Does anyone else have a Blues Whistle from Erik the Flutemaker? I just got one and am wondering HOW to play it. It’s got five holes in front and a thumbhole in back. I can make it make notes, and improvise of course, but I’m not sure how that back hole works. Overblowing seems to work for the second octave, but what about that thumbhole? It’s like I can’t quite feel I have an octave scale. I just feel a little lost.
i’ve not tried one, but my guess is it’s pseudo-pentatonic. Perhaps the thumb hole is used for sliding the blue note. I don’t know though. I’ve done some experimenting with bluesy stuff on the rec***er.
Here’s an article with some information that might help in learning to deal with the blues scale (with possibly a little bit of slightly-revisionist history thrown in, for added fun). http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickl/blues.html
Ah, Kar . . . I think I can help with that. I asked Erik to make me a whistle using a g-blues scale as my son was taking sax lessons and I wanted to dink around with him some. He was kind enough to make my whistle and later started selling it as the Blues Whistle.
The notes are: G-Bb-C-C#-D-F. By overblowing you can get both a low and high version of each of the notes. The hole on the back is there because if it were on the front the finger spacing would be more awkard.
Its a fun little thing to dink around on. My son and I had some fun with it -although he has hung up his sax, I still enjoy the whistle every now and again.
I think having whislesmiths like we do who are willing to experiment with our requests is an awesome thing.
Thanks for responding! So, am I understanding this correctly? The back hole is basically the equivalent of the top front hole on a regular whistle? That makes sense and should help me when I’m playing.
I tooled around on it some more last night and it’s really a nice whistle. The first octave is fairly quiet, but the second octave really shines. Loud without being piercing, really nice to listen to.
Now, if I only had friends who play the drum & bass, we could really get something going here…
Yes, that’s the way the back hole works on mine . . . and you’re right about the lower octave being quiet . . . in fact, I really had to work for a while to not have it pop up to the higher octave.
And don’t forget that Sax player to add to your bass and drum!