Chiff and Fipple Forums

David over at Howard Whistles has a neat little history timeline on his maker's directory page at https://www.howardmusic.co.uk/tin-whistle/ You have to scroll all the way down to get to the timeline. Being of Norman Irish descent myself, I was tickled to learn there that one of the bone flutes disc...

He wrote on Facebook once that he doesn't really "keep a stock" of whistles. But I guess sometimes he has one ready and no buyer. But most of the time he tweaks them once somebody orders one. It seems that many makers/tweakers these days have a huge backlog of orders. Chris Wall for examp...

Anyone knows if Chris Wall makes his own brass tubes for his SweetBrass Whistles? He makes an fantastic mouthpiece that sounds wonderful on his whistles. It's for sure one of my favorite. Don't know if it can be called a tweaked whistle? I do indeed make both the mouthpiece and tube right here in m...

I almost had the silver one. I was imagining the feel of the silver in my hands when with 1 second left I was outbid. Always next time, I suppose. Though it does seem unlikely a mint condition silver copeland from the latter half of his career will ever be so affordable.

Nathaniel, I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was frustrated with you personally. I was really just frustrated to realize we were miscommunicating on your desires, but I always appreciated your feedback. For me it was like having wonderful organic heirloom tomatoes available for a dish, but n...

The biggest factor that affects hole size is the size of the bore in relation to length. A narrow bore whistle in any given key will have smaller holes than a wide bore model of the same key. The second factor for hole size is windway height. Easier blowing whistles that have taller more open windwa...

Without seeing it I'm just shooting in the dark, but it sounds like a windway/sound edge issue. Often if you make the distance the air travels too far before hitting the sound edge, strange things happen. Try reducing the distance of space the air travels after leaving the fipple. (Making the open r...

That sounds like a proper hole size layout. I would recommend playing with hole location before changing hole size. In my experience location is a much more reliable variable. Also, you might try making the taper less drastic. Hard tapers do wacky things to soundwaves and make it a nightmare to tune...

Pancelticpiper gave a perfect response. Also of note, the playability of OXXOOO C natural is not necessarily indicative of the overall quality of the whistle. This reminded me of a conversation I read somewhere, possibly C & F, where someone was having trouble playing the OXXOOO C natural on a S...