The other day I was drinking a hard cider and, of course, blew across the top of the bottle. This lead me to think, could one make a whistle-type instrument by drilling holes in a bottle? So, whistle makers, what do you think?
~ Thornton
Don’t know about holes, but you change the pitch every swig you take. When it’s empty— that’s as low as you can go.
… and if you want those high notes back you will have to open another…
Bother. 
Jens
Someone has basically beat us to it… It is called an ocarina, a vessle flute Thomas will no doubt have a few more words, always welcome, to say on this, Eh?
Actually a guy called Pan tied a bunch of bottles together.
On 2002-02-06 10:35, CDon wrote:
Someone has basically beat us to it… It is called an ocarina, a vessle flute >
Why wait? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ocarinaclub/
I have a bit of an ocarina collection, from a mammoth Peruvian ten-holer to the sweetest little wooden one with four holes, an unfinished clay model from Turkey, a raku pottery one shaped like a human torso.
These ‘vessel flutes’ have a haunting sound, and you can bend notes very easily. Mine have just about an octave range, a little more on some.
Or you just line all the bottles up and take l swig or three from each of them, al the way up and down the scale! The blow!!! Hic! Further, it had better be Guinness!
OK, Tyghress, you have an ocarina shaped like a human torso… and my first question is, how many holes? 
Jef
If One must be technical-specific… :roll:
A Jug or bottle with toneholes is an ancient Chinese instrument called a Xun or Hsuan pronounced “Shun” or “Shoon”. Archaeologic evidence dates it at about 7,000 BCE or 9,000 years old, but it could be much older. True ducted whistle voicings were not added to the vessel flute until Spanish captives from South America introduced them into Europe.
Mr Hoover’s raft of tubes is a much older(theorized)instrument.Panflutes are depicted in prehistoric art to a much older time,but because of the material they were made of,none have made it to our time.
If you can get ahold of a torch with a small tip and a nail you can heat an area of the bottle and then use the nail to start a tonehole in the bottle. Once the hole exists,rub the nail around the edge in a spiral while keeping the glass soft with the torch until you reach your desired size tonehole. Please wear safty glasses and gloves because the glass may pop or crack when cooling and the nail will burn your hand. Long necked bottles with small voicings make better Helmholtz oscillators.
(P.S. Thanks for the Ocarinaclub promo Tyghress).
[ This Message was edited by: Thomas-Hastay on 2002-02-06 18:24 ]