There are far more knowlegable wood mavens here, but I'll give it a go.
ketida wrote:Am I correct in thinking wooden whistles don't require warming up?
Nope, not really.
![smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_smile_144.gif)
Most whistles are voiced to play in tune at room temperature. So a cold wood whistle will play flat. And the same thermal properties that make wood whistles slower to cool down to ambient temperature also make them slower to warm up when cold. Playing a cold wooden whistle can risk cracking.
ketida wrote:Also, are they generally higher priced and more upkeep, needing regular oiling, like wooden flutes?
Maintenance is not such a big deal, oiling a few times a year. But play-in can be a problem if you don't play it regularly. Ideally, new instruments should be played in only a few minutes the first day, a bit longer the second day, etc. until the wood adjusts. An instrument left idle for a while needs to go through this process again. The danger is in deforming the fipple blade and block.
So you may be trading one set of problems for another.
FWIW, my Burke thin-tubed aluminum D is very quick to warm up when cold. A few seconds tightly in both hands, then a few seconds blowing warm air through the closed tube - hands over holes and finger over fipple window. Even switching in mid-set, it's usually ready to go by the first A repetition. Heavy brass may be slower to warm. In a critical concert situation in a cold room, I'd probably use a portable sock warmer or heating pad.
hoopy mike wrote:But, can anyone explain what happened to me a few weeks ago...
Sound travels more slowly in cold air. So a cold air column effectively lengthens the whistle from the point of view of the standing waves within the tube, which lowers the pitch. Only a portion of your breath goes to warming the air column; the rest is out the fipple window. So if you're playing a thin-walled Clarke in a freezing cold room, the light touch of your fingers and thumbs won't be nearly enough to keep it warm. You'd need a tuneable whistle that you can push in far enough to compensate for the average ambient temperature conditions.