Have you ever looked through O’Neill’s Music of Ireland, wishing you could play those O’Carolan tunes with several flats at the beginning, but then just kept looking at the ones with one or two sharps, as usual? This morning, I found a couple with notes like E flat, B flat, F natural and runs with A, B flat and C natural and played them on my converted piccolo:
O’Brien, I have a question about the lowest note on Abigail Judge (the only track I listened to, I ruefully admit): is that the instrument’s bell note?
That’s true, but it’s a little misleading.
The fundamental scale of a piccolo or orchestral flute is really a D scale. The lower notes are just added on at the bottom for extended range (like a D+ whistle ). The same is true on the recorder. A Soprano recorder in C is really fingered much (but not exactly!) like a D whistle, with extra holes added on at the bottom to give you a C and C#. Similarly, an Alto recorder in F is like a G mezzo whistle with extra F and F# tacked on at the bottom.
So yes, the bell note of a piccolo is a C, but the fingering of the instrument is generally like a D whistle with extra keys for the additional chromatic notes.
I would assume so too, but what I don’t know is the tune itself, or what key it was written in much less customarily played in, or whether it was transposed to better fit the instrument’s compass (I presume not) or transposed just to play it with better ease (which is a “sin” you’ll catch me doing often enough and with little remorse at all). I can’t really know this instrument’s pitch just on the basis of an unfamiliar tune, and I didn’t do a pitch check on individual notes, so even if that lowest note was C, I have no way of knowing if it is the bell note, although I expect if it IS in fact C, then it probably must be the bell note. One could dare to assume so, given that a whistlemaker did the job. But even if I checked, I think you see my dilemma. For all I know, the instrument’s bell note, C or not, might go lower than needed for the tune. Too many unknowns for little ol’ me. In other words, pitch is not my question.
So, thus my question: “Is it the bell note?”, which is all I ever wanted to know, and really quite simple. And mercifully more so than the reasons I’ve stated for it.
One gets used to it. People read extraneous stuff into what I say all the time (not so much here, but in the 3D, and even there I think I choose my words on the fly carefully enough). I think it must be normal or something. I expect it’s a side effect of what I call “the inner monologue”.
The problem is that explanations mean more words, and that means more words to misinterpret according to the listener’s filters. It can become very frustrating sometimes, and it also depends sometimes - but sadly, not necessarily - on how much beer is in the listener’s ear.
Yes, the lowest note in Abigail Judge, D, is the lowest note on my piccolo body, which does not have the C extension. The same is true of the other tunes.
The reason I ask is that anyone can hear that it is a very strong note, uncharacteristically strong for a whistle, so despite it having a whistle head, is that a result of the body, then? Or was that just a happenstance of the recording?
It’s Boehm, but the only change from a D whistle is F#. You do it with your bottom ring finger. The bottom index gives Fnat. For Cnat you lift your top thumb and keep the index down. I’m having a ton of fun with this thing- I’m working on The Liberty Bell march now (Monty Python theme).
I don’t know why the bell note is so strong. Did you notice it with both heads? It is probably something to do with a good length to bore ratio, combined with the acoustics of the room where I recorded it.
Piccolos with a c foot are not the norm but they do exist.
Also Db piccolos were once common in marching bands
in the U. S. (A few makers also made Db flutes
but these were rare.) Here’s one with a c foot:
Several years ago, I bought a Pakistani Eb Flute on Ebay. It was horribly out of tune and sort-of stayed on the shelf for awhile as a result of it’s terrible tuning.
One day, I opened it and looked it over thinking about the tuning problem and noticed that hole spacing looked a lot like a D instrument. I thought, “No way” but then I kind of guess that these folks are probably making an Eb instrument copied from a D instrument. That would really ruin intonation. Well, I decided to make a whistle head for it and see what it would do in the D scale.
The results were startling, the entire scale played really nice tuning except for one note. It was obvious, a piece of metal from the posts was jutting out, showing inside the tonehole. The trust Dremel tool took off this shaving and after doing so, it tuned up nicely. So, those little Eb picolos can make nice D chromatic whistles. The body is tapered so the headjoint can be straight on it and easy to make.
PS - I changed out the threaded tenons to cork and recently reglued some of the pads.
). The same is true on the recorder. A Soprano recorder in C is really fingered much (but not exactly!) like a D whistle, with extra holes added on at the bottom to give you a C and C#. Similarly, an Alto recorder in F is like a G mezzo whistle with extra F and F# tacked on at the bottom.
