chromatic whistle

[UncleChuck]

I have been toying for a while with the idea of making a whistle that uses a chromatic scale around F. Has anyone else thought of this (silly question)? It looks like it may be possible to do with as few as 8 holes, if I can get a couple of cross fingerings working. I would also like to be able to play it in 3 octaves. I think that can be done with an "octave hole" maybe with a key operated with the thumb. I could go on and on, but I wanted t post a fairly vague idea and see what thinking there is out there.

Thanks,
-=chuck=-

[Denny]

it is so hard to come up with an original concept

Skip Healy-10 hole flute/fife/picc

[Tommy]

Here is link for a few more. http://www.tinwhistles.us/jubilee/store ... omatic.htm

Some where in the archives there is also a whistle head made for silver flutes.

[Denny]

ah, but that one has keys

[Daniel_Bingamon]

No one has ever asked but a Chromatic Whistle could be made Alto in F or anything else just as well.
I have a spreadsheet now to make Chromatic whistles starting in any key that I want to make it in.
Spreadsheet: http://www.tinwhistles.us/flute-chromatic.xls

The High-D Chromatic hasn't came into fruition yet because the keys are a whole lot smaller - harder to make

[cboody]

Errr. It might be fun to experiment with making a chromatic whistle, but why bother when the recorder already exists. 10 holes if you count the double holes on the two low notes.

[Daniel_Bingamon]

Who's experimenting? I've been making them for eight years. Experiment is over.

Chromatic whistles have bigger toneholes than Recorders for a different kind of sound and they play play a straight diatonic scale when you don't use the keys so it plays like a whistle. And you can change the headjoint to make into a flute.

[MTGuru]

The recorder's:

o Voicing is usually quite different from whistle voicing (though it need not be completely so).

o Shift of register break to D-E and the need to half-hole the thumb significantly affect the approach to phrasing.

o Cross-fingered high B and lack of high C# impair playing at the top of the 2nd register.

If recorders met the needs of whistle players for extending chromatic capability and key flexibility (AMaj, GDor, etc.) , they'd be ubiquitous in the core tradition, and they're not. The trad ethos is clever that way.

Honestly, I think the 10 hole fife scheme and the like are equally clumsy for trad whistle, unless deliberately playing outside the trad envelope. IMO, what the trad whistler wants is a proven 6-key simple system analogous to flute or chanter, available in their whistle of choice. The last part is important. Examples like Sweet's 3-key whistle were apparently a flop on the market. Maybe because 3 keys are only halfway there, maybe because the Sweet whistle is an outlier for trad players anyway. Who knows.

[UncleChuck]

The first thing I did when I started thinking of this again was to head over to Daniel's site and have a look around. Though, I did not find the chromatic instruments.

If I take a G whistle, then all I have to add is a C# to get the D scale. If I add a F, then I can get a C scale as well. 8 holes, 8 fingers... If I can get a couple of cross fingerings working, too, then I may be able to add a couple of more notes. Who knows whether they would be useful.

I want to keep it simple. Trying to avoid keys. I want to play anything that I currently can on a D to be able to still play the trad stuff on it. (The D whistles are a little small to be making a bunch more holes in.) I picked a G because of the size and the proximity to D and C. Suppose I took my trusty G (that I made in a previous life and I don't want to ruin it) and poked a C# hole in it. Do you think I could get the same notes that I can from a high D whistle? I think that there would be some upper notes that would not be possible. Does that make sense?

One last thing. It seems as though it should be possible to poke an "octave" hole in a whistle that will allow a lower instrument to get at least part of a 3rd octave. It would have something to do with the nodes and anti-nodes in the whistle, but I don't really know how that works, or if it is even possible. Has anyone ever tried it?

Thanks for read this ramble. All the best!
-=chuck=-

[jemtheflute]

It seems as though it should be possible to poke an "octave" hole in a whistle that will allow a lower instrument to get at least part of a 3rd octave. It would have something to do with the nodes and anti-nodes in the whistle, but I don't really know how that works, or if it is even possible. Has anyone ever tried it? -=chuck=-

Since one can play most well-voiced whistles well into the 3rd 8ve - to at least the high A fingering, with cross-fingering akin to that for the Baroque Flute, why would you need an 8ve "speaker" hole? Such things have never been generally adopted on flutes and whistles because they don't help much, and less so than other things one could be doing with the available fingers. More to the point would be an Eb hole for the R 4th finger to facilitate some/more of those 3rd 8ve fingerings.... and F natural is a bit of a swine/just not there without half-holing/having a Bb tone-hole to vent (Bb thumb-hole is not a bad addition on smaller whistles, BTW, though having it precludes a C nat thumb-hole).......

If you want 3rd 8ve fingerings, just ask!

[chas]

I agree with Jem, the third octave is there in most whistles, not that most whistles are really bearable playing up there. The Burke wide-bore brass actually sounds good up to around the third G.

Rather than change the way that whistle makers make their whistles, why not learn to half-hole? It's really not that difficult, just takes a little practice. Less practice than getting the music right.

[cboody]

o Voicing is usually quite different from whistle voicing (though it need not be completely so).

o Shift of register break to D-E and the need to half-hole the thumb significantly affect the approach to phrasing.

o Cross-fingered high B and lack of high C# impair playing at the top of the 2nd register.

Yup, but the poster said nothing about the basic sound issues. I assume you're talking soprano recorders here BTW. I think it is the voicing issue that has kept most folks from playing recorder in traditional music. They just don't sound right to many people's ear. There are some players though, notably Dick Hensold, who can make them work.

[talasiga]

the colour of the whistle
obtains not
from the chroma of the keys
but the shadings of the slide

[Mitch]

Yah - go and buy a recorder.

When you are serious about music, come back and talk whistles.

[MTGuru]

Yup, but the poster said nothing about the basic sound issues.

Well, this poster said:

Chromatic whistles have bigger toneholes than Recorders for a different kind of sound

The second and third bullet points really go to fingering and phrasing, not tone.

I assume you're talking soprano recorders here BTW.

I'm talking C fingering here, for reference. That would be: soprano, tenor, contrabass, garklein recorders. Analogous to D whistle.

I think it is the voicing issue that has kept most folks from playing recorder in traditional music. They just don't sound right to many people's ear. There are some players though, notably Dick Hensold, who can make them work.

Sure, it's both, voicing and fingering. Paraphrasing Samuel Johnson: "A recorder playing ITM is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." Or perhaps: "A gentleman is a man who can play ITM on the recorder ... and doesn't."

You can make it work, and there are tricks. But IMO it's a lot of effort unless you really need more chromatic firepower than the usual whistle techniques give you. For example, I know some hornpipes and French musette tunes that are definitely saner on recorder.

@Chuck: Sorry for the sidetrack ...