Chiff and Fipple Forums

I stumbled across this the other day: https://tinyurl.com/bdew69aw I haven't seen one with a mouthpiece quite like that before. The body does appear to have a slightly conical bore, but I don't know what the 3 stamped on it means. It looks as if the damaged joint might leak a lot of air, so it's an...

I stumbled across this the other day: https://tinyurl.com/bdew69aw I haven't seen one with a mouthpiece quite like that before. The body does appear to have a slightly conical bore, but I don't know what the 3 stamped on it means. It looks as if the damaged joint might leak a lot of air, so it's an...

After receiving his Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 TG4 Gradam Ceoil, Fintan Vallely plays a set with a group where Seamus O’Kane plays a bodhrán with jingles. The head (synthetic‽) is clearly worn where he strikes it, so this isn't just a one-off performance. A biographic segment about Vall...

This pic comes from a 1904 Sears-Roebuck catalog. (There’s more contextual information about it here.)

Now, I'm thinking that that product is designed for fast moving slides, like trombones. Nope. Brass instrument tuning slides and trombone slides are polar opposites in terms of the way they need to be lubricated. The latter have to move at lightening speed without any sense of friction. The former ...

I’ve found waxed dental tape to be an excellent replacement for thread when wrapping tenons. Cork grease is great on cork and what is presumably the same stuff is also marketed directly for use on tuning slides. However, other lubricants are compounded for that purpose and come in different weights....

Tried that and it wasn't "thick" enough to lessen the gap. Have you tried the PTFE tape that Moof has already recommended? It’s widely used for tightening loose woodwind joints. Colin Goldie also uses it for the tuning slides on his new whistles and describes what may well be what you nee...

[Thread revival. - Mod] Dusting off the facet of this discussion about tambourine-style bodhráns — After receiving his Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 TG4 Gradam Ceoil, Fintan Vallely plays a set, online here , with a group where Seamus O’Kane plays a bodhrán with jingles. The head (syntheti...

Ah, yes, the verb "to broach". I hesitate to broach the subject, but I have heard that expression in regard to cutting windways before. And yet it doesn't fit with normal engineering practice does it? I think of a broach as a long multitoothed tool such as used to cut keyways That basic t...

Phil's approach is (I think) similar to that used by fine Recorder makers. (The results, not necessarily the methods.) The floor of a recorder windway is normally a raised platform on the block. The block can therefore not simply be made from round stock or turned on a lathe, as appears to be the c...

It's pretty ancient magic.

Here’s how far you can get without fingerholes,

https://youtu.be/ezureVn-cJQ

and here’s how such instruments are made

https://youtu.be/gqrbwOR4KeQ

The Pythagorean and just tuning systems are defined solely in terms of pure intervals and are therefore not temperaments. The former is characterized by pure octaves and fifths, giving major thirds that are markedly wide. There is a corresponding meantone tuning with pure octaves and major thirds bu...

Time and again, scientific studies and blind tests have demonstrated that material makes absolutely no intrinsic difference to sound when it comes to woodwind instruments like flute/recorder/whistle (and there's no scientific reason why it would). Could you please provide explicit references to one...

The outer diameter of a tunable Copeland high D whistle measured at the exit of the windway is 17.2 mm. The lower end of the tube is OD 12.0 mm, with no indication of any flare. The sides of the windway are parallel and the head joint is cylindrical, extending 50 mm beyond the windway exit. Assuming...

Removing the # changes G major to the “G mixolydian” mode. A web search on “Irish mixolydian” will point you in the right direction.