Hi All:
I’m preparing to purchase my first Burke Soprano D and was wondering about that “thumb hole” option Mr. Burke offers. It allows the player to play a C natural by simply opening (or closing?) the hole. Do any of you have that option, or have you played a whistle with that option? And if so, is it worth getting? Do you find it easier to play the C natural that way, or do you need that thumb to help steady the whistle? (I find I need both thumbs, my lips and lots of luck to keep that critter steady.)
And while we’re talking about Burkes: which metal gives the sweeter, purer sound; aluminum or brass? Which is heavier?
Sorry, this is more than one question. Oh well…
:roll:
Thanks,
I have an AlPro session D and a Brass Pro narrow bore D.
As to the tone, the aluminum is absolutely pure and sweet and bright, the brass has a little bit of darkness to the tone, a bit more overtone but still very pure and and sweet all the way up into the 3rd octave.
Brass is heavier. I prefer the heft of the brass whistle.
I don’t have a C thumb hole on either, but have never really needed one. The AlPro session makes a perfect C-natural with either common fingering (o x x | o o o) or (o x x | x o x), while the brass narrow bore does better with the (o x x | x o x) as (o x x | o o o) easily blows sharp on that whistle.
I’m not sure what ‘pure’ means. When you solve the wave equation for the standing waves in a pipe, you get an infinite sequence of eigenvalues, which are proportional to the frequencies of the harmonic overtones, so I think it is theoretically impossible to eliminate all overtones, although their amplitude can be reduced. However, there are good and bad overtones. The worst ones are not in the harmonic series at all. The ear usually registers these as undesirable, and they are essentially nonexistent on the Burkes. The first few harmonic overtones establish the character of the instrument and, for example, enable one to distinguish between the sound of a trumpet and a cornet, or a whistle and a recorder. The ‘sweetest’ of the harmonic overtones are the even numbered ones. My Burkes have a few even ones, but the ‘hollow sounding’ odd harmonics are very attenuated.
I think the brass Burkes have a slightly warmer tone than the aluminum, and if I ever got a whistle with a thumbhole, the first thing I would do is cover it with tape.
When I say a whistle has a pure tone I’m usually not talking harmonics so much as a minimum or even lack of non-musical elements to the tone–no air noise, no edge, no buzz, no burble, and no fuzz in the sound, for instance.
To me both a Burke and a (good) Generation have a very pure tone, although the tone of the Generation is much more complex than that of the Burke, because there are more audible overtones in the Generation than in the Burke’s tone.
I have a thumb hole for C natural on my Burke, and love it. IMHO, both the sound of the note, and the ease of the fingering make it very worthwhile. I’ve never liked the sound of a cross-fingered C natural, and I think the fingering is a bit awkward (not as easy for me as simply lifting my thumb). An added benefit is that you can slide from B to C.
Thanks you two:
So far, the no thumb hole option seems to be the general opinion. (At least of two.)
And as for solving the wave equation for the standing waves in a pipe so that I might try to count the sequence of eigenvalues proportional to the frequencies of the harmonic overtones… well, I’ll leave that to you Ridseard. But I appreciate the input, especially that the brass Burkes have a slightly “warmer” (as in joules?) tone then the aluminum.
No, by ‘warmer’ I mean the character of the tone. It has to do with the relative amplitudes of certain harmonics. To my ears, brass has a slightly more pleasant tone, but this is when I am playing it. Someone listening from across the room might not be able to tell the difference. (The aluminum whistles actually ‘sound’ slightly louder than the brass, but my crude measurements of the dB outputs of brass and aluminum whistles show only a slight difference.)
Well, the Alpro seems louder while you play it and cuts thru the band a bit more. My crossfingered C nat is a bit sharper tho than the half-holed, which is the only way I can get a truly tempered C. I never considered the thumb hole option but would like to try one someday.
Another way to characterize Al over Brass is that the Al seems like a drier sound while the brass is sweet. Seems like many folk get the brass first and like it, decide they need to find out what Al is like, order one and end up preferring it for public playing but like the brass for at home.
Personally, I find the al more responsive and I feel like I can play ornaments a bit faster on it. I went without the Al for about a month last year and missed it badly.
Describing tone is so incredibly subjective. To me, dark means having lots of overtones/complexity in the sound. Bright means very pure (few overtones). Neither brightness nor darkness has much to do with the amount of air or breathiness in the sound (as I see it). Warmth I don’t know how to describe, except that I think a gold flute has a wonderful warm sound which I wish I could afford.
I have a Burke soprano D Al-pro and a new Burke black tip. The aluminum is very nice and is the lightest whistle in captivity - ethereal describes it best physically. Although a fine whistle, I much prefer the black tip, brass body with an extended black delrin fipple in the brass head. This whistle is comfortable and easy to play for hours and is well-balanced. I find that, true to Mike’s claim, it is improved in the bottom end over his others and it has a wonderful pop to the sound when crisply striking the tone holes. It’s sister in C is also great.
I can’t imagine needing a C thumb hole either - just too confusing. HOWEVER the C-below option on D whistles (eg Silkstone, Overton) is very useful for those tunes that fling in low C here and there. Saves changing the note or transposing.
I believe on a whistle with the thumb hole, if you keep the first finger left hand down (as though playing a B), the uncover the thumb hole, the whistle will sound C-natural.
This actually sounds pretty useful, I just don’t have any whistles that are equipped with one.
Almost all my whistles have thumb holes even though Floombield thinks they are a “goffence against the Ods” (a few posts down the page). You won’t win any friends in traditional circles with them, to be sure. But there’s nothing that says you can’t still half hole or cross finger even if you have the thumb hole (and yes, James is right about how to finger the C natural). It took maybe a week or so to get used to and I must say I like it a lot and use it a lot. You could always try it out yourself–experiment on a cheap whistle by drilling a hole exactly between the B and A holes but directly behind them, with the hole the same size as the B hole (if that’s what the top hole is called).
You aren’t trying to trick me into going over 1000 posts, are you, Jerry?
Okay, the harmonics are, in ascending order, the fundamental (the note you are playing), then the octave above that, then a fifth, then another octave, then a third, another fifth, etc. The amplitudes (also known as the Fourier coefficients) of the higher harmonics usually slam down to (approximately) zero pretty rapidly, and the lower ones are so harmonious that they usually go unnoticed, and they do not contribute to raspy or husky sounds.
Although it is possible for there to be a few higher harmonics which can contribute to shrillness and cause cusps and sharp angles in the waveforms of the notes being played (resulting in raspiness), I think the husky tone of Feadogs can mostly be attributed to overtones which are not in the natural harmonic series. I.e., they are basically non-musical noises, some of them of lower frequency than the note being played. Also, there is ‘breathiness’ which, like electronic white noise, is something of a smear of higher frequencies. All these funny sounds have weird waveforms, like sawteeth or square waves, but I don’t know enough acoustics/physics to understand what there is about the whistle which causes them.
