I am thinking about making a 7 whole whistle where with all holes covered it would be a C but then the rest of the whistles hole would be like a D whistle. Has this been tried?
Joe
How would that work?
Yes,
Colin Goldie (Overton) makes one. He calls it a modal D/C. StevieJ has one and seems to like it. I think that I’ve tried one, but don’t remember.
Erik
[ This Message was edited by: ErikT on 2001-11-14 16:37 ]
The way I am thinking of doing is;
Used 1/2 inch diamter tubing and a Feadog fipple. Cut the tubing to get a C then put the first hole to get a D when open, then tune the other holes like a D whistle (E, F#, G, A, B and C#)so if you ignore the bottom hole you could play it like a D whistle but when you want to play in G you can close all the holes for a C natural, which would be nice for those few tunes in G that have low C in them.
Joe
You can see pictures of seven and even eight hole whistles on Colin Goldie’s Overton website.
Cool.
We could even make a 7 hole whistle with double holes on the bottom for half-tones. Put another tonehole on the bottom.
Next thing you know, we practically have a rennaisance recorder! Oops.
I’ve heard of whistles that do this exact thing. Also, some come with extra Cnat and Fnat holes on the back side too. It’s a slight adjustment for your thumbs, but then you can play perfectly in tune G and C scales without the need for half holing, cross fingering, or another whistle.
It’d take some getting used to I’d think, but MAN if you could master it, you could RIP some awesome ornaments, and scales!
B~
Looking at this discussion and the one about the octave hole I think you guys are all suppressed recorder players.
The “make more holes in whistles” syndrome. Although that low C hole sounds like a good idea. Come to think of it, a low B would be nice too; it’s often used in E-minor tunes. One more hole!!
Jens
I do not want to get to fancy, I just want to try the C natural hole. Does anyone have any ideas for hole placement for the 7 hole whistle.
Joe
I’ve seen a Bb Copeland that had a 7th hole to get the low A. -brett
It’s not so much making a hole to play a C but increasing the length of the whistle so it plays C as a bell note. then stick in a hole to sound D when opened. That (with a bit of thinking guys!)should fall exactly where your present whistle ends.
Into to your workshop so!
In addition to those things mentioned already, I have two whistles from the Phillipines sent to me by tots, actually, which are seven-hole. Very interesting and very solid sound. But, it’s a different fingering system alltogether.
Dale
Oh Wait!
Are you talking about adding a hole at the top of the whistle (probably thumb) to get the C nat. or extending the whistle to get the low C. I’m confused.
Erik
Extending the whistle to get the low C natural.
Joe
Jenns,
I like that C and B note idea, put a key on the bottom for the extra notes and play the rest as regular D whistle.
I wonder what will whistles be like a 100 years from now?
Somehow I feel I will be given stick over saying this but I think the whole idea of the whistle is that it’s deadly cheap and very easy to play, i.e. it’s accessibility is a large part of it’s attraction. Ofcourse it has it’s limitations but you can work around most of these without too much problems and those you can’t work around, well, they are part of the instrument.
All development of low whistles and wooden whistles and all that is relatively recent (not going back much further than the late 1970s) and, in fairness, very little of it seems to be catching on in traditional music circles in Ireland (where, lets face it, the majority of good whistle playing takes place).
This is not merely conservatism, resistance to change: the sound of some of these expensive whistles doesn’t seem to blend in with other instruments. Only last Sundaynight a guy from Alabama (and I think he makes flutes and whistles, his name has escaped me since) came to our regular session, most of the time he played the flute but every now and again he took out one of these blackwood and silver yokes, which was, to be honest, too loud, too woody and sounded completely out of place in that particular setting (which, to be fair, he seemed to realise so each time he played a few bars he quickly put it away again).
I don’t see changes in the whistle catching on big time.
But…
Another great thing about the whistle is that it is an instrument that can be made by your average ‘joe’. The 7 hole whistle I am planning on making will cost me $2.00 for the 1/2 inch brass tubing and my time (I have a few plastic fipples around the house left over from other tweaking experiments that I can use). I hope to have time over the holidays to make one and I will post the results.
So far I have made 3 B whistle (using fipples from C whistles) and 3 soprano E whistles (using D fipples). I have tried to make a few A whistles (using a B flat fipple) with limited success because I can not find cheap tubing long enough so I had to combine tubing with a PVC couplier.
What other instument can be made on a weekend with just a drill, files and a tuner.
Joe
Exactly what I was saying: it’s the accesibility and ease of playing that make for a large part of the popularity of the whistle. It’s great you are experimenting with it to suit your own needs, I just don’t think these things will catch on among the larger community of whistleplayers in the long term. (cf most traditional fluteplayers have the low C and B keys knocked of the footjoint as they don’t consider them useful)
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2001-11-20 07:42 ]