Hello all,
I am a fan of Joanie Madden and try to mimic her style of playing slow airs. However, even when I tune my whistles to A=440 with my digital tuner, playing along with her on her CD’s, my whistle does not match. And yes I check and make sure I am playing in the right key. It is just plain off sounding. Does recording studios cheat on the 440? And is that why we purchase tunable whistles? 
Any ideas?
Mermaid
I’m not sure which tracks you are trying it up against, but could it be she’s playing in Eb? That’s a pretty popular key for recording, as it’s brighter.
And is that why we purchase tunable whistles?
Well, yes, they enable you to tune to the people you’re trying to play with.
I see what your saying but I checked on the songs I wanted to play along and some are in C and some are in D. But no match. Very frustrating. Unless I am totally tone deaf but I do play guitar in my church orchestra. So I don’t think so. But maybe I’m wrong. If I tweak my tuning I match closer. So what happened to 440?
There are a lot of programs to change the pitch and / or speed of a recording.
Here’s one for sale that a lot of people like:
http://www.ronimusic.com/
They also offer a free program that’s a bit more limited but works with winamp 2.
http://www.ronimusic.com/winamp.htm
There are a lot of reasons why a recording might not be at a=440. It might have even been ‘tweaked’ during the editing process to sound more brilliant.
I hope you’re not confusing pitch (as in hertz - A440 etc) with keynote or tonic or confusing either of those with key signature.
For instance, what is she playing “in C” as you say?
Let me approach it another way so as to avoid a whole lot of headbanging:-
With the song that you think she is doing in C,
what whistle are you using?
Your right. My thinking is she is playing a C or D whistle. Or maybe I’m going about this all wrong. If you listened to a tune that you wanted to play along with. How do you determine what key is being played? And also how do you tune your whistle? I tuned it by the bell note right?
Just learning,
Paulette (Mermaid)
You can tune your whillte by the bell note, playing with other people usually A 's are exchanged for reference though.
You can ofcourse play in C on a D whistle but you will have to deal with restoring the sharps of your D scale to the naturals of your C scale. In practice it would be more obvious to play a C whistle.
T. gave you the hint: determine the bell note of the whistle used in the recording you’re trying to play with and play along with a whistle in the same key.
If that still doesn’t work you’ll have issues to sort out. Meanwhile you may want to read through ‘the C&F guide to Whistle keys’ on the main website.
I’m pretty sure that she’s not tuned precisely to A=440 in all of her recordings. I have played along with her tunes, and been well in tune in some cases, but needed to slightly adjust just a couple tunes later. I imagine they do like most bands I’ve been in and tune to each other more than worrying about a tuner.
To further confuse the issue, she does play both C and D whistles on her recordings, so you may be running into both issues here.
As for how to tell what key without knowing the notes being played, maybe someone else has an easy answer. For me, it’s just been something that I’ve picked up over the years. It’s not so much knowing the key, but knowing which whistle will fit the tune..D, C, Bb, and Eb are what I’m most familiar with. I really can only do it if I hear a whistle or flute playing..not so much if it’s something else, like a fiddle.
Thanks Wanderer for that comment. I was beginning to think I was crazy.
If an artist chooses to deviate from the standard - I was just wondering if that was common or the exception in professional recordings? In my orchestra, we tune to A or Bb by the piano. If the Piano is off we are all off.
So if you know the song and keep playing each whistle til it matches Right? Unless the person played the song a harder way because they wanted a certain quality of tone from a certain whistle or expertly transposed the fingering for which then I’m lost.
Which leads to another question I have. You learn the song and can play with the artist but how do you master the smoothness they have obtained. Is it with breathe control or is it with a turn of the knob for reverb? My playing compared to some that I have heard on clips and snips makes me sound like I’m playing like a grammar school student. Yes I’m learning to do some ornamentation but it stills sounds so stiff.
Will that come in time?
Thanks all,
Paulette
Ok…this isn’t scientific or 'nutthin but whenever I play Ms Madden’s version of Down By The Sally Gardens into my tuner it reports the bell note (after all in that song the very first note is the bell note…at least according to the sheet music) as a G. Don’t know if that helps, but hey, Generation sells a nice G whistle…give it a try.
One thing that has not been mentioned here is the room temperature that either you or Joanie has been playing at. I too play along with the recordings she has made to check my instruments and I find that a lot of her recordings are a bit sharp compared to concert pitch in a 70 degree F room (which is where I tune my instruments). It’s important to note that if the room temperature is 5 degrees warmer than when the whistle was originally tuned (in the making) then it will play (in its sweet spot) about 8 cents sharp.
So Joanie would most likely want to play in the “sweet” spot on her O’Riordan and depending on what temperature Mr. O’Riordan tuned it at, any variation from that would vary from A-440 in the sweet spot of the instrument.
I also like what coupedefleur said about brightening up the tone a bit by sharpening the frequency which of course could be done electronically.
Hope this helps in understanding the discrepancy.
Ronaldo
You can play this tune on a D whistle in this key, and I often do.
Mermaid: Many European orchestras tune to A=444 or 446. This gives European performances and recordings a brighter sound than in the US of A. This could definitely cause the anomaly to which you refer in the first post…
Best.
Byll
Thank you very much Mr. Reyburn and Byll for your explanations. So every whistle has a sweetspot that I understand is where it was originally voiced from the beginning. Then whatever that sweetspot is, that is where other background instruments have to tune to. Interesting. Also interesting on the European pitch difference.
And Wanderer, I do play Sally Gardens with my high D.
Thanks to all,
Paulette
Ah…I belive I mis-spoke (or mis-typed as the case may be). I play this tune with just about every whistle I own, regardless of the key of the whistle. I love hearing it played on a Bb even if the local alligators don’t 
. What I meant was that I play Ms Madden’s recording via line-in or with a speaker held to the microphone so that my tuner will show which notes are being played (I’m using Musebook Tuner on a PC). And off of her recording the first note of the song is a G. I’m use to it being a D, but it works when transposed on many different whistles.
Mermaid, Not exactly which is why the instrument is tunable. The intonation will be as the maker intended it when it is in its sweet spot (as in a non-tunable whistle). So when one adjusts the tuning slide to accommodate other instruments or ambient temperatures that are other than when it was tuned, then the intonation gets off a bit ( out of its sweet spot). Generally its not noticeable, however, it will get noticeable when it reaches extremes such as 95 or a 100 degrees or well below where it was tuned.
So having a tuning slide is a good thing, but keep in mind the affects when it gets too far from its “sweet spot” position.
Ronaldo
Hi Paulette, It would be terrific if whistles were an easy thing when it comes to tuning. However, there are quite a few things affecting the pitch.
Firstly, the breath pressure. If you play a single note into a tuner, you will find that most whistles will go sharp as you blow harder. I think the Sweet-spot that Ronaldo has mentioned (correct me if I’m wrong) is where the note is most resonant and also most comfortable in context with the surrounding notes on the whistle - it is dependant on the breath pressure you apply over the whole scale and can be a bit subjective.
Secondly, the temperature. Higher temperature = sharper note. The ambient temperature will balance out with the body-temperature of your breath. The different parts of your whistle will respond to temperature in different ways and the whole instrument will come to a balance at some point - this is why a whislte needs to be “warmed-up”, some more than others.
Thirdly, the humidity. Higher humidity = sharper note. Similar to temperature, the humidity in the tube will gain a balance between your breath and the ambient humidity.
Fourthly, Altitude. Higher altitude = sharper note.
Fifthly, scale temper. The pitch change between notes can vary depending on how the whistle was made. Most makers can tune a whistle to achieve a certain “temperament” depending on what the maker prefers or how the player wants it to be. For instance, it may be best to have an “even tempered” scale if you are playing with guitars, pianos or other even-tempered instruments. A “just temper” might be the choice if you are playing with fiddles or simply prefer it. Other hybrid temperaments can be used with trade-offs between tuning, what keys you want to play and style. Or the whistle might just be badly tuned.
Sixthly, the bore architecture of the whistle has a large affect on how the tuning behaves in the second octave.
There are other factors as well.
All these things combine to make a whistle very “organic” in the way it plays - this is part of the character of the instrument, part of the “mystique” and allows for that great expressive dymanic. Depending on the whistle, it can be more or less easy to remain in tune across the range of notes you have.
Also keep in mind that A=440 is only a reference - in some keys A is not = 440 hertz. Performers and sound engineers will have their various reasons for diverging from the reference.
It is a good idea to have a tunable whistle - this does not mean you need to spend a fortune - even the cheapest of whistles can be made tunable with a simple “tweek”. ( http://www.chiffandfipple.com/tweak.html . Steps 1 to 6).
Learning to tame all this and get music out of the little beasty is part of the game It does get better!
Mitch,
I had no idea. Now I know why the brass and woodwinds in my orchestra always have to warm up before they tune. I think you enlightened us all. I even have to let my guitar get to room temp before I tune it before a performance. Same principle.
You made me laugh. Now I know what to name my whistles.
Those little beasties!
Now if I can just think in my head “Smmooooth” but I think I am getting better. My husband says so. 
Cheers,
Paulette
Seeing as you asked me -
Lets say I am hearing something I am not familiar with
and I like it. Lets say that it is a melody in C Dorian but I don’t know this yet.
(C Dorian means the notes C D Eb F G A Bb are being used - a type of minor mode with a minor third interval and a minor seventh interval).
But I don’t know any of this yet. I am just hearing this nice melody.
I pick up the nearest flute or whistle and see if any of the notes fit in with the song. (half a minute).
It so happened I picked up a C whistle and I found that this worked perfectly for the song’s ending at note C perfectly and all the other notes were improvisable or harmonised nicely EXCEPT for B and and E. So by now I am suspecting that the tonic or modal keynote is C and the third interval (for tonic C the third note is E) has to be flattened (to Eb) and ditto for the 7th (the B has to flatted for the Bb).
You see whats happening here? All the notes of the C whistle fitted except for the B and the E and so I reckon they must be Bb and Eb which is not naturally possible on C whistle. So I go to a whistle that will give me those notes and that is a Bb whistle as my option no 1.
(The fact that C Dorian is a relative mode of Bb maj. or G min is not critical to this exercise. Key signature terminology is just a way of “programming” the musical score for the current system of written music.)
Just an example here.