demonstrates the musical viability of the flageolet half of a combo set far more than well enough in the video that ends the blog post linked to in my preceding comment: https://www.youtube.com/embed/o31VMOmrwuE.

Because I haven't found a piccolo / flageolet combination that works, I wonder even is it a practical idea? We know that the taper of the flute is needed to correct the tuning between the octaves. Would that same taper work for the flageolet mouthpiece as well, or would it overcompensate, driving the upper octave top notes sharp with the higher pressures one needs to get up there? Anyone had practical experience of this?

At least one contemporary maker seems to feel that interchangeable piccolo/whistle mouthpieces are worth fitting to a single cylindrical body. I own such a pair, albeit with an aluminum body for which alternate mouthpieces are no longer available. Again, it strikes me as being more than an eked-out proof of concept: https://www.tonydixonmusic.co.uk/produc ... ey-of-d-2/.

The piccolo-flageolet illustrated in the 1897 Sears-Roebuck ad also appears to have a cylindrical bore. If so, that would fully open the piccolo vs fife can of worms but, on the earlier historical record, it is the latter that is explicitly paired with the flageolet.

[Terry McGee]

Yes, Jem's playing the flageolet is encouraging. Matthais Barr, London, 1875-1918. Seems late for that instrumental pair! Barr is described as "Instrument dealer, music seller and concert agent", so probably not the maker.

Has Jem also recorded the piccolo combo? A comparison of the two would be very interesting.

Interesting the Dixon combination with cylindrical bore. How do you find the intonation in both modes? In the link provided, it looks like we can see the face of the stopper right at the edge of the embouchure hole. Correct? Trying to shore up the upper octave tuning? At the expense of the fullness of the low notes?

Interesting to speculate how one might approach trying to come up with a really good combo. Perhaps start by optimising a whistle head, tapered bore combo? That would presumably then give a slightly flat top end if fitted with a piccolo head of the same diameter. Correct that by making a piccolo head with a slight taper downwards at the stopper end? À la Boehm, but presumably to a lesser degree, as you already have a fair amount of octave compensation in the tapered body. Or can anyone think of or have come across a better approach?

[Terry McGee]

Heh heh, and I was reminded of this YouTube of a Bainbridge flageolet, played by William Waterhouse, of New Langwill Index fame. I think we can conclude from his playing that it was for demonstration purposes, not habit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98aB56- ... nel=EUCHMI

Note that, following modern convention, they refer to it as being in Ab, where we call it Bb. Sigh.

[paddler]

Back on the topic of shading the window, I wonder if there was an element of that going on in Jim Donoghue's whistle playing.
He was renowned for having a unique tone on the whistle. In the video below you can see that he played his Clarke whistle through the side of his
mouth, with quite a lot of the head covered by his lips and cheek. I think I read somewhere that he started playing this way when he lost his teeth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOLIJUq9Lg0