Keyed Whistles

Whistle
21

On 2002-10-19 21:08, Paul wrote:
Even though it might very well be an expensive proposition, a keyed low D, it would be interesting if someone would make a really good one and offer them for sale at some price for those who would pay. I am sure that he or she would sell at least a few each year. all they would have to do is price it where it would be worth their time.

Well Paul, that’s exactly where the problem lies: The really good whistle and flute makers have waiting lists. In order to spend the several hundred hours necessary to come up with the design, forge the keys, work through the mounting and fitting issues on prototypes, and finally get to the point where they have something they are proud to put out, they’d have to be giving up paying work that whole time, and pissing people off by seriously increasing their waiting lists.

So I ask you, how do you put a price on that, for an instrument you might sell only a handful of each year? Look at the good keyed wooden flutes, the wait is generally 2-4 times as long as a keyless flute from the same makers, the cost is usually double…and that’s from makers who already have the design issues worked out.

For a Low Whistle, you’re likely going to have to talk about either wood or brass instruments, I suspect mounting keys on aluminum would be a bitch, and PVC…well, let’s just say that the market won’t bear such an instrument.

So, if were talking about wood or brass, then we’re talking about someone who already makes a good low d. Which leads us to people like Copeland woodwinds or Michael Grinter. Now their Low D’s run in the $350-$500 range…double that (like you would for keyed flutes), and figure in sales lost to R&D time, materials for prototypes, etc, etc. So, 20 years in the business world tells me that if I were Grinter or Copeland A) I wouldn’t bother, and B) If I did, I’d have to charge $2000 -$3000 for the darn things.

Only other option, lobby someone like Desi Seery or Michael Cronolly - both make keyed flutes and whistle out of polymers. But then even a keyed polymer flute is what…$1500 to $1700? Plus you still have the lost time for R&D…and on and on…

Loren

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Loren:

Your message is very clearly thought out (and therefore depressing). I agree that the cost to research, prototype and market a keyed low D whistle would probably price it out of reach of most.

However, I am an optimist by nature and will continue to hope that someone will step up. I hereby offer myself as the offical tester/reviewer of any whistlesmith’s efforts to make a keyed low D.

Meanwhile, I have spent part of the afternoon and the better part of the evening on this subject and wish to appoligize to those I have annoyed. I am going to pour myself just one more brandy and go into the woods behind my house with one of my high D whistles (because I can’t take a keyed low D that I would dearly love to have) and annoy the hell out of some small woodland creatures that have settled down for the night.

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-You might attract a predator responding to sounds like prey animals in distress… :smiley:

-I attracted a Canadian goose family to my boat once inadvertently while tuning its horn. The dissonant chord sounded sort of goose-like, and somewhat like poorly tuned Uilleann pipes.

-Lets see now, Evan Williams Bourbon or an Islay single malt? Hmm…(ponders the answers to life’s persistent questions)

Brian O.

[ This Message was edited by: brianormond on 2002-10-19 22:26 ]

[ This Message was edited by: brianormond on 2002-10-19 22:29 ]

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Patience. It takes two years…

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Good points, Loren. you make a lot of sense. especially about such a project affecting the waiting lists for good makers. Therefore, if a good Whistle Maker were to design such a fine instrument, it would have to be a spare-time activity that would probably take several years to complete. (just the design) He or she would have to be willing to invest that kind of extra time for the sake of its creation. Many hundreds of hours, as you suggested, Loren. It would be a labor of love if you will.

In the end, it could be a low volume-high price instrument for those who would be willing to pay… He or she could allot like (insert number here) per year.

By the way, I agree also about the materials. Aluminum is definitely out of the question. Unworkable for such a project. It would have to be brass, wood silver, delrin…

Whatever whistlemaker took on the project would absolutely have to do so simply for the sake of the love and evolution of the instrument.

So Loren, back to economics… You are probably right. That’s what it boils down to most of the time. But sometimes…

Slan
-Paul

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Sure, it’s not always about economics. Which brings up another point: Most people who think they want a keyed low whistle are relative beginners who, by the time they would actually be ready to pay the high price a keyed whistle would cost, will most likely already have decided that the instrument is too limited to be worth the price, and so they will have already set their sites on the flute, negating any real need for a keyed low whistle.

How’s that for a run on?

Seriously, a huge part of the Low Whistle’s appeal is it’s low cost and ease of play. Once you get to the point where they are going to cost nearly what a keyed flute will cost, then you start thinking about the fact that whistles have a very limited dynamic range when compared with flutes. You think about the fact that with a flute you don’t have the problems of having the higher octaves being louder than the lower octaves (unless you choose to play the flute that way), you consider the fact that while a whistle has basically one voicing - be it pure, or breathy, or growly - you’re stuck with that single voice. A wooden flute on the other hand (a good one that is) is capable of going from very pure in tone to raspy, to hard edged like a buzz saw and everything in between.

So, while Low whistles have their place, and their own unique charm, you only end up with a poor flute once you start adding keyes to them.

This coming from a guy who used to beg whistle makers to make a keyed Low D. However now that I have a good flute, I see there’s little point in having a keyed Low Whistle - a good keyless Copeland or Overton is all you need… and if you can’t hack the grip, either practice more, or learn the U-pipes, or fiddle, or guitar, or…

Loren

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BTW, Chris Abell, maker of some of the finest whistles on the planet was asked why doesn’t make whistles below the key of A (between high and low D) Chris’ answer: I do, but they have keys all over them! Chris was referring to his much in demand wooden concert flutes. Cost: Only about ten thousand dollars…

Loren

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On 2002-10-19 20:51, Loren wrote:
Mando Paul, do you have any silver smithing experience? I do, and I can tell you that designing, forging and fitting keys is a VERY time consuming, and therefor expensive, process.

Actually, I do. I’m not an expert but I do have enough experience to have a decent idea.

I have also built a couple of musical instruments (mando, guitar and banjo) and am a partner in a mandolin making company. So, I have a really good idea about R&D costs, return on investment, efficient use of money, etc.

One key or eight keys, it isn’t going to be cheap, because of the R&D involved, plus the serious lack of demand, there are economic forces at play here…

I didn’t say it would be cheap; I questioned your instant jump to $2k-3k. Economic forces do influence instrument making but don’t dictate it. If they did, noone would make wooden whistles; they’d all make wooden keyed flutes.

Money doesn’t always rule. Most instrument makers aren’t in it for the money. If they were, they probably wouldn’t do it. If a keyed low-d gets made, it will be because it intrigues someone. Someone else will buy it because it intrigues them.

You say that you have “progressed” from wanting one as a “beginner” and that now you’re experienced, you don’t want keys on your whistle. Are you really saying that if you want keys you must not play well?

Perhaps you’ve just learned to cope and deal with whistles as they are. What about folks whose hands won’t physically do that? Should they just punt on whistle playing? Should we all learn to accept limitations and not try new things?

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This is most weird. I just received a request from the music department of a school regarding building a keyed low-C whistle. Ultimately, they decided to go with a tenor recorder because they have a recorder player already, but it got me thinking about the subject. Not a big engineering job at all, as long as all yer talking about is keying the E (on a low-D). I repaired woodwinds for years at McLean’s Band Shop in KC, and making keys is an almost trivial job, long as you can get the needle springs and appropriately-sized pads.

Nope, this ain’t an offer to build one for you - just an observation that such isn’t in any way, shape, or form, to be considered Rocket Science. If you want one, check with some of the other whistlesmiths. If they would like to build one for you and need some tech help or parts made, I’ll be happy to render same.

Cheers,
Bill Whedon

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[Nuts. I forgot to mention, yep, I’m also a silversmith and manufacturing jeweller (primarily wrought work). I also have a daughter I taught, who’s a diamond remounter, and who works magic with lost-wax if I need it. Like I said - not Rocket Science…
BW

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I wonder if anyone tried Erik Tully’s whistle Capos, i.e. small rings made to mechanically half-hole C and F naturals ?

This seems like a pretty novel approach to make a “modal” whistle, even if you have to reposition the Capos from tune to tune (no medleys… thank God).

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He is, indeed, a good man, but his whistle-making is not up to par with the rest of the whistle-smiths on this board… from my personal experience.

~Larry

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No Bill, it’s not rocket science, and I never said it was. Any competant silversmith could forge the keys…once he or she has worked out exactly how they need to be shaped to both function well mechanically, and also ergonomically, for an instrument that doesn’t yet exist… It’s not like you can just exactly copy the keyes from an existing instrument, like you could basically do if making a flute.

But first you’d have to make a good whistle…

And it’s not like you can just slap the keys on any old way with super glue or something. You’d have to deal with either posts or blocks, where to put them, how to mount them, getting the adjustment just right so the pads seal well even after hundreds of touches…all these things are fairly strait forward when repairing instruments that already exist, but it’s a whole other thing to build one from scratch. The high cost I suggest isn’t due primarily to the “difficulty factor” it’s because this stuff is time consuming.

I used to manage a musical instrument store, we employed woodwind repairmen because we rented several hundred band instruments each school year. I spent lots of time in the shop, watching and talking to these guys because I found the work fascinating. I’ve seen how time consuming it can be to work on mass produced keyed instruments, even with the ready availability of replacement parts. Sure, we’re talking about something less keys, most or all of which wouldn’t be strung together, but still there are time consuming challenges involved in doing this from scratch.

I suppose a a fairly inexpensive one or two key Low whistle could be made in reasonable amount of time, I’m just not sure many people would be interested, so my comments are based on the idea that a maker would need to come up with something with enough keys to be chromatic.

Mando Paul,

What little I know about mandolin and guitar making leads me to believe that the construction methods and challenges are very different from those involved in making a good keyed woodwind. I don’t think that knowledge of one will give you a good idea of the difficulty or time involved in making the other.

Regarding beginners and low whistles, you make it sound like I’m taking some elitest attitude, which I’m not, because I don’t consider myself a particularly good player, and I’m certainly not putting beginning players down, nor am I trying to tell anyone what they should or should not want. I’m merely saying that my observation over the last several years has been that people generally gravitate from low whistle to flute, and I don’t think having keyed Low whistles around will change that much, since the flute has some significant advantages over the whistle, not the least of which are flexabilty of tone, and greater dynamics, and more power - so you can actually be heard at sessions etc.

But I tell you what. Stick around here a while, and then let’s have this conversation in another three years to see where it leads us. Perhaps by then someone will have put out a decent keyed Low whistle, and, maybe one or both of us will have a different perspective by then.

In the mean time, there are Vertical headjoints available for keyed concert flutes. There are D fifes, Low F and G whistles that require shorter finger stretches, and there are Low D’s like the Dixon or Overton that have very reasonable finger hole spacings, even for the Low D - All options for those who have trouble with the standard Low D whistle.

I will say this however: It’s been my experience over the years, (as a professional instructor of things like Martial Arts and Rock Climbing), that people tend to say they can’t do things long before they’ve put in enough time and effort, with the proper attitude, to accurately make that determination. Having helped blind people learn how to climb quite successfully, I am always somewhat skeptical when a person complains about the low d whistle being too difficult to play…

And yes, I have small hands and had to work at it to be able to play both the low whistle and flute, so I do know what it’s like.

Loren

[ This Message was edited by: Loren on 2002-10-20 10:32 ]

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Just a few little comments on Loren’s post, almost all of which I agree with.

A local maker of Uilleann pipes (who doesn’t have a good reputation) will make chanters with up to four keys for accidentals. Unless my memory fails me, each key adds $500 to the total cost.

I’d love to have a keyed low whistle because one reason I took up whistle was to have a flute-like instrument in my arsenal which wouldn’t take up all my practice time. Keeping your embouchure in shape seems to be a constant battle for flautists and playing fipple flute bypasses this particular difficulty.

I too am not very good on low whistle yet but I’m improving much faster than I thought I would at first. Several things have helped me. I have good instruments; my low Ds are Copeland, Overton and Bartlett (a local maker.) The Bartlett, although not to everybody’s taste I’m sure has the breath requirements of a high whistle so I can work on fingering without having to worry about breathing. When I move back to the Overton, I find I’m then able to play things I couldn’t play before. But I’d love a good chromatic whistle if one ever becomes available.

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On 2002-10-20 02:56, MandoPaul wrote:

I didn’t say it would be cheap; I questioned your instant jump to $2k-3k. Economic forces do influence instrument making but don’t dictate it. If they did, noone would make wooden whistles; they’d all make wooden keyed flutes.

My jump wasn’t instant, I’ve had several years to learn a little bit about what it takes to make flutes and whistles - having talked to many whistle and flute makers, and having gotten some training on the lathe and in silver smithing.

Your econmic assesment is wrong, the money is in whistles, not keyed flutes. I don’t know if he or Jim R. will care to comment, but I suspect Michael Copeland did better overall in the long run (financially) when he switched from flute making to whistle making. However it’s great hearing that they will be starting to make some small number of flutes again.

Loren

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Hi, all. Hey, Loren, again I was being a bit facetious when I said it ain’t rocket science, and I’m coming back in to let the folks know that although making a key is, indeed, somewhat trivial, it isn’t an activity for everyone.

Addressing the posts, I don’t think I’d be using a pair. Indeed, those are durn hard to get right on a repair instrument that’s lost one and had the location of the other rubbed off. But once you have the key placement and pad closure centered up, it wouldn’t be difficult at all to solder down a unit comprising both posts and a “tie” piece.

On a metal whistle, you produce a flange to be soldered around the bottommost hole - as to chromatic whistles, I’m not going there. They would, indeed, be a very expensive proposition, and one which even I, the Eternal Optimist, would be loth to tackle!

The flange adds “thickness” to the bore, so the placement of the bottommost hole would differ. That can mostly be covered by using a good calculator, but tweaking such a hole would be difficult, at best - I would approach it as a separate problem, and work with some material I knew I was going to toss, the first time.

The height and placement of the pad is accomplished by setting it in shellac, using an alcohol torch. When you do that, seal (assuming the carrier is level to the flange on closure, and properly centred), is kind of “automatic”. You warm the key, melt the shellac into it, slip the pad in, and hold the key closed while the shellac hardens. That method almost never fails.

Okay, this is a basis for a good technical discussion, I think, and one I’d personally like to see on the (proposed) Celtic woodwind tech forum.

Summing up, I do have to agree with everyone who’s said so, that adding a key to a whistle isn’t going to be cheap, but I don’t think it would add thousands, or even hundreds, to the price. Any whistlesmith with the merest grain of common sense would realize that, if s/he were going to do it for one whistler, it could engender business from others, and wouldn’t expect the first to front the entire cost of research. That’s how R&D works in the Real World, or nobody’d buy a new car, for fear of getting the first one off the line! :slight_smile: What a hell of a lottery that’d be!!! :smiley:

Cheers,
Bill Whedon

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When I said getting the pads to seat on the holes was a problem, I wasn’t talking about installing the pad on the key - that’s child’s play compared to actually designing, fabricating, positioning, and mounting the the mounting mechanism and the key itself, so that they will be in the position, and stable enough to for a properly seated pad to actually come down on the hole properly every time. That’s what I was referring to.

Anyway, we’ve about beaten this to death, I’m moving on.

Loren

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On 2002-10-20 12:23, Loren wrote:
When I said getting the pads to seat on the holes was a problem, I wasn’t talking about installing the pad on the key - that’s child’s play compared to actually designing, fabricating, positioning, and mounting the the mounting mechanism and the key itself, so that they will be in the position, and stable enough to for a properly seated pad to actually come down on the hole properly every time. That’s what I was referring to.

Anyway, we’ve about beaten this to death, I’m moving on.

Loren

Well, I know I glossed over the placement and height of the key unit, itself, but that’s all a matter of measurement and accuracy of machining. Frankly, getting the “feel” of such an assembly would be a bit problematic, at first, I think, too.

Anyhow, I agree - unless somebody wants to jump in and chat some more about construction (Please use the “Calling Whistlesmiths…” thread - I’ll open it again for that), I’m going to drop out, too.
Cheers,
Bill Whedon

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Loren, have you ever thought seriously about trying your hand at whistle / flutemaking? While reading all the posts here I noticed that you mention that you have learned the arts of smithing, lathework, etc… and you DEFINITELY have a lot of passion for the instruments and have amassed huge wealth of knowledge about them. (now that’s a run-on) :slight_smile:

If this subject has come up before, then I apologise for posting it. I wasn’t sure so I put it here instead of starting a new thread. It just seems like you could do it, Loren. I mean passion for something (especially like instrument making or art)is a big part of it. The part which cannot be taught.

I don’t know you personally but from reading what you wrote in this thread alone I see that you have a lot of things going on in your life like Martial Arts Climbing instruction … why not add one more?

Slan
-Paul

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Paul,

Yes, I have thought about it.
(I actually gave up my Martial Arts School, and teaching physical skills in general, several years ago, for a variety of reasons, so I am no longer doing those things professionally.)

And yes, I do have a passion for flutes and whistles. More than that, I wouldn’t like to say - for one never knows what the future holds, and talk is cheap.

Thanks for asking though.

Loren