In search of a Bb for oxxooo

[patrickh]

I have a three Bb whistes, a Reyburn, a Bleazey and a Thin Weasel. The Reyburn and Bleazey both sound and play so well it is hard not to love them. The problem is that neither play the flatted seventh well with the oxxooo fingering. I have tried to switch but have decided that is not the way to go for me. The Thin Weasel does but it requires alot more blow in the high second octave so I will probably sell it.

I love my Abell C/D set so much I have ordered an A/Bb/B set. I was wondering if anyone owns this set (or just the Bb) and finds that it plays the flatted seventh well with oxxooo? My Abell C/D set plays perfectly with that fingering (the overall tuning on that set is outstanding as well).

I would prefer to say with wood. Paul - why no Bb? Your C is so nice I bet you would build a lovely Bb.

Thanks.

[IDAwHOa]

Why not contact the makers to see if there is anything that can be done to rectify the situation?

My Bleazey is a little sharp, but not so much so that it would cause a problem, really. I think you will be hard pressed to find one that is "perfect".

Another option is half holing.

[brewerpaul]

I would prefer to say with wood. Paul - why no Bb? Your C is so nice I bet you would build a lovely Bb.

Thanks.

Thanks for the compliment, but as of the moment I can't help you. C is as low as I can go with the same bore and OD, and to go to Bb would require a whole new set of gundrills, drilling jigs, etc plus a lot of R&D time that I simply don't have.

Rethink that Thin Weasel-- I have one of Glenn's Bb, and it's perhaps my favorite whistle of all. Play it a lot for a couple of days and see if that high second octave doesn't get easier (or if you adapt to it)

[Flogging Jason]

If you decide to sell that Thin Weasel can I pay for it in installments...like layaway? I have one in A that totally rocks!

[patrickh]

Why not contact the makers to see if there is anything that can be done to rectify the situation? My Bleazey is a little sharp, but not so much so that it would cause a problem, really. I think you will be hard pressed to find one that is "perfect".

I always assumed that the builders designed the whistles to play that note with a different fingering. I never thought it was a problem with the whistle. If I remember correctly Reyburn includes a fingering that plays the flatted seventh perfectly in tune. I just decided not to swith how I play the note.

Rethink that Thin Weasel-- I have one of Glenn's Bb, and it's perhaps my favorite whistle of all. Play it a lot for a couple of days and see if that high second octave doesn't get easier (or if you adapt to it)

Sound advise. I think I'll try it.

But I also think I'll order the Abell...

[jemtheflute]

I always assumed that the builders designed the whistles to play that note with a different fingering. I never thought it was a problem with the whistle. If I remember correctly Reyburn includes a fingering that plays the flatted seventh perfectly in tune. I just decided not to switch how I play the note.

I can't speak at all for makers of high-end whistles, but the original Clarkeses and the other mass produced cheapies such as Generation and their imitators - and remember these are the "originals" for all our fancy new gear - were not designed AT ALL to offer any cross fingerings, just a basic diatonic scale. It is more a matter of luck/coincidence that some cross fingerings for semitones do actually work on them.

Coming to which cross fingerings work for the flattened seventh at the top of the first octave, my experience of quite a few whistles over the years is that the most commonly best in tune and clearest sounding one is
oxx xox, but I have met a smaller number of whistles for which oxx ooo or the (usually best) flute fingering oxo xxx work better. The next higher flattened seventh at the top of the second octave is much more variable from whistle to whistle and you just have to experiment and accept that, if you play more than one whistle regularly, you will have to adjust your fingering according to the whistle you are playing.

I also note that many very fine ITM players on both flute and whistle only ever use oxx ooo regardless of whether it is the optimum fingering on their particular instrument - most don't even seem to think it an issue worth discussing! It's what they were taught and they stick with it rather uncritically. Mind you, I'm thinking here of some people whom I wish I could play half as well as, so what do I know??????

For myself, being primarily a flautist, I have to change usage anyway between flute and whistle. Due to long familiarity, I rarely have to consciously think about this issue on my familiar, regular instruments. When trying strange ones or a new one of my own, as e.g. a piccolo I acquired last summer which does need oxx ooo, I sometimes have to re-adjust, and I admit this can be awkward for a while. Still, I really think, patrickh, that you would serve yourself best by reviewing your position on"switching" fingerings, rather than trying to find an instrument that may not exist or becoming frustrated with otherwise excellent ones you already have. I think that, if you persist at a new fingering for a couple of weeks, it will soon drop into place, especially in new material that you learn with the new fingering in context. I admit it is harder to adjust formed habits in already learnt repertory - but if I play a tune with a C nat in on both flute and whistle (no, not simultaneously ) I have to change fingering patterns when I switch instrument - and it isn't usually a problem.

I also prefer one or other of the two-handed C nat fingerings as they both give easier access to C-D "cuts" and trills and over-the-break rolls than does oxx ooo!

Good luck whatever your final solution!

[Key_of_D]

I can't speak at all for makers of high-end whistles, but the original Clarkeses and the other mass produced cheapies such as Generation and their imitators - and remember these are the "originals" for all our fancy new gear - were not designed AT ALL to offer any cross fingerings, just a basic diatonic scale. It is more a matter of luck/coincidence that some cross fingerings for semitones do actually work on them.

Respectfully, I'm not so sure I agree with that. I have about 12 or more Generations (I'd say at least 5 of them are D's some brass some nickle) each and every one will play a cross fingering just fine. I've actually been told, and now I actually hear it, that your standard oxx ooo fingering for C natural is a wee bit sharp on my Gens. The nice thing is, one can learn to use this to your advantage for effects on say an air. I'm also certain the "late" Peter Laban suggested the oxx xox fingering for the Gens.

I use up to 3 different fingerings for C natural in the lower octave for the whistle. Each one helps me out in a passage for more ease, from passage to passage, and from tune to tune. For example, if I'm coming down from middle D, and my next note is C, I'll do the oxx xox fingering for C. If it was from E to C, I'll use the oxx xoo fingering. If it's a fast tune, with only a brief introduction of the C natural, sometimes I'll use the "standard" oxx ooo fingering, it all depends on the tune for me. However I do try to keep as many fingers down on the whistle for C so as to get a truer C natural as possible - minus the oxx xxo fingering which I find sounds too flat, as well as too weak a note period on the Generations.

Another thing to consider is your breath control. Are you blowing too hard? Some whistles allow you really lean into notes, allowing you to have nice swells.

If I remember correctly, Burkes are tuned to offer you a dead on tuning of C natural with the oxx ooo fingering. I can even check for you if need be.

Hope this helps,

-Eric

[jim stone]

The Abells are spot on with cross fingered 0xx000, whatever
the key of the whistle.

[jemtheflute]

I have about 12 or more Generations (I'd say at least 5 of them are D's some brass some nickle) each and every one will play a cross fingering just fine. I've actually been told, and now I actually hear it, that your standard oxx ooo fingering for C natural is a wee bit sharp on my Gens. The nice thing is, one can learn to use this to your advantage for effects on say an air. I'm also certain the "late" Peter Laban suggested the oxx xox fingering for the Gens.

Yep, oxx xox does work well (best!) on Gens, and some other cross-fingerings.... I (carefully - re-read it!) never said otherwise, just that the original designers assuredly did not intend it be so. Not to preclude it, just didn't envisage it or even think about it. Agree with most of what else you say, Eric. If our top modern makers are specifically designing these things in, so much the better.

[pancelticpiper]

Well this brings up the topic of just what that top hole is PRIMARILY used for. I myself, in the Irish tunes I play, play at least ten C naturals for every C#. I would much rather have that top hole made so that a perfectly in tune C natural was produced using oxxooo and blow the occasional C#'s up to pitch, that to have a C# which is in tune and have a sharp C natural which requires shading with the index finger or resorting to odd fingerings. I think people coming from outside Irish music think, "well, it's a D whistle, and a D major scale has a C# in it, so I had better make that hole big so as to get an in-tune C#". That shows a misunderstanding of Irish wind instruments. The "home key" for a D Irish flute or D uilleann pipe is actually G. I have one album of a well-known uilleann piper, where something like 18 of the 20 tunes on the album are in G. I used to hang around an old Clare flute player whose repertoire almost entirely consisted of tunes in G (or in D with C naturals). Actually on the uilleann pipes the regulators are in G, not in D (the C's on the regs being natural).

[jemtheflute]

Pan, I bow to your expertise on pipes; but neither the flute nor the whistle are "Irish" instruments. They are very much adopted into ITM, but the forms of the instruments as used for the last 100+ years come from outside! Both Clarke and Generation are fairly venerable English makers that have succesfully supplied worldwide demand for a simple, cheap, standard tuning diatonic whistle for a very long time, viewing the C instrument as their standard.
The issues of pipes tuning, just or other temperaments than equal, etc. are fascinating and relevant to the music itself, maybe, if one wants to be rarified about it, but don't concern the majority of modern participants in the living and evolving tradition. This point parallels our recent comments on venting F and Eb keys to get in tune F#s on antique flutes on another thread. That is how they were designed to be used. It is no use complaining they are duff if you don't/won't - and many trad players just aren't that picky! Perfect (who says?) intonation is not a modern obsession, but it has taken on a new vigour and a rather uncritical orthodoxy in this age of electronics and hi-fi recording......
The dubious Cnat/C# on the pipes is, I think also partly comparable - if one is not a piper, they just sound like a constructional problem with a necessary but unsatisfactory compromise solution to their tuning: yet that ambiguity/out of tune-ness is an important influence on the music and can be argued for as a deliberate choice of a different temperament/modality.

[Key_of_D]

Pan, I bow to your expertise on pipes; but neither the flute nor the whistle are "Irish" instruments. They are very much adopted into ITM, but the forms of the instruments as used for the last 100+ years come from outside! Both Clarke and Generation are fairly venerable English makers that have succesfully supplied worldwide demand for a simple, cheap, standard tuning diatonic whistle for a very long time, viewing the C instrument as their standard.

Out of Grey Larson's Tin Whistle And Irish Flute tutor pg. 59:

"L. E. McCullough, in his book The Complete Tin Whistle Tutor gives a fascinating summary of the history of the tin whistle, tracing it's origins back to whistle-like instruments that are described in written records in Ireland dating as far back as the third century A.D. The feadán is mentioned by name in the 11th century Irish poem "Aonach Carmen" contained in the Book of Leinster, as is the cuiseach, an instrument made of reed or corn stalks from which the pith had been removed..

There is no doubt that this simple system type of fipple flute has been hand crafted by ancient peoples around the globe for many centuries. Much attention has come in recent years to the 12th-century bone whistles unearthed in the old Norman quarter of Dublin. Certainly, Irish people made their own whistles out of bone, wood, or reeds, before factory made tin whistles came onto the scene. Current knowledge implies that the whistle, in something like it's present form, came into use in traditional Irish music before the simple system flute.

The manufactured tin whistle seems to have had its origins, at least in part, in the flageolet, that reached it's peak of popularity in Europe during the Renaissance and Baroque periods and which underwent a revival in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Flageolet maker Andrew Ellard was active in Dublin from 1819 to 1938, and Joseph and James Corbett made flagoelets in Limerick between 1801 and 1814."

Agreed that Clarkes and Generations are of British make, but I can't speak much about flutes as I don't play one therefor not very knowledgeful on it's history or presidence with Irish music... Although I guess I could read what Grey Larson has to say about Flutes in this book I copied that quote above from...

I know the whistle is used all over the British isles, Wales, Scotland, as well as England. The tin whistle certainly doesn't seem have just one nation/tradition.

[jemtheflute]

Key_of_D - of course you are correct in what you say/quote about the broader/deeper historical background of these basic types of instrument - I thought about it while writing my last post, especialy re: flutes, and decided to leave the obvious out of what was already getting to be quite a long post. My main point is that the instruments as used in ITM from the mid C19th until very recent times are, in the case of flutes, essentially orchestral cast-offs, and in the case of whistles, the English mass-produced ones. They weren't designed or built to conform to any special Irish modal temperament, if there is/was such a thing.

I've seen pictures of Generations in use by fakir musicians from Egypt and shebeen (interesting adoption of Irish word/concept?) players from the black townships of South Africa, amongst other places. Clarkes only made C whistles, so far as I know, until well into the 1980s. Not wonderfully useful even for English music, with all those D/G boxes in Morris etc. Fans of them used to moan about it, I recall! I certainly never saw them in any other key until well after I got involved in the music in the late 1970s. It would be interesting to know what manufacturing/sales volume records Barnes and Mullins have for Generation over the last 40 years. I wouldn't mind betting that D whistles only became dominant in the demand post the Hippy era!

[pancelticpiper]

Well, whatever the historical background, on my whistles, flutes, and pipes I like the C# to be a tad low so that the C natural is spot-on. On my pipes I just have to give C# a bit of a push to bring it into tune. On flute I was in the habit of rolling out a bit (was, because my fluteplaying days are over). On whistle, exactly like on the pipes, I just give it a bit of a push. So, even though these three types of instuments have differing histories, they can often function in a very similar way.
On flute and whistle, we have to remember, as Boehm discussed at some length, that the top tone hole has to play several functions, a tone hole for both C# and C, and a vent hole for D (and D# on the flute). It's position will always be a compromise.
I once had a flute from a newbie Irish flutemaker which was great, but in an attempt to get the C# in tune he had made the tone hole so big that it didn't function as the vent hole for D properly, nor was an in-tune C natural possible. (This maker is now a long-established and respected maker, the flute in question was one of his earliest attempts back over 25 years ago.)