I’m a member of a historical re-enactment group and I am interested in doing some research on early whistle construction in europe with a possible bent towards making a replica. I know L.E. McCullough has dated the irish whistle to something like the 900s with a bone whistle which was found and is currently in a Museum (Leeds City Museum maybe?). I was wondering what information people here might have on early (pre-1400s) whistles in Ireland and across Europe. Information such as materials and methods of construction would be much appreciated. Also, if anyone has good quality pictures of any of the old whistles that have been found I would appreciate it if you would send them on to me. If you have any information please provide a source as conjecture and guesswork are not useful to me (I need to provide documentation for my project).
If anyone has information on period (400-1400 AD) construction of Tabor Pipes I would also be interested in that.
Not sure if Phil Bleazey would be able to help. His website says:
“Today I make woodwinds of the flute family (Transverse flutes, recorders, whistles and low whistles) for customers all over the world. I make instruments based on originals from as early as the 13th century, including my own versions of the Gottingen recorder and Dordrecht recorder, I also make flutes and recorders based on those from the Renaissance period as well as my own designs of flute, whistle,low whistle and recorder for use by todays traditional musicians.”
Google Dr. Helen leaf - she did a PhD on ancient & medieval bone whistles & flutes. These two are her, but not especially whistle oriented, but if you keep refining, you should find more.
Somewhere out there is an article about a 20,000 year old whistle made of elk bone - they presume with a clay fipple-plug that has since vanished.
Historica is great .. unfortunately, we have nothing more than Hollywood to have any perception of how they were played - no surviving recordings unfortunately. There’s a few examples of notation, but the reality is probably as far away as how ITM is notated and how it is played today. (Consider the difference between Church-Latin and what they found at Pompeii??)
Performance is an expression of the curent instant. It is probably as good for historical re-enactment fictions to capture the spirit of the moment as a construct in your own imagination (can’t be any worse than the fictions in the minds of the audience) - if the instruments need to be period in every detail, that’s good enough - learn to play it convincingly and you’ll get the badge - with a reasonable surviving recording - it will be your revisionist performance that defines future perceptions of the time you are fictionalizing
With all that - it’s fun - have fun!! C’mon everyone lerves that boom-boom boom-boom stuff played with “Sume Ist e Cumen In” played on crumhorns and recorders - but I never saw a single person dance - it HAD to be different when the original musos got payed to do that stuff - otherwise they would have all starved
I have had the privelidge to meet many pinacle popular artists - in every case, their advice was “Whatever it is you do - make it cook!!”
Hey - I make whistles in the age-old traditional methods as near as I can (including the wisdom of generations of makers plus using what they used as near as I can- that’s the main thing) I have the measurements of many museum pieces .. I understand why they did the things they did gven what they had - I am in awe of what they achieved and the height of skill required to do such things! I am in a mind to consider what the musicians of their time demanded - my awe is multiplied. In this day and age, we would do well to study our pinacle artists and respect that they are doing nothing less than the musicians gone by - it is a fiction to beleive that anything has progressed in the last 2 hundred thousand years - in the “Art of War” it is the weather, the weather, the weather - that is what delivers us our opportunity. HIstory only points at now - and nothing has changed, The weather delivers us different stuff to work with - use it, playe the tunes, make it cook and you are on ther spot for what was done in days gone past - can’t miss .. so long as you are a musician
(Edited to say: The fiction is real - what a brilliant peice of work is man! But the pretenders , the convaluters and the distorters? Are they better than baboons?? .. the unions would have us think other .. but .. simians .. seemingly, still have a level of maturity to get done .. I’m confident - the weather will make it so hang onto your hat and dance!! Dance the wind, dance the rain, dance the tsunami and earthquake - meke us move our feet and be together as we face the storm and the wrack weeping and laughing. THat’s music - in any age )
I know that there is very little evidence of how such whistles would be played and what would be played on them. I am looking to make a replica to enter in our local SCA (society of creative anachronism) Arts & Sciences competition. To do so I need to provide documentation of my piece’s mediaeval authenticity and do my best to show that my construction techniques are similar to how the piece would have been constructed in the middle ages. While I of course want to play it, authentic performance is not a part of this competition category. So I’m mostly looking for details on construction materials, methods, and what the finished piece should look like.
I have similar motivations, though with a bit of capitalism mixed in for good measure. I plan to sell some historically inspired instruments, though not necessarily reproductions.
I made one that was a fairly faithful reproduction of the Tartu recorder as far as wood choices (birch fipple in a hard maple body), bore size, length, hole and labium placement/size. After playing it a little bit I am not surprised it was found in a latrine. I have made a couple of others that people are more likely to enjoy playing and look right. It’s entirely possible that such instruments existed and their owners were careful not to drop them in the latrine…
I am content with being able to make a pretty good case for what might have been and not having anything that is glaringly out of place.
I’ve had that thought too. My guess is that the wife got ticked because hubby wouldn’t stop playing the darned thing and it was off to the toilet hole with it.
Apparently if it weren’t for latrine diving we wouldn’t have any examples of such old instruments. I guess there are a few drawings of instruments being played but heaven knows how correct they are. Are archeologists the only professionals that have the temerity to dig something out of that deep dark hole in the ground and then display it in a museum? And who was the first brave soul to find out what it sounded like?
Let me be the first to suggest that for the sake of posterity and future generations of antiquarian musicians, you all go immediately and toss all your instruments down the toilet. This must be done en masse, of course, to guarantee an adequate supply of future artifacts.
If nothing else, this will be the Chiffboard’s greatest legacy. It also has the side benefit of thinning out those overcrowded sessions that I hate.
For my part, I’ll be hanging on to my instruments as … reference copies. Right, that’s it.
I’m a little surprised no one suggested it already (maybe there’s a reason), but if you go to Erik the flutemaker’s site (eriktheflutemaker dot com), you’ll see that he makes and sells some re-creations of that many thousand year old flute, plus some other attempted ancient re-creations (I believe there’s a prehistoric Chinese flute, e.g.) and other exotic flutes. There’s a bunch of historical material there too. Maybe this is a bit more ancient than you had in mind. I’ve never bought or tried to play one, but I’m quite intrigued. Does anyone here have one (or others of Erik’s flutes or bamboo saxes for that matter), and could “testify” how it sounds?
Best,
Jaydod
You might want to check out Chironomy in the ancient world and how it was used to teach music. http://www.rakkav.com/biblemusic/pages/chironomy.htm
It’s not totally on subject but it is connected with doing music in an ancient way.
If it is medieval or earlier, it will almost certainly be wood, bone/antler or clay, one piece tube (fipple a separate piece), probably be within 5" of 13" in length with a bore between 3/8" and 3/4" and might be in one of a number of different tunings. Some even appear to be what we think of as modern tuning. If you want to sell such a whistle to people who stroll through a ren fair or play and have said passers by hang about to drop coins in a cup, modern tuning begins to seem much more likely, the more you think about it. 6 holes seems to be pretty common.
I probably should have said “wood/plant material” instead of wood - various reed/cane/bamboo variants certainly had a lot of use, though few specimens survived. Wood choice is a sticky problem also; the same type of tree from another part of the world or even the same part of the world is not necessarily the same as it was then, particularly fruitwoods. I am pretty sure most medieval craftsman did not have their wood shipped in either. Matching the materials and matching the methods are usually two different things.
There is an absolutely fantastic book on mediaeval bone whistles. Unfortunately for a lot of us, it’s in German.
Christine Brade:
Die mittelalterlichen Kernspaltfloten Mittel-und Nordeuropas
Karl Watchholtz Verlag, Neumunster
1975
Yeah, I have a copy. Got it from Amazon, for an amazingly realistic price of about 50 bucks, don’t remember exactly now. It is not in print, though, and I was probably very lucky to get one.
Well, there are hundreds of bone flutes analised, from mostly Scandinavia, Germany and Holland. England is omitted completely, but mainly because the English finds have all been reported in specialist journals. (Galpin Society Journal has at least a dozen articles dealing with Mediaeval bone flutes, across its existance. (founded in 1947 or roundabout.))
The book has not only photos, but descriptions, conmplete with fairly exhausing measurements, also with sound analysis for about half of them. (that’s giving sound readings for the pipes, as in “all holes closed,- so many cents, first hole open- so many cents”, and so on.)
I can unhesitatingly recommend this book to anyone obsessed with Mediaeval bone pipes, like stupid old me.
hang onto your hat and dance!! Dance the wind, dance the rain, dance the tsunami and earthquake - meke us move our feet and be together as we face the storm and the wrack weeping and laughing. THat’s music - in any age 
I have made a couple of others that people are more likely to enjoy playing and look right. It’s entirely possible that such instruments existed and their owners were careful not to drop them in the latrine…