I’m curious to learn more about how the fipple window size relates to a tone, for a given bore diameter and length This thread has been very helpful as far as width goes. As an experiment, I’ve created a wooden fipple head with a sliding labium in order to play with the window length, and make small adjustments to the step as well. I waxed the labium slide, and it’s a snug fit, so there’s no air leakage, but I still get some airiness in the tone, which is probably due to turbulence from the gap inside the bore.
I’ll make a few more with different widths and share my results, for now here are some photos. I’m curious if anyone else has tried a similar experiment?
I’ve been planning to make a whistle head with adjustable windway roof and floor, so the wedge (the bit that you’ve made mobile) would be fixed with the windway roof and floor moving relative to it instead, going closer, further away, up or down. That would help home in on the best arrangement faster for a given width and wedge shape. It would be worth designing it to have interchangeable wedges too though so that you can vary the shape of that aw well, and without a gap opening up beyond it to generate hiss. I also want to be able to change the angle of the windway roof and floor so that I can make the windway narrower nearer the window or keep the size constant to see what impact that has on things. If it narrows, it should accelerate the air passing through it.
I’m curious to see what results you get. Please state the bore diameter, so we can relate your example to whistles we have, in what keys, etc.
I suspect you’ll find that particular test model finds a position where the best overall response happens, for both octaves and for tone. Moving
the blade on that sliding housing away from the best balance position should produce variations in response in the first and second octave and
maybe changes in tone/chiff and intonation?
The more data you can get for that range of whistle responses, the better!
If you want to explore varying more parameters, you might get some good ideas by looking at how some Native American Flutes (NAF) are designed.
They have a separate block, which defines the roof of the windway. And they have a component called a “nest” which defines the sides of the windway and window dimensions, and provides the labium.
On some NAFs the nest is made from brass sheet with a cutout.
Since both the block and the nest can be moved, and you can have more than one interchangeable nest, you can vary a lot of parameters. I could imagine using such a setup on a whistle to experiment with all of the following parameters, and more:
Window length: by moving block or nest.
Window width: by replacing nest with one with a wider slot.
Windway height: by replacing nest with one made from thicker plate.
Height of shading above and around the window: by replacing block with a taller or more enclosing one.
etc.
For some pictures of the anatomy of a NAF and the meaning of the terms nest and block etc, check the following link:
@paddler, Thank you for that suggestion. The nest/block combo is really interesting way to experiment, the fact that it allows so many variables to be adjusted is really appealing. I explored it in CAD and couldn’t find a way to avoid some kind step in the bore south of the labium, which I’d like to eliminate, but I’ll keep thinking about it.
The bore is 0.55, and I am indeed finding a “sweet spot”. My findings are generally, that the window needs to be longer for longer pipes. Increasing the window strengthens the lower notes, decreasing the window length makes the whistle more likely to jump into the second register and makes the lower notes harder to play. I’m getting a lot of airyness in the tone, which I assume is turbulence due to the gap under the labium.
A whistle and an metal organ pipe are the same type of construction. Raising the cut-up (blade-height) on a pipe will broaden its tone into ‘flutiness’ and will require more pressure, and that has limitations. It also requires that the languid (angled front of the block) be lowered to direct the wind sheet to accomodate the higher blade. That is beautiful work and an interesting idea you have there.
The Guido Gonzato whistle design accommodates this adjustment by making the windway cap and fipple block movable. The “sweet spot” is a compromise between a sweet and easy high end with a bottom note that is weak and easily overblown, and a solid bottom note with a stiff high end.
Fascinating stuff! Reminds me of how you can control these things with your lips if you play kwela-style whistle. I guess your lips kind of function as a window resizer of sorts.
Now I would love it if someone would design a whistle with a spring-loaded window resizer that you could adjust by pressing the whistle further into your lips…that’d give you lots of nice volume control!
It should be easy enough to have a simple spring-loaded adjuster and even have independent adjustment for the windway roof and floor, possibly with user-settable limits, but it would be fiddly to make unless the parts are 3D printed - that’ll be the key to making it a reality. I wanted to have a go at designing such things long ago, but all the software seems to be 64-bit and I don’t have a 64-bit PC. I wouldn’t need a 3D printer to begin with as there are plenty of people with them who can do that part of the job for reasonably low cost. Maybe there’s software that can handle it on a phone though. Does anyone know of any suitable Android apps for that?
I think a good way to do this would be to use a head design like Winne Clement’s Romanian kaval. Basically, flip the head upside down so that the window is on the underside, and then use the lower lip to directly adjust the shading of the window and get the tone you want. This is a lot more comfortable than trying to play kwela style with the whistle head inside your mouth. I think you could strengthen the tone of the lower notes so they can be pushed really hard, like the kwela players do, and get a much wider range of tonal coloring than is possible with conventional whistle heads and playing styles.
This short video by Winne Clement is a great demo of how this can be done and it illustrates the powerful effect it can have:
It is amazing how robust those low notes are when you consider that these kavals have a very narrow bore aspect ratio. They are essentially overtone flutes.
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