Extreme Whistles

[Thomas-Hastay]

I would like to have some opinions on "Extreme Whistles/Woodwinds"

I believe sessions would be better rounded if instruments of extreme keys would fill in for rich sound. Contrabass Recorders and Garklein Recorders like these...

http://www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/r_record.htm

...were made well and were easy to play. Why are they so hard to find and expensive? Well made extreme keys have wonderful rich sounds. Would you play them if you could find reasonable prices and high quality?
These were quite popular in other eras, why not now?

Here are some other photos...
Subcontrabass.
http://www.pteratunes.org.uk/Music/Reco ... rders.html

UltraContrabass (just add whistle mouthpiece)
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/cbcl-std.jpg

Renaissance Recorders of simple design.
http://www2.cruzio.com/~mathews/recorders.gif

Picco Pipe(Wonderful soprano Tabour Pipe)
http://www.oldmusicalinstruments.co.uk/ ... =52&cat=DF

This is a "Challange" I put to all Woodwind Luthiers. Expand your market!!!

[Scott McCallister]

um... those aint whistles, man.

[pipersgrip]

those are recorders

[hathair_bláth]

That woman with the subcontra looks more like she's trying to play a tree!

[Feadoggie]

Thomas,

I believe sessions would be better rounded if instruments of extreme keys would fill in for rich sound.

I don't believe that this would be an objective of any traditional session I have been part of. I think a session is more about folks sharing tunes, playing the melody with the variations that different players and instruments bring to the room and giving best effort around the shape of the melody and the rhythm. It's about the tune not the arrangement.

Depending on the instruments present there can be a wide range of registers - with boxes and pipes filling in the bottom and going up through the high whistle.

This is a "Challange" I put to all Woodwind Luthiers. Expand your market!!!

Several whistle makers have already offered whistles at the extreme range, at least the range from low low A up to D above high D. I don't know that great numbers of these have been purchased. The high D whistle is the cornerstone of the market. I make the other keys for the musicians accompanying singers. That's what I see in my corner of the world. Pipes or flute might be a better product line expansion for a whistle maker.

I have a low low D in my shop which I am not in a hurry to finish because I won't be able to play it. It will be a working whistle but used as more of an attention getter at festivals if I am selling whistles.

Does anyone here have experience with basses, contrabasses and garkleins playing jigs and reels at dance tempo?

That's just my opinion. I am sure others will add their thinking.

Feadoggie

[brewerpaul]

I've seen the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet play these, and they sounded terrific:


The keys make a cool flappy noise and in fact one of the pieces featured these flappy sounds played without the player(s) actually blowing the recorder.

[fearfaoin]

Daniel Bingamon's Contrabass whistle (click the pic for more)

[falkbeer]

Daniel Bingamon's Contrabass whistle (click the pic for more)

Are you sure that this isn´t just something the plumber left outside the house?

[Tim2723]

Well, looking into the question about what would happen if these instruments were widely available and affordable today, I have the sense that such extreme instruments were never all that readily available nor were they ever affordably priced for the average musician. Indeed, part of the allure of the extreme instruments of other eras is that they are so unusual. The antiques market is not exactly overflowing with ultra-contra-bass recorders, for instance.

I believe that in their day, such instruments were likely commissioned by the wealthy patrons of music; noblemen or even royal courts. They were probably not owned by an individual musician any more than a pipe organ with a seven-figure price tag is owned by an individual today. There are exceptions of course, but today such instruments are usually owned by an organization of some sort. Just as many of these unusual instruments and reproductions of strange variations on familiar instruments are offered as historical oddities and curiousities today, in their time the originals may well have come about as extreme luxury items to add to the prestige of the patron.

I don't know, but strongly suspect that as the music we enjoy today evolved, instruments of this nature fell from favor not because of their contribution to the quality of music, but simply as a matter of economy. The music, having evolved as it has, no longer has a place for these extreme examples, their roles being filled in other ways. Re-introducing them would be a fascinating exercise certainly, but probably impractical at the very least. Just as ladies of today would not much like elaborate hairstyles with caged birds on their heads or dresses wider than a barn door, I doubt too many players would want an eight-foot recorder.

I'm not an authority on music history, but that's my best guess and two cents worth.

[MarcusR]

I've seen the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet play these, and they sounded terrific:

The keys make a cool flappy noise and in fact one of the pieces featured these flappy sounds played without the player(s) actually blowing the recorder.

Hi Paul (and others)!
I have always been a fan of the Paetzold sub contrabass recorders, amazingly expressive instruments.
Here are two video clips of Göran Månsson (brilliant flute, whistle and recorder player) on the Paetzold sub contrabass.

Trad Swedish waltz:
http://www.tvfolk.net/video_ref/mansson2_MSTRH.mov
Contemporary:
http://www.tvfolk.net/video_ref/tokryck_MSTRH.mov

/MarcusR

[brewerpaul]

Fabulous clips, Marcus. Do you know what that Swedish waltz is? I'd love to learn it.

[falkbeer]

Well, looking into the question about what would happen if these instruments were widely available and affordable today, I have the sense that such extreme instruments were never all that readily available nor were they ever affordably priced for the average musician. Indeed, part of the allure of the extreme instruments of other eras is that they are so unusual. The antiques market is not exactly overflowing with ultra-contra-bass recorders, for instance.

I believe that in their day, such instruments were likely commissioned by the wealthy patrons of music; noblemen or even royal courts. They were probably not owned by an individual musician any more than a pipe organ with a seven-figure price tag is owned by an individual today. There are exceptions of course, but today such instruments are usually owned by an organization of some sort. Just as many of these unusual instruments and reproductions of strange variations on familiar instruments are offered as historical oddities and curiousities today, in their time the originals may well have come about as extreme luxury items to add to the prestige of the patron.

I don't know, but strongly suspect that as the music we enjoy today evolved, instruments of this nature fell from favor not because of their contribution to the quality of music, but simply as a matter of economy. The music, having evolved as it has, no longer has a place for these extreme examples, their roles being filled in other ways. Re-introducing them would be a fascinating exercise certainly, but probably impractical at the very least. Just as ladies of today would not much like elaborate hairstyles with caged birds on their heads or dresses wider than a barn door, I doubt too many players would want an eight-foot recorder.

I'm not an authority on music history, but that's my best guess and two cents worth.

I´m not saying you´re wrong but i know lots of people with expensive sound systems or musical instruments today. For example: Grand pianos, HiFi and video equipment, Rock band PA-systems (including expensive instruments), etc... And these people are not professionals. If I would sum up what I have spent on music over the years (CD´s, litterature, musical instruments, concert tickets, education) it would probably be $15000 or so and I not particularly well off... I think that if you have a strong interest in something you will always find the means!

[Tim2723]

Oh, I think you're certianly right. Indeed, if any of us were to add up all that we've spent over the years we'd probably be surprised at the number!

I was thinking more in terms of the hey day of the recorder when there would have been a greater desire to build such unusual and specialized things. Many of these unusually large recorders come from historical periods when average people didn't normally have much disposable income and music on a grand scale tended to be in the hands of wealthy patrons and the Church. Even today I suspect that owning something like that sub-contrabass recorder would be more than the vast majority of us could hope for reasonably. Consider how many of us have to save up for a Copeland whistle. And of couse if few could own them, few would be made, and so on. Hence the rarity of these sort of things. That was my poorly made point. I was exploring the question of why these aren't commonplace today. I simply think that they were never commonplace because of the difficulty of producing them and the cost of owning them.

But when we consider modern materials and manufacturing, such as the Jubilee bass whistle, things change significantly. I'm seriously considering one of those!!

Like I said, I'm no expert, but I do think these topics are interesting. This is a fascinating subject for me. Thanks to Thomas for posting those links.

[MarcusR]

Fabulous clips, Marcus. Do you know what that Swedish waltz is? I'd love to learn it.

Hi, glad you liked the clips. The waltz is called "Lortagubbens vals", I'll ask around and see if I can find the abc for it. I'll drop you a PM later.

Even today I suspect that owning something like that sub-contrabass recorder would be more than the vast majority of us could hope for reasonably. Consider how many of us have to save up for a Copeland whistle. And of couse if few could own them, few would be made, and so on. Hence the rarity of these sort of things

A full set of Uilleann pipes cost about the same as a sub contrabass recorder and they are not that rare in an ITM session

/MarcusR

[Tim2723]

Yes Marcus, that's quite true. I was thinking more of the recorder shown in the first photo, the one that seems to be ten feet tall, turned and bored. The others appear to be contructed as a rectangular box, a technique commonly used in pipe organs to make their manufacture practical. I doubt that the turned/bored instrument costs as much as a set of pipes. And my point is also about availability and rarity. A set of uilleann pipes, even if expensive, can be more available because they use smaller pieces of wood and manufacturing methods similar to flutes. I would think that just finding the right tree to make that sub-contra recorder from would be a trick! After all, we really don't see those everywhere we go. The point of the Paetzold recorders and the Jubilee bass whistles is to use manufacturing methods and materials that make them affordable and available, and I think that actually answers Thomas' one question: In elder ages, extreme instruments of traditional design were difficult to produce and terribly expensive. In the modern age, alternative designs have changed this for the better.

The question that remains is, since these extreme instruments can be had today (in one form or another) at reasonable cost, why don't they show up in sessions everywhere? I think the short answer there is simply that the music itself had evolved away from such instruments given their cost and availablity. Perhaps now it will evolve in another direction? Who knows. But wouldn't it be a kick to be able to come back in a hundred years to see what's become of it all?