Double hole whistles?

[Kedster]

Are you implying my post wasn’t civil?

Right when I've praised players for playing D# exceptionally, admitting putting in practise myself diligently, but also just wondering if there were any makers who tackled this issue and trying to learn, and you coming out saying "Deal with it", well, there are more civil ways to encourage people to practise and learn.

[Cyberknight]

At the very least, it makes the instrument harder to make, or at least make well. You need a compelling reason for that.

True, but bear in mind that these accidental holes are easier to add than any of the other holes on the instrument, because each one affects the pitch of just one note in each octave (the accidental being played). This is unlike the main 6 holes, all of which affect the pitch of multiple notes in each octave.

Says the person who has never made a wind instrument?

Yes. Because I've talked to many people who make whistles, and this is what they've told me. Also, it's just really obviously common-sense.

The whistle is already about the easiest instrument to learn to play that exists. Learning to play an instrument well is a challenge, deal with it.

If you don’t want to master half-holing the missing notes, get a recorder, they don’t sound that different and it’s about playing music isn’t it? The tunes don’t know the difference, and frankly neither do most listeners.

“Right to have fun”? Not sure about that but if we follow that logic then the makers also have the right to enjoy what they do and how they do it, and apparently double hole whistles aren’t part of that fun for 99.99 % of them. Must be some reason this is the case…..

BTW, I believe there are still a few people who make harmonic minor tuned whistles, if that’s your thing. Or just go ahead and learn to play flute, where there are lots of bamboo/cane flutes made in a wide variety of tunings and keys.

I've played many instruments, and no, it isn't. It's a very difficult instrument, if you're trying to play the music it's designed to play at the caliber that most professionals play it. And when it comes to playing accidentals specifically, it's harder than most other instruments (like recorder and flute) that have easier ways of playing these notes.

And anyway, who cares? So maybe it's easy. Is that a reason it shouldn't be made easier through more artful crafting? Nope. It makes no sense to handicap yourself unnecessarily just because your instrument is "easy."

As for learning to play instruments in other tunings, in the abstract this seems like a silly solution to a problem that is so easily overcome by simply purchasing a more flexible instrument. I'd rather have an instrument that can play in any key than 5 different instruments with different keys/tunings, thanks. That said, given that the only chromatic whistles being made currently are extremely expensive (or else they're in the wrong key or aren't tunable), perhaps this is a good solution if you're trying to save money.

Sir, who hurt you?

Depends what year and which sparring session

In all seriousness, it's about exploration. Recorder doesn't have 2+ octaves, and I already said I'm practising the D# diligently, haven't I? So I'm "dealing with it". But without exploration we'd be stuck with sticks and stones in a neandarthal age (even though there's good arguments that that's when the civilisation should've stopped...)

I've also looked into harmonic minor arrangements for flutes and they're really not good at playing anything else. Having a strong D# on an otherwise basic whistle makes it play major, minor, harmonic scales very elegantly. If there are elegant solutions to this problem, it only means more people can play more nice tunes on their instruments without significant effort (which is one of the greatest points of whistle - being able to play a lot of good music without the terrible practise it requires to, say, playing the turkish flute, which I do, and I doubt most whistle players could even get a single note out of, just saying).

So just because something is hard doesn't necessarily mean it's automatically more valuable. If we have a discussion and exploration, it only enrichens the experience - that's the whole point of music, isn't it? It's the connections. And I understand "fixing" the whistle is a tiring subject to veterans, but like music, everything is in repetition and patience, and who knows, maybe our discussions will spark an instrument one day that is as widespread as the whistle is. The important thing is having fun talking these points, so let's try to keep it all civil.

Well, I don't know if you want to drop $350 on a whistle, but I can tell you that Morneaux whistles work brilliantly for harmonic minor; much better than recorders, in my opinion. They do require you to play with right hand down, but he'd probably make you a custom one if you asked.

[Mr.Gumby]

I'd rather have an instrument that can play in any key than 5 different instruments with different keys/tunings, thanks.

So why do you want to play the whistle?

This sort of discussion usually seem to be started by people, often relative newcomers, who appear to like the notion of playing the whistle but can't, for some reason or other, accept the whistle for what it is : a very simple diatonic instrument. Why not accept the instrument on its own terms, learn to play it well and take it from there?

Now, if you want your chromatic instrument, you have makers like O'Brien and Nick Metcalfe, I believe, who tack a whistle mouthpiece onto the body of a Boehm system, keyed bodies (flute and piccolo, if memory serves). So there you have it, your chromatic whistle, or whatever it is. Mind you, you may have to put a bit of effort into mastering the keywork to get the best out of it.

[Cyberknight]

I'd rather have an instrument that can play in any key than 5 different instruments with different keys/tunings, thanks.

So why do you want to play the whistle?

What kind of question is this? I want to play the whistle because it's fun to play.

Imagine if you asked the first person who ever played a valved trumpet, who said he wanted to play chromatically, "sO wHY dO yOu wANt tO PlAy TRuMPet?"

This sort of discussion usually seem to be started by people, often relative newcomers, who appear to like the notion of playing the whistle but can't, for some reason or other, accept the whistle for what it is : a very simple diatonic instrument. So rather than take the instrument on its own terms, they try to force 'improvements' that are alien to what the whistle stands for.

I'm not a newcomer. And your argument doesn't make any sense. I've played whistle for a very long time, and I see no reason why it should be confined to being a "simple diatonic instrument."

"What the whistle stands for": Well, what does it stand for? Tradition? Simplicity? If we think tradition is the be-all/end-all for musical instruments, we should all go back to wooden blocks and heavily tapered tin bodies, as whistles started out. And if you randomly value simplicity for its own sake, you should also object to keying up wooden flutes, accusing people of "not accepting the flute for what it is: a simple diatonic instrument."

This isn't complicated. I don't want it to be a simple, diatonic instrument. I want it to be chromatic. I like pushing boundaries. I like playing chromatically. I like more advanced fiddle tunes that break outside the traditional diatonic structure. But, I ALSO want to be able to play the diatonic ITM repertoire as simply and easily as I would on any 6-hole whistle. This is what I want. And there's nothing weird/wrong/irrational about wanting this.

Now, you have makers like O'Brien and Nick Metcalfe, I believe, who tack a whistle mouthpiece onto the body of a Boehm system, keyed bodies (flute and piccolo, I believe). So there you have it, your chromatic whistle, or whatever it is. Mind you, you may have to put a bit of effort into mastering the keywork to get the best out of it.

There are several reasons why this isn't as good an option as adding extra holes to the existing design. First of all, it's completely unnecessary. You can achieve the same result by adding extra holes, so complicated keywork is redundant and unnecessarily expensive. Second of all, this option makes the whistle lose its traditional-looking aesthetic, whereas keeping the 6-hole design and simply adding extra holes doesn't really affect the aesthetic (and note that I'm valuing the aesthetic here; I'm not valuing tradition for its own sake). Third, the Boehm system forces you to learn to play with different fingerings for the notes you've (probably) already learned to play on the diatonic whistle, whereas adding extra holes allows you to play with the same fingerings you've always used. And finally, keys don't allow you to do ornamentation as cleanly as open holes, nor do they allow you to do slides or vibrato in the same way.

On a more general note, I'm not sure why you would defend these Boehm-system designs as somehow being better options than the 10-hole chromatic designs that makers like Morneaux and iVolga use. It's not like the Boehm system options are somehow more in keeping with the spirit of what a whistle is or stands for.

[Loren]

Wow

Well I guess he told us Peter!

[RoberTunes]

I heard this rumor on social media that on Saturday, January 20, about 754,700 chromatic whistle players playing fully chromatic whistles,
in many different keys, and with drummers, bellydancers, singers and guitar players with them, are going to arrive in Ireland and England and invade
every pub, recording studio and public lobby, to play chromatic whistle music, get people dancing and singing and buying chromatic whistles.
I don't believe a word of it. Surely it won't be quite that many.

[Cyberknight]

I heard this rumor on social media that on Saturday, January 20, about 754,700 chromatic whistle players playing fully chromatic whistles,
in many different keys, and with drummers, bellydancers, singers and guitar players with them, are going to arrive in Ireland and England and invade
every pub, recording studio and public lobby, to play chromatic whistle music, get people dancing and singing and buying chromatic whistles.
I don't believe a word of it. Surely it won't be quite that many.

This could very well happen if there's ever a huge migration of Ukrainians to Ireland. They all play their sopilkas, which essentially are chromatic tin whistles .

[Kedster]

I heard this rumor on social media that on Saturday, January 20, about 754,700 chromatic whistle players playing fully chromatic whistles,
in many different keys, and with drummers, bellydancers, singers and guitar players with them, are going to arrive in Ireland and England and invade
every pub, recording studio and public lobby, to play chromatic whistle music, get people dancing and singing and buying chromatic whistles.
I don't believe a word of it. Surely it won't be quite that many.

Bellydancers, you say?

[Mr.Gumby]

if there's ever a huge migration of Ukrainians to Ireland.

Haven't kept up with the news have you?

[bigsciota]

I have to say that coming from the classical world it's funny to hear some of the talk of chromaticism in the trad world. Playing in different keys, with accidentals, etc. is de rigeur to the point that it's hardly worth mentioning. And yet in the trad world some people get obsessed with it, throwing accidentals in willy-nilly and constantly shifting key signatures, not to mention funny time signatures and syncopations. Personally, I find a lot of it quite boring, like music that's trying to be something that it's not. I get the same feel from a lot of classical attempts at "folk," which end up sounding stiff and sap the actual interesting parts of traditional music out.

That's my personal opinion, and I know that a lot of others don't feel the same way. That's great, there's room for everyone! But I think it's a mistake to think that those of us content with six holes are not "ambitious." Not only is chromaticism not in any way more or less complex or ambitious than diatonicism, that is just one small aspect of music. And I don't think I'd be the only one to argue that to a large extent, focusing on that aspect is actually missing "the point" of this music, and of the whistle as an instrument.

All of this to say, do what you want and have fun with it. I just wouldn't expect everyone else to follow, just as we shouldn't expect you to stick to the confines of D major if you don't want to.

PS: About whistle being "easy," I used to teach skiing, and we had a saying about it: "easy to learn and hard to master." Give me an hour and I'll get you making basic turns down a bunny slope. It's honestly not that hard! But if you want to be the next Bode Miller? Well, that's a different story. And just like music, a lot of people look to their gear to make the difference. I see a lot of Atomics on the mountain, but let me tell you, none of them fly like Mikaela Shiffrin! In most cases, time/effort/thought put into gear can be better spent elsewhere.

[paddler]

I think this discussion went off track a bit when the claim that "adding additional holes to a whistle does not make it harder to play" went unchallenged. In my experience, adding more holes certainly does make it harder to play, and often so much harder that it diminishes the value of the instrument. Why so? Well, each additional hole constrains the movement of an additional finger. Adding a hole for D# vent that must be covered by the pinky finger means that moving between notes E and D requires the tight coordination of two fingers rather than one. It may make D# easier to play, but in Irish Traditional Music, Eb occurs very rarely, whereas transitions to and from D occur all the time. So it is a bad design trade-off for an instrument intended for ITM.

This rationale basically follows the principle of "optimize for the common case". Don't make the common case harder in order to make a rarely occurring case easier, especially when there are alternative approaches to the rarely occurring case which are not that hard anyway, and which don't require complicating the common case. This same argument applies to the possibility of a pinky hole for venting G#, a thumb hole for C nat, etc. It is pretty easy to make a whistle with an extra hole here or there. I've done it plenty of times. The problem is that it is just more awkward to play. The awkwardness becomes especially apparent for ornaments such as rolls and taps that employ the bottom tone hole of each hand. Playing ornaments quickly and well requires relaxation and fluidity in the movement of those fingers, and I find that trying to coordinate the pinky finger to hit a hole at precisely the same time and the ring finger really interferes with the ease of playing the instrument.

I also think it is worth reflecting on the fact that instruments evolve to a form that works well for the music they are intended for, and the music gets written such that it works well for the instruments of the genre. A 6-hole whistle may be a simple design, but it is also very versatile. It may not be fully chromatic, in the sense that playing in all keys is equally easy or hard, but it can play in a lot of different modes very easily and efficiently. For example, a D whistle isn't just for D major tunes. I know you know this, but bear with me. Even without half holing, it can play tunes in D mixolydian, E dorian, E Aeolian, G mixolydian, A dorian, and B aeolian modes. And it is no coincidence that these modes occur frequently in ITM.

That isn't fully chromatic, of course, but if you want to play in some other mode you can generally get it with a different 6 hole whistle in a different key, which is just as easy to play. To figure out which one you might need you can apply a general rule of the following form, where the numbers represent the scale degree of the major scale based on the whistle's bell note.

1 Ionian ==> 1 Mixolydian, 2 Dorian, 2 Aeolian, 4 Mixolydian, 5 Dorian, 6 Aeolian

So for a C whistle, you get C mixolydian, D dorian, D aeolian, F mixolydian, G dorian, A aeolian, etc.

So the existing six hole design is actually very powerful while retaining the simplicity and efficiency. It is not a matter of previous instrument makers being too limited in their imagination to have thought about drilling an additional hole. And it is not a matter of existing players lacking ambition to change, or being stuck in their ways. I'd say it is more a case of a design that has evolved to a near optimal form for the genre of music within which it is more commonly used. If you find that you are interested in playing different music, for which the instrument is ill-suited, then it may be worthwhile trying to invent a new kind of whistle for your purpose, but you might find that it ends up being not commercially viable. This kind of consideration doesn't stop me from making experimental instruments to satisfy my own curiosity, but I've experimented for long enough to give up on the idea that I've somehow stumbled upon the one simple idea that everyone else overlooked throughout the development of the instrument, despite it being the thing that most players needed without having realized it.

[Kedster]

I think this discussion went off track a bit when the claim that "adding additional holes to a whistle does not make it harder to play" went unchallenged. In my experience, adding more holes certainly does make it harder to play, and often so much harder that it diminishes the value of the instrument. Why so? Well, each additional hole constrains the movement of an additional finger. Adding a hole for D# vent that must be covered by the pinky finger means that moving between notes E and D requires the tight coordination of two fingers rather than one. It may make D# easier to play, but in Irish Traditional Music, Eb occurs very rarely, whereas transitions to and from D occur all the time. So it is a bad design trade-off for an instrument intended for ITM.

I agree, there's always trade-offs; but like some madmen blasting half holes like nothing, there are sopilka players that would make a run for irish players' money, blasting (their versions of) jigs and reels like it was nothing. So, horses for courses.

There's a song I'm playing that has a Gminor transitioning to Gnatural and sopilka would be the perfect instrument for it. The instrument is expressive in truly haunting ways - especially for long-air equivalent slavic pieces, as sopilka also opens up the melodic minor beautifully.

The way I see it, whistle is like a mountain bike - nimble, quickly able to travel the ground, whereas sopilka is like a 4x4 - tougher, much less agile, but built to endure just about any road. Some people are bikers, some are rovers, one is not necessarily better than the other.

What saddens me is an innocent question here resulting in a bunch of name calling from all sides, which shows me people are really passionate about their music, which is fantastic. But there's no need to berate people for asking if there have been modifications made to whistle - thanks to this thread I've learned more about sopilkas, which I really didn't know about.

As for availability mentioned earlier, Morneaux (sic?) has some €350+ gear for D, C, but I've found Sopilka Acropolis products online for around $100, which are available in C/c and Alto F. So that's not too bad to try out. It's pretty difficult to find well tuned professional wooden whistles at around the $100 price range - and from what I hear, sopilkas have easy two octaves and a more challenging third octave, which is all the more amazing.

Cheers everyone. I think this has been a productive thread after all, and hopefully in the future if people ask again whether off-note keys are available in whistles, we can just tell them to get a Sopilka instead.

[paddler]

Kedster, I thought your question was perfectly reasonable. I just read through the whole thread, and I didn't get the impression that anyone objected to your post. I think the friction came later as a reaction to a claim that whistles with the extra hole should be standard. My post was trying to shed a bit more light on the reasons why such modifications rarely do become standard, and are not standard for Irish whistles.

I don't think anyone has tried to argue that a 6 hole whistle is inherently better than any other instrument. There are strong reasons why each musical genre tends to utilize their own preferred set of instruments. Being fully chromatic often isn't important or relevant. In a particular context, one instrument may well be better suited than a similar instrument of a slightly different design, but it isn't necessarily generically better (in all contexts). In this forum people do often tend to assume that the discussion is within the context of ITM, unless stated otherwise. So when someone asks "why play a whistle?" (which is clearly very well suited to ITM in its 6 hole form) in response to a claim that it is not well suited to the poster's purpose without modification, that isn't necessarily intended as a slight or insult at all. It is just the obvious question. And there were suggestions of other whistle-like instruments that would work better for playing more chromatically, such as recorders etc.

[Loren]

So when someone asks "why play a whistle?" (which is clearly very well suited to ITM in its 6 hole form) in response to a claim that it is not well suited to the poster's purpose without modification, that isn't necessarily intended as a slight or insult at all. It is just the obvious question. And there were suggestions of other whistle-like instruments that would work better for playing more chromatically, such as recorders etc.

Exactly, it’s simply asking why one wouldn’t use a tool better suited to the task, and then suggesting such a tool. It’s an obvious question.

A carpenters framing hammer is designed for pounding nails all day long and it works very well for that. Lamenting that a framing hammer should be modified so that you can forge hot metal in a blacksmith’s shop, simply because you like framing hammers, is going to have blacksmiths and carpenters alike asking “Why??” and both will be suggesting a purpose built forging hammer. It’s a perfectly natural response, not an insult.

[Loren]

PS: About whistle being "easy," I used to teach skiing, and we had a saying about it: "easy to learn and hard to master." Give me an hour and I'll get you making basic turns down a bunny slope. It's honestly not that hard! But if you want to be the next Bode Miller? Well, that's a different story. And just like music, a lot of people look to their gear to make the difference. I see a lot of Atomics on the mountain, but let me tell you, none of them fly like Mikaela Shiffrin! In most cases, time/effort/thought put into gear can be better spent elsewhere.

I lived in Aspen for a few years and worked on Snowmass Mountain during the ski season, so I can relate to what you’re saying. But of course you know I meant that whistle is relatively easy to learn compared with most other instruments. Nothing is “easy” to master, but a bicycle is far easier to learn to ride over a given terrain than a unicycle, for example.

Totally agree with you on the gear, though we’ve probably all been through our “time wasted on gear” phase at one point or another. I know I certainly went through it, though not ski gear as I could only afford cheap used gear in that town. Spent an entire season skiing in boots that were about two sizes too large, if you can imagine that. Needless to say, those boots did nothing (positive) for my control