MTGuru wrote:Cheap whistles are rarely flat. Of the hundreds I’ve tested, most are about 20-cents sharp with the tuner on A=440.
I have no idea what that means. Most "cheap whistles" are tunable, and they are neither sharp nor flat. They are however you set them. Also, Mitch Smith (Mozle) is a fine whistle maker, but we have no idea how he plays or what his personal breath pressure habits are.
This is the only part that is relevant:
There is another thing to remember with the Clarke tin-whistles - they are extremely conical. This makes the second octave sharp until you learn to back-off on the air pressure.
In other words, a conical whistle will be
especially sharp in the 2nd octave if you blow too hard. Which takes us back to my comment that you may be blowing too hard.
I have the numbers if you wish to do your own analysis.
I tested 100. I took readings from the time a note was measurable to the time the note broke into chaos before entering the next register and recorded the median required to get to the next note without breaking into chaos.
I like chaos - I record where it begins .. that's the "point of accumulation" for anyone with the theory under their belt.
On top of that I imported examples of every known maker as at 2006 - and tested them .. that's while ago - there have been a few more makers doing pretty much the same stuff since then.
But, suffice to say - I measured the lot of them within 0.005 millimetres on every dimension without ultra-sounding the internal bores or windways. However, I do have such scans of historical flageolets and
tabor-pipes.
The Generation whistle is statistically sharp on an average of 15 per-cent of a tone (over 100 samples - from low 0.5 to high 89.6 - on the most out-of-tune notes).
That does not depend on anyone's breath-habit - the measure was done from a compressor-tank through a pressure measured hose - not my mouth.
The Feadog is almost exactly as sharp, except that they have stopped gluing the head on - which makes it marginally tunable.
I have tested no commercial toys called whistles that are not sharp on first play - and as they warm-up they become sharper.
I would be glad if any one here does the empirical testing to let me know if anything has changed in the world of commoditized musical toys since 2006.
But fear not - your considered ignorance is entertaining none the less - lets not spoil it with any truth huh?
Anyone here with a good joke?
Here;'s good one:
What happens to the tuning if you change the diameter of the tube?
What happens to it when you change it locally at increments of 1mm through the whole bore?
What happens when the slope of the "perturbation changes between square and sinusoidal profiles?
There's a funny thing - let me know what you find - I have some data, but I haven't gotten the whole spectrum of profiles done yet .. it makes a pretty graph .. happy to share with anyone who has genuine data.
But it's a kinda funny thing to do - probably better to just larf.
Her's another funny one:
Who here can tell me the undercut slope as driven by the tuning-slide gap?
Wow - that one makes me larf like mad - it can be gotten! .. but the origin and angle of the circle is very hard to fix .. it might not be a point-origin .. it might be a vector .. LOL!!! that makes me larf.
This world is such a funny place - I would not leave it if you paid me.
Next!!!