erik the flutemaker has an interesting “double flute” that he sells. It is two dublin whistles side by side which play in 1/3 harmony with each other. rather fun sounding. has anyone had experience with these?
I have had a chance to play Erik Tullberg’s double whistle (different Erik - Tully whistles), but never Erik the Flute Maker’s. It looks like a lot of fun, but I doubt it would ever be more than a novelty for me.
Several people are doing similar things with these. Daniel Bingamon has one on his web site, too. His is a metal whistle with metal mouthpiece that feeds both pipes. Then, there are American indian flutes that have two pipes to them, as well. And I have seen and played a Hungarian double whistle where the melody is played on one pipe and the other is a drone, just like the Tully.
In all, it is a really fun little idea and I’d love to play with one, but it would ultimately end up just being playing around. If you want to see if you’d really play one, try making one. Just use two similar whistles and some masking tape. Then play it for a while and decide whether you’d want to get one from Erik the FM.
-Patrick
I would think it would be fun, if one got good enough to play the tune on one and a counter melody on the other. Just playing in parallel thirds would get a bit dull, harmonically.
Might be fun to play around with, though I’m afraid I’m not quite that coordinated!
Redwolf
The concept is one that is used in mountain dulcimers, in which one style of playing is to finger the high A string and allow the other high A and the D string to provide the drone.
The mountain dulcimer is actually an Appalachian attempt to have a sound similar to the bagpipe (not similar, but with the drone, etc.)
John Mac
OooooooH!!! Brilliant Idea of the Day from the Old Snake! Let’s build a whistle with a reeded drone! That’s exciting! I’ve a VPC (Very Poor Condition) bagpipe that I’m attempting to repair for a friend, and it’s got a marginally-usable chanter reed. I’ll try it and let’cha know what happens, and whether it sounds as cool as it sounds like it’ll sound! 
Cheers,
Bill Whedon
Get the pressure requirements between a whistle and reeded drone would be a difficult undertaking. I’ve thought of a bellows driven drone so that the whistle player could operate the whistle on breath and the drones on bellows.
I suppose you could instead a pressure restricting orifice to a whistle and operate both on breath, it would be very tricky getting the thing to work with the whistle in both octaves.
On 2002-11-07 12:47, Redwolf wrote:
I would think it would be fun, if one got good enough to play the tune on one and a counter melody on the other. Just playing in parallel thirds would get a bit dull, harmonically.Might be fun to play around with, though I’m afraid I’m not quite that coordinated!
Redwolf
You’re right about the dullness, Redwolf. Further, how is the whistle to know whether you want a major or minor third?
This sort of thing can be done electronically very easily for guitars. You can play into a midi device and tell the device to produce thirds or fifths. You can also say what scale you’re playing in so it knows which kind of third to produce.
One possibility for whistles which wouldn’t involve dullness and wouldn’t just involve a drone would be to have two D whistles governed by a single mouthpiece, say, one with all the holes available and the other with just the right hand holes open and the left hand holes all covered. That would give you the opportunity to play more interesting harmonies but would still be very limited.
[ This Message was edited by: Wombat on 2002-11-08 01:35 ]
I tried a double whistle where the right tube was fully fingered and the left had thumbholes. You could get some fun harmony, but it made my thumbs hurt.
Erik
Dang! Must be something about instrument makers named Eric/Erik and double flutes. I have a friend named Eric Marczak who makes and plays many types of flutes, mostly in the Native American line. He made me a double in Apricot wood, with a hole-less drone on the left, and whistle fingering on the right. I call it my bagpipe whistle. It’s a very beautiful thing, and has a terrific, haunting sound. When a tune goes up into the second octave, the drone pops up there too. Naturally, Scottish bagpipe tunes sound especially good on this instrument.
great responses … thank you! serpent-bill, it will be interesting to hear of your results…meanwhile, if my whoa gets out of control again, i just may have to try out the double deal!
I’ve made a double whistle (called the Biwhistle). It has the right hand toneholes on one whistle and the left hand toneholes on the other. I got the idea from some bagpipes that I once saw. Together it plays the D major scale, it’s tricky thinking about which chords you wish to play.
I think it should be played as a harmony instrument and let another whistler do the melody.
Now here’s an interesting coincidence. I picked up a new CD by Isle of Light (a Christian Celtic group based here in Santa Cruz) yesterday. On it is a tune called simply “Two Whistles, Two Hands,” on which the fellow plays two soprano whistles simultaneously (there’s a picture of him doing it on the liner). The whistles aren’t fastened together…he holds them in a sort of “V”. What’s really cool is he DOES play counter melody! Not just simple stuff either…he starts with an air, then seques into a fairly brisk jig.
Heck, if I could ever play ONE whistle that well, I’d be happy!
Redwolf
Funny how this reminds me of the antique Greek illustrations (pottery, mosaics) of fawns and satyres playing what I ever thought were double V-shaped whistles.
Maybe it was just two whistles 