The only issue is that only second octave G is sharp - and only about 10 cents sharp.
Hmm, that’s a good one. I would try a piece of tape on the bottom side of the hole.
Tommy
Because I’ve played whistles from Bass A to High F, and especially spent years evaluating dozens of makes of Low Ds, and I’ve found that the relationship between the octaves, be it in tune, or too narrow, or too wide, is consistent with all the fingered notes and doesn’t vary willy-nilly from note to note.
I did note the one exception I’ve come across, on Burkes. This shows that however rare these outlier notes are possible if the maker introduces perturbations to the bore, as Burke says he did.
So possible, but rare and surprising.
That’s what that author wrote about wooden flutes, which have smaller holes and deeper chimneys. As I had said chimneys on metal-tube whistles, and on Highland pipe chanters, are nearly nonexistent.
Yes on metal-tube whistles undercutting on the side nearest the mouthpiece raises the pitch a tiny bit, but for significant sharpening you have to carve out that side of the hole, making the hole slightly oval.
And on bagpipes and flutes with small holes and thick walls undercutting the side of the hole closest to the open end is thought to help the note speak more clearly.
Now, I expect that wooden Low D Whistles would have the thicker walls and deeper chimneys as found on wooden flutes, so presumably the same tuning tricks that Baroque flute makers use would work on those. I don’t know, I’ve never played a wooden Low D whistle that was worth playing. I paid $800 for one that everybody was raving about. and immediately got rid of it. The best wooden Low D Whistles I’ve tried, and I’ve tried several makes, didn’t come up to the baseline standard of performance I expect from serious professional metal-tube Low D whistles.
Not rare or surprising, in my experience. I only play high whistles (for the most part), so low whistles might be different. But I can assure you that nearly all of my whistles have different octave spread, depending on the note, to varying degrees (my Mazur, McManus, and Goldie whistles have it the least). Even my thin-walled whistles have this characteristic. I can send a video demonstrating this, if that’s helpful.
And again, I wonder why you think Goldie undercuts different amounts on different notes, if not to correct this issue.
Yes on metal-tube whistles undercutting on the side nearest the mouthpiece raises the pitch a tiny bit, but for significant sharpening you have to carve out that side of the hole, making the hole slightly oval.
I guess “a tiny bit” is subjective, but at least we agree it makes a difference. Judging by the quality of Goldie whistles and the effort he takes to undercuts, I’d say it makes a pretty significant difference.
That’s what that author wrote about wooden flutes, which have smaller holes and deeper chimneys. As I had said chimneys on metal-tube whistles, and on Highland pipe chanters, are nearly nonexistent.
You can call them “nearly nonexistent” if you like, but they’re clearly big enough to make a difference on thick-walled whistles, as I’ve been saying (and it looks like you agree). So I don’t see any reason why the thing you quoted about wooden flutes would apply also to thick-walled high whistles, even if only to a lesser extent.
At any rate, I’ve noticed the “octave spread depending on the note” phenomenon to be present even on most thin-walled whistles, so maybe hole size affects octave spread on individual notes irrespective of chimney size - the quotation you provided says nothing to the contrary.
You know, I was testing this more recently, and I’ve realized that this “different notes have different octave spread” issue is not as common as I thought. I don’t know why I had such a distinct impression that most of my whistles had this issue…I guess I was paying too much attention to their second-octave tuning and forgetting about corresponding errors in their first-octave tuning. For instance, I was thinking that my Susatos had abnormally flat high Es and F#s in comparison to high G, but the truth is that Susatos just have flat second octaves in general, and high G only plays in tune more easily because low G is abnormally sharp.
I definitely do have some whistles that have this “different octave spread” issue, but it’s pretty rare. I think it’s only my whistles with pinched/tapered heads that have it, and most of them have it only very slightly, and not enough to matter. Perhaps whistles with tapered heads naturally have this issue, and Goldie undercuts specifically to correct it slightly?
The Busker, for whatever reason, seems to have this issue worse than any other whistle. It’s the only whistle I play where the problem is significant enough to be genuinely annoying. Second-octave G and A are just so darn sharp in comparison to the first octave, but second-octave E and F# just aren’t, for some reason.
Anyway, thought I’d clarify this. I think I unintentionally exaggerated how common this issue is in high D whistles. Sorry if I came off as overly dismissive of what you were saying!
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The octave spread issue can be affected a lot by your breath control. If it seems like you used to have more problems than you do now, it is probably because you are a bit more refined in how hard you blow nowadays.
If you want to sharpen a note in the bottom octave you should enlarge the hole in such a way that it moves up the bore closer to the mouth piece. If you want to sharpen a note in the upper octave but have less effect in the lower octave, you enlarge the hole such that its center moves down the bore. However you enlarge a hole it will sharpen the note in both octaves somewhat.
To flatten a note in the first octave you need to move the hole down the bore. You can do this by taping the upper side of the hole (or inserting something like shellac inside the tone hole on the upper side if you have sufficient chimney height/wall thickness). To flatten an upper octave note, make the tone hole smaller. You can do this by taping on the foot side of the hole.
Whenever you enlarge a tone hole it adds more venting, not just to the note that is immediately vented by that hole, but also a bit to the next higher note. So enlarging the tone hole that vents F will have a lesser sharpening effect on G.
So, the basic strategy to sharpen the F# in both octaves would be to enlarge the hole both on the north and south sides. This will have a sharpening effect on the G too. You can flatten the G by making the hole smaller, using tape or shellac. If you want to flatten the upper octave G more than the lower octave G, then tape on the south side. South = closer to the foot. North = closer to the head.
Chimney height can be used to hide these modificiations. For example, when you are undercutting a hole you don’t make it look any larger externally, but acoustically you are enlarging it and changing the location at which it intersects the bore. That is all that matters acoustically. So for example, some makers improve the ergonomics of a flute or whistle by drilling the last tone hole at an angle, so that it intersects the outside higher on the bore than the inside. You can think of this as being like an extreme undercutting approach on the south side, and building up material on the north side, making its acoustic reach larger than its ergonomic reach.
If you make modifications, do it slowly and cautiously. It is a lot easier to remove more material later than to put it back. Also, try to anticipate that tuning characteristics that arise as a result of your own skill level can often resolve themselves as you get better. Try to leave some margin for error in this regard. Nobody likes to admit that they are not perfect and that a problem might be their own rather than a problem caused by the whistle/maker, but that is sometimes the case.
If you are a relatively new player and you are talking about the tuning characteristics of an instrument made by a highly regarded maker, then I’d say it is most likely you not the whistle. On the other hand, if you are an experienced player with refined technique and experience playing several different high-end instruments, and you find that a more mediocre instrument has an issue, it probably is the instrument/maker.
I’m resurrecting this thread because since I now have some (very basic) equipment capable of drilling into aluminum - namely a handheld drill, some clamps, some titanium drill bits, and WD40 - I’m wondering what exact strategy I should use for enlarging holes.
I want to fix the tuning of my Kerry Busker, because F#, B, Cnat, and C# are a bit too flat in comparison to the other notes (at least for my taste). So I’ll want to make the second, fifth, and sixth tone holes a tiny bit bigger. I’m worried about ruining my whistle, however, so I have a few questions:
- Will it work to take a small drill bit and simply grind away at the north and south edges of the holes I’m enlarging? Or is this a bad strategy due to its likelihood to create an uneven shaped hole?
- On a more general note, how much does hole roughness affect tone? Does it matter much at all? With the tools I have, I doubt I’ll be able to enlarge holes while keeping them buttery-smooth along the edges. Do oddly-shaped or rough holes mess with the tone of the whistle much?
- Is it better to just get a drill bit that’s as big as the size I want each hole to be, and drill the whole thing?
- Is this entire strategy a bad idea due to the basicness of my equipment? Is it a bad idea to drill out aluminum with a handheld drill due to its tendency to slip?
Thanks!
You are very unlikely to have the fine control you need to do this neatly with a hand held drill. Its very easy for the drill bit to catch or to lose the angle.
To enlarge tone holes you need to do a tiny bit at a time and intersperse material removal with test playing. This is much easier to do with a small, fine-toothed, half-round file (generally you’ll also want to snap off the pointy tip too, so as not to scratch the inside of the bore opposite the tone hole).
One you are at the right size, you can finish the tone hole chimney with fine sand paper wrapped around a dowel, or sandpaper rolled into a tight roll. And then some extra fine steel wool.
You need to ensure that the transition between tone hole and bore is smooth.
You need to approach this very carefully to make sure you don’t remove too much material, because at that point there is no going back.
You can still ruin your whistle, but at least doing it this way will take longer than with a drill. 
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I’d echo what paddler said. You can find a needle file kit at most Walmarts that will have what you need for about $5.
Additionally, a vice (with padded jaws - very important!) is also a very useful tool, and you’ll find it a lot handier than trying to make do with clamps.
Don’t use a drill bit at all unless you’re starting with a new tube with no holes in it. If you need to use something with a motor, a Dremel on the lowest speed with a roughened metal dowel pin used instead of a drill bit would be the most aggressive you should go, but even then you’d likely end up with the holes not remaining circular, so it’s best to use fine sandpaper superglued to a wooden dowel and with the sandpaper not reaching the end so that it can’t scratch the opposite side of the bore. Then gentle scraping following a careful algorithm to remove equal amounts of material all the way round the hole. Take your time over it by doing only a little work on each session, then play the instrument for a few days before deciding if you really need to remove more. It’s better to stop the process too soon than to go too far.
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Thank you all very much for the suggestions! I don’t know why I didn’t think of filing/sanding instead of drilling - that makes a lot of sense.
I’d refine this a little by saying that if you want the new hole to be round then it must completely cover/overlap the old hole, but the old hole does not need to be in the center of the new hole. Recognizing this gives you some scope for affecting the tuning of first and second octave notes slightly differently.
For example, enlarging the hole without moving the top edge of it closer to the window will raise the pitch of the second octave more than the first.
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Good point, so you’d maybe want to divide it into eight compass points and erode the metal away at each for different proportions of scraping time. It would be good to have a computer program to calculate those proportions and to predict the impact on tuning for that note in both (or possibly all three) octaves.
For example, enlarging the hole without moving the top edge of it closer to the window will raise the pitch of the second octave more than the first.
Without that knowledge it would be easy to wreck an instrument then. I haven’t worked out the rules yet, but just make instruments slightly differently each time and evolve them towards better hole placement and sizes to get better tuning and improved playing comfort, but I could likely avoid making some bad instruments by having a better idea of how to adjust holes the right way to perfect the tuning.
Thanks for your input, everyone! I don’t really see any reason to keep the holes round. Some of my favorite whistles have very oval holes. As long as I carve out the north and south parts equally, it shouldn’t mess up anything…right?
If the other holes are round, it’ll look better if the modified ones remain round.
Removing material from the south end (or the north end for those in the southern hemisphere) changes the pitch a lot less than removing it from the north, so one big impact of removing southern material is to make a hole bigger and louder. Removing northern material leads to rapid pitch change, so you need to make tiny adjustments and then avoid rushing into doing more until you’re very sure it’s the right way forward. Ideally you’ll barely register any change in pitch after each round of scraping, but you can compare the pitch on a tuner with the original tuning each time rather than comparing it with the previous round. If you don’t like the way the second octave note is going compared with the first, then stop before they get any further out.
Perhaps the amount of scraping at east and west should be half that done at the north with none done at the south, then three quarters for NE and NW and one quarter for SE and SW. That should lead to the least material being removed while maintaining round holes.
Do you have a really bad whistle to practise on first?
Yeah, I have a Woodnote I can practice on. Good idea!
Now, keep in mind that as you enlarge a hole, it’s not just that note and it’s octave that sharpen, but, in theory at least, every note above that hole will sharpen.
So, for example, if you enlarge hole 5, because the two F# are flat, you will probably find it sharpens some if not all of the notes further up the whistle.
So, for that reason, we normally work our way up the flute or whistle, always checking that there is no risk of over-sharpening a note further up the tube.
So always check every note before enlarging any hole!
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Right, because each hole is “vented” by the holes below, though the effect varies, so make sure you’re checking the higher notes as you carve.
In my experience this effect is far more pronounced with certain notes on the Highland pipe chanter, due to its “partially closed” fingering system, especially the relationship between “Low A” and “E”.
x|xxx|xxxo Low A
x|xxo|xxxo E
Anything done to Low A will have a nearly equal effect E. This can be aggravating if E is spot on but Low A is sharp- you can’t put tape on the Low A hole without flattening E as well.
If you carve out the Low A hole then E sharpens too, and you end up having to put tape on E’s hole.
About keeping all the holes round so the instrument looks better, that never occurred to me.
In my eyes the job of an instrument is to play in tune and however the thing ends up looking is “form follows function”. Besides, there are species of instruments which have a combination of round and oval holes as a matter of course, so I don’t reckon it disfigurement.
On the roundness issue, keeping the holes round does help when it comes to reproducibility. This is more of an issue for makers working on a series of prototypes that are gradually approaching a tuning target. If you keep the holes round, then it helps pin down the drill bit sizes and tone hole center locations on subsequent prototypes. But that isn’t really an issue when it comes to fine tuning a one-off instrument.
I’ll just reiterate what I said before about the impact of tone hole modifications being different in first, second and third registers. Make sure you test the tuning of the relevant note in all registers before deciding on a tone hole enlargement strategy. Carving north and south parts equally is one of several possible strategies, each of which will affect the relative distribution of lower and upper octave sharpening.
Oh yes for sure! A maker is going to want to make the holes round.
I was talking about modifying existing whistles. There I take the path of least labour, opening up the top side of the hole only.
However as I mentioned with some species of bagpipes the makers drill the round holes then carve some of the holes into ovals as a matter of course.
Some whistle makers always use non-round holes. Colin Goldie told me that none of the holes on his whistles are round, and that’s by design. But he’s probably an outlier.