A sharp C natural is OK on fast tunes, but on slower pieces where C can get sustained for a while, it’s not so good. Here’s a way to tweak a whistle so that it gives a perfect C nat with the two-hole-crossfinger method. Your C will be perfect every time. The whistle will be flat on C#. So it’s a tweak that allows the whistle to play better in keys that require C natural (principally the key of G). I did one and keep it specifically for slow pieces in G, or even faster pieces.
Put some sticky tape on the C# hole of the D whistle to make it about 20 cents flat. That’s it! You’ll probably have to adjust the tape position a few times to get your C nat. exactly right…in so much as anything on a whistle is ever exactly right. For newcomers, the C# hole is the tone hole (one of 6) that is closest to you when you play. The tape will be on the upwind part of the hole. You’ll usually have to cover about 25 to 40% of the hole diameter to get an in-tune C.
If you are like me you’ll hate to limit the playing ability of any good whistle, but when you hit that C and hold it, you’ll know it’s worth the loss.
well, yes, if you’re going fast, the cross finger C natural, though a tad outta tune, works fine. but, if you’re sustaining the C nat at all, you should really learn to half-hole it. it’s not particularly esoteric or difficult with a little bit of practice. and especially in slow airs, sliding up to the C nat adds a nice stylistic effect. slow airs also often use both the C natural and C#.
or…don’t worry about it all. life will not cease if the C nat is sharp. eventually, the sharp C natural will probably bother you, probably in slow airs but perhaps in general. you can experiment and fix it then. worth also experimenting underblowing too. a tuner can help you learn to lock it in. but a properly in tune C nat really is nice and stands out. makes a tune sound clean, bright, like, lemon fresh joy.
now, interestingly enough, i happened to be observing (stalking?) Mary Bergin at a session in Boston a couple years back, and i was somewhat surprised to discover what looked like her half-holing the C natural all the time. she has a funny way of holding the whistle i can’t quite explain or replicate (it’s sorta like how trumpet players position their fingers over the three pistons on the trumpet, i.e. not flat fingered). but it seemed to work out pretty well for her. i mean, she wasn’t sounding too shabby.
Exactly. With practice you can play C nat half-holed pretty right at any tempo, any time. What requires adjustment is that the feel of the perfect half hole changes with the instrument you are playing. I used to use whichever worked best, half holing or cross fingering, at different points in a tune, but the better I get, the less use I have for cross fingering.
Also, most of us are playing Irish music. We should be happy to have floating intonation on C nat and F nat obtained so easily although, of course, as an expressive device, it can’t be hit or miss. You have to play that C nat a bit sharp or a bit flat because that is what works and not just because that is how you happened to hit it. But, as with almost everything else, this is just a matter of practising until you know your instrument and how to match that knowledge to your expressive requirements or objectives.
Why not just use a combination of changing the fingering and instead of taking the C finger off alltogether when playing he note but ‘roll’ it off just to the extend needed to get the note in tune [i.e. keeping the finger on the whistle in contact with the side of the hole, taking it off just as much as you need to get the pitch you’re looking for]. It’s a a technique used to play good cnats on the pipes and applies easily to the whistle. it’s acombination of half holing and crossfingering really.
Personally I don’t see why everybody is so hung up on the OXOOOO or OXXOOO fingering but sees no problem in completely re-learning with a thumbhole. With a little effort it’s quite possible to handle Cs on the whistle.
Just for the Hell of it, I tried Mongoose’s heretical fingerings. On both my whistle and my flute, the Cnat came out a tad flat. For those familiar with Highland piping (sorry, Peter), it was kinda reminiscent of a “piobaireachd G” effect.
Don’t know if this’ll work for everybody, but I’ve found that for myself, the closest fingering on my flute and whistle to a true C natural is
OXX XOX, which is coincidentally how it’s fingered on UPs, which gives us pipers a wee bit of an unfair advantage. Perhaps not ideal for super-fast tunes (if you’re not used to it), but in that case OXX OOO or half-holing will do in a pinch.
If you go for just intonation you’d want your C nat that bit flat (25 to 30 cents even) which will be in perfect harmony with your drones so the piobearacht G makes loads of sense there. Most of the time I would actually use OXXXOX or OXXOOX with a bit of the C finger near or over the hole for fine tuning. Must be a piper’s thing.
Was just playing around a bit with a variety of whistles and none really gave any problems playing nice Cnats. Just one of these problems you’ll have to learn and deal with. How strong you blow it is another thing, it may take the note 30 cents or more up or down.
I find that on some whistles, Clare for example, on which the two-finger Cnat is wicked sharp, the forked fingering is also very sharp. On some, like Shaws, OXXXXO is very well in tune. I actually find this fingering a little less cumbersome than OXXXOX.
This is a good point, Wombat. And is partly why i get nervous about becoming too concerned about all the variety of whistles out there. now, this isn’t a dig at anyone who likes to try out and/or collect various whistles. but i think it really is important to find a good whistle (whether it be a copeland, sindt, abell, burke or whatever) and really stick with it. it takes years (at least initially) to learn to play and bring out the special voice and timbre of any given whistle. copeland high Ds, for example, need special care in not becoming too shriekie in the second octave, while Sindt’s are more even and stable in this regard but not quite as bright, bold, and bell-like (imhp). And, half-holing on the Sindt (which has smaller holes) is going to be different from the copeland (which are a tad bigger) Both are great whistles–one is not intrinsically better than the other. But you got to stick with one or the other in order to bring it’s voice to life.
And, whistles have feelings too ya know. They can get jealous if yer running off with other whistles all the time, unless of course you’re “just freinds.” But heck, i think Bush is proposing a constitutional ammendment against poly-whistlie. So watch out, kids, because it just may be down-right Un-American.
