Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

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sfmans
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Tell us something.: I've been a whistle player for over 40 years now, which is a sobering thought. I got started on a battered old Generation D and, well, just never stopped really!

Current gigs are The Powderkegs border morris, the concert band Trebuchet with our music theatre show The Mill Ballads www.themillballads.com, and Welsh dance band Caffl.
Location: High Peak, Derbyshire
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by sfmans »

This really is a perfectly serious suggestion, although you may not think so once you've read it!

Get an ordinary washing-up type rubber glove (Marigolds, other brands are available). Can you inflate it, like you would blow up a party balloon? And now you've done that as quickly as possible with a single hard puff, can you inflate it more slowly, controlling the inflation over a few seconds?

If so I'd suggest you can rest assured that you can generate enough puff to play a rauschpfeife. It's not the amount of air you put through them, it's the back pressure you apply (with practice and a decent reed you / I can play quite long legato phrases).

On a rauschpfeife your lips are not in contact with the reed, so I've absolutely no idea why anyone should be spitting blood after any amount of playing - unless they were playing far too early in the morning on a festival campsite and the hungover occupants of the next tent came round and punched them one ... you do get lip fatigue (so don't make a good seal on the windcap) which improves with experience, just the same as any other embouchure.

[Edit:spelling]
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Anyanka
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Anyanka »

Thank you! I've been watching & listening to the clips on your website - the Rauschpfeife suits the Morris tunes extremely well!
Tunborough
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Tunborough »

sfmans wrote:There's a section of my website dedicated to the rauschpfeife, including some links to Youtube videos of the Powderkegs with me on what a friend once affectionately termed the 'crotchet blunderbuss' ....
Aaargh. Now you've done it.

When this thread started, I was still in denial. Sure, my heart beat faster when I read, "something squawky & medieval", but I put it down to low blood sugar. Then at an orchestra concert on the weekend, I found my ears lingering on the sound of the oboe. And when I looked up Steve's rauschpfeife pages, the scales fell from my eyes. Now my life will not be complete without something double-reeded. And based on my experience with the whistle, I won't be content with just using ... I'll need to make them. I may start with something cylindrical, but that's just the start of a slippery slope down to full conical bore.

I'll likely end up sitting on a street corner, clothes all in tatters, my face blackened, sucking arundo donax from a paper bag.

Can I get help?

Is there a 12-step group?

How do I tell my family?
Kypfer
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Kypfer »

...sucking arundo donax from a paper bag.

Can I get help?

Is there a 12-step group?

How do I tell my family?
If you stick to arundo donax you'll be OK, it's the artificial substitutes that cause problems.
Dunno if there's a 12-step group ... I know a few guys who make up a 12-string group.
No need to tell the family, they'll hear all about it before too long :twisted:
"I'm playing all the right notes—but not necessarily in the right order."
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by cboody »

sfmans wrote: On a rauschpfeife your lips are not in contact with the reed, so I've absolutely no idea why anyone should be spitting blood after any amount of playing - unless they were playing far too early in the morning on a festival campsite and the hungover occupants of the next tent came round and punched them one ... you do get lip fatigue (so don't make a good seal on the windcap) which improves with experience, just the same as any other embouchure.

[Edit:spelling]
It's the Shawm that causes the blood I think. Check the painting called "A Merry Round Dance in the Garden" which I have somewhere around here on a slide (remember those? :) )
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Anyanka
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Anyanka »

Update: yesterday, we had lunch with Eric Moulder & his wife, and a visit to his workshop. He is a lovely man, very generous, and I now completely understand why he inspired a passion for woodwork in my husband all those years ago.

Eric let me try out a couple of his instruments and gave us lots of advice and information - I will be getting a Spanish Shawm in D. Apparently the reeds 'bite' if you put your tongue in the wrong place (hence the blood spitting?), but I'll make sure to keep my tongue [firmly in cheek?] tucked underneath.
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sfmans
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Tell us something.: I've been a whistle player for over 40 years now, which is a sobering thought. I got started on a battered old Generation D and, well, just never stopped really!

Current gigs are The Powderkegs border morris, the concert band Trebuchet with our music theatre show The Mill Ballads www.themillballads.com, and Welsh dance band Caffl.
Location: High Peak, Derbyshire
Contact:

Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by sfmans »

Eric's Spanish shawms are the business aren't they! Good luck and keep us informed on progress.
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Tunborough »

I've read that Eric makes a Mary Rose style douçaine. Did you get a chance to try one of those?
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Anyanka »

Is that the same thing as a Dulcian? I saw several of those, and he played one for us. Beautiful to look at & listen to! I didn't try it, but we may well see more of Eric - husband is going back to learn how to make shawms etc. :)
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Tunborough »

As I understand it, dulcians look like this ...
Image
The douçaine is older. It looked like this...
Image

Although they were common in the Renaissance, we had no surviving versions of the douçaine until an artifact recovered from the sunken Mary Rose was identified as one. A reproduction looks like this ...

Image

I'd be interested to get my hands on measurements of the original Mary Rose artifact, if they are available.
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Anyanka
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Anyanka »

Have just checked, and the Doucaine is indeed listed under his name. What do you want to know about it? I can probably find out...
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Tunborough »

If you get a chance to try one out, I'd be interested to hear what you thought of it.

Also looking forward to what you think of the Spanish shawm. Good luck with it.
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by michael ward »

http://www.albanfaust.se/instrumentbygg ... /info.html

This is my capped Shawm by Alban Faust. Mine is in A and it is a superb instrument.

I first heard it played by Ale Moller the great Swedish multi instrumentalist on a Robin Williamson album in unison with Northumbrian pipes.

Eventually I found out that Ale uses Alban Faust instruments. In my search I tried a Rauschpfeife made by Moulder...an excellent instrument but the capped Shawm was what I was hearing.
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by Ted »

I like the Catalonian tenora, a highly developed and keyed Spanish shawm. There are some youtube videos.
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Re: Advice on getting a Shawm or Rauschpfeife or similar, please

Post by klarnetisto »

Consider John Hanchet:

http://www.hanchet-woodwind.co.uk/index.html

http://www.hanchet-woodwind.co.uk/indexe.html

He makes shawms in several styles. But his Spanish-style shawms cost quite a bit less than his others, and are really quite good. They cost less because the design is simpler and so less work to produce -- but musically they are in no way a compromise.

I have the C soprano and F alto, and a friend has the F sopranino. They all play well, sound excellent and work well together.
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