For some time I have been making whistles with keys and promoting that idea that a key can give good ornamentation if it closes first on one side rather than flat down.
Just recently Susato has started producing keys for the hard to reach bottom holes. I haven’t tried any of these up close to see how they operate but I haven’t seen these mentioned much on C&F and thought it would be good to bring this up.
Somewhere, I found a site with a whistle with 6 or 7 keys, but I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA where I found it, and could probably NEVER come across it again.
There’s some detailed pictures of the key parts about a third of the way down on the pennywhistle page at http://susato.com/. Very interesting. They seem to be offering whistles with either one or two keys on any of their whistles from low G on down.
I recently purchased a Susato Low D that was on special with the angled head. I am new whistler and so therefore had quite some difficulty reaching the keys properly. I saw that Susato was adding keys to their large bores (I think maybe medium as well). I sent an e-mail inquiry regarding it and was fairly blown away when George Kelischek himself responded. He stated they can be added to current whistles for 20.00 per key plus shipping, and he would do it “same day”. - Wow.
I sent mine in the following week to get the lowest key for Low D put on. I think it left Abilene Kansas via priority on a Wednesday. Believe it or not I got it back on Monday. The whistle was packed in a a new selaed plastic bag with new grease and another finger holder. I’m not sure it was not a whole new section. Mine was pretty new - but this looked completely new. The service was great!
Now I am new to all this so take this as a rank amateur: I was immediately able to cover all the keys well now and able to get a good non squeeking Low D with no finger cramping. I had decided to go with only the lower key so I would still be able to manipulate the third hole manually. The lower pad covers very easily each and every time and covers completely with no air leak. The effort is very light and springs back quickly. So for a beginner, this has worked out very well and allows me to learn this instrument without the frustration of finger stretches that were intitially producing some rather significant cramps.
In conclusion I think this is a good solution for those who are unable to play a Low D at all or with great difficulty. Those of you who are accomplished players would undoubtedly point out the fact that the Low D hole can not be embellished as before - other than double fingering quickly that works effectively. But slurs or rolls from the hole ( are these the right terms? ) are of course now impossible.
Hope this information has been of some benefit.
Ok, I see the photo now. The seals look similar to the closed cell foam that I use as well. I use a metal punch from harbor freight to stamp out the seals on the Chromatic Whistle.
The keys appear to have a strong needle spring or piece of piano wire on the underside to keep it open.
Mine uses a coil spring on the back with a loading bar and I’m thinking of going to magnetic operating in the near future.
The axle set up on the Susato is really different looking. It look that if the key surface matches the outer diameter of the whistle, you could probably mount this mechanism on whistles that have matching diameters.
the seal could be move to match the location of the tonehole by laying the seal over the tonehole with sticky side up and then close the key to set it.
I think this is good thing to do for more casual practice with less wrist stress and for extended performance time. The design of these keys looks like something that would be easily repairable to some extent if they were damaged in some way.
A set of decent Normally-Closed keys in combination with these keys would make a really nice entry level Irish Flute. Something that I’ve been wanting to build in plastic but I have no injection molding equipment.
Better be sitting down first! 