I just received a whistle in the mail, am not satisfied, and want to return it for credit.
Whoops wrong letter.
Do whistles have sweet spots? I ask because I have read about loosening the fipple via the hot water dip, on certain models, and reseating etc. Is the purpose of this to make the whistle more or less tunable, or since, from a physics standpoint, there seems to be a relationship between fipple and holes and changing that distance, however small, could sweeten the performance of the whistle.
Youth wants to know
Retuning a whistle
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StewySmoot
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Thomas-Hastay
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loosening the headjoint allows the player to slide the tube in and out to "tune" the fundamental pitch just like a jointed Recorder. Small movements do not effect the playing hole relationships too much but they will be effected.
Increasing the distance between the voicing and the first tonehole lowers the fundamental pitch and the spacing of all the toneholes should increase(in a perfect world)as well,but these small imperfections are difficult for the human ear to detect.
When tuning, try to get a balance between the middle note in the lower and second octave. In a "D" whistle the notes g' and g" should be tuned so that they are in tune with each other, but an octave apart. In this way you can strike a compromise between the highest and lowest notes. If you tune the lowest note to perfect pitch,then the upper half of the second octave will be off key/discordant.
After you have tuned the middle notes,start from the bottom note and check each note for proper pitch. If you find a notehole that plays abnormaly flat, then you must slightly(an slowly)increase it's size until proper pitch is attained. If you find an abnormaly sharp note, you must reduce the size of the hole with "goop" of some kind(nail polish/wood putty etc.) I suggest that you have a pro do the tweeking but if you have a cheap whistle, a fatal mistake can be lived with.
Thomas(motor-mouth)Hastay
Increasing the distance between the voicing and the first tonehole lowers the fundamental pitch and the spacing of all the toneholes should increase(in a perfect world)as well,but these small imperfections are difficult for the human ear to detect.
When tuning, try to get a balance between the middle note in the lower and second octave. In a "D" whistle the notes g' and g" should be tuned so that they are in tune with each other, but an octave apart. In this way you can strike a compromise between the highest and lowest notes. If you tune the lowest note to perfect pitch,then the upper half of the second octave will be off key/discordant.
After you have tuned the middle notes,start from the bottom note and check each note for proper pitch. If you find a notehole that plays abnormaly flat, then you must slightly(an slowly)increase it's size until proper pitch is attained. If you find an abnormaly sharp note, you must reduce the size of the hole with "goop" of some kind(nail polish/wood putty etc.) I suggest that you have a pro do the tweeking but if you have a cheap whistle, a fatal mistake can be lived with.
Thomas(motor-mouth)Hastay