I’ve been playing the Chieftain V3 for about seven months or so, and I like its tone, but there is one thing that drives me up the wall about it: The C sharp. No matter how I play it, it comes out flat and ugly. Most of the time, it isn’t an issue (either it isn’t played or it isn’t played long), but sometimes a song will have me playing a long, sustained, nasty C sharp and I just have to grit my teeth and play it. Blowing harder gets the note closer, but the resulting volume jump is harsh and draws even more attention to the note.
Can this be fixed without messing up the half holed C-natural or any other important characteristic of the whistle? Or more importantly, SHOULD it be fixed? I’m still a relative newbie. Is there some value in having a flat C sharp? I’ve heard of some notes on whistles being tuned slightly flat, but I’ve never quite been able to figure out why this would be wanted. I’ve had other low whistles that would just melt right into a perfect C sharp (or equivalent) but didn’t have some of the other characteristics I like so much in the Chieftain.
Well if it is really a BIG problem for you it is better to get it fixed. Have you contemplated contacting Phil Hardy about it? Or if you like tweaking things by yourself, you could enlarge the top hole just slightly, probably best with a half-round needle file, to sharpen the C#. This will affect the C#, and the C natural only if you cross finger it (like for instance OXXOOO), and no other notes. If you half-hole C natural, as you say, it will not make much difference there, you will adapt. It may make half-holing easier with a slightly larger hole.
As to why some whistles (mine included) have a flat tuned C#:
A) a flat tuned C# may actually not be flat at all. It may be flat relative to equal tempered tuning (using an electronic tuner may show it is flat), whereas in fact it may be in tune, using your ear, or just intonation. A just C# is 12 cents flat of a equal tempered C# (or the ET C# appears 12 cents sharp).
B) a flat tuned C# may give you a good C nat with cross fingering like OXXOOO. An ET tuned C# will give you a sharp cross-fingered C nat.
So, from a design standpoint, my choice is a good cross fingered C natural or an equal tempered not-flat C-sharp? That’s a bummer. I generally use a combination of half-holing and cross fingering, as the situation dictates, but I have noticed that on my whistles that have an in tune C sharp, the half holed C natural was weak and a bit off, so I did less cross fingering.
I like the cross fingering because it’s snappier. My finger can’t move fast enough to go from a B to a C natural crisply. Does that change with practice? If that’s the case, losing the cross fingering wouldn’t be too bad.
I need to read up on tuning. Equal temperament versus “just” tuning doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If I were tuning the whistle “by ear”, I’d have said that the C sharp is flat relative to the other notes. I don’t really mess with electronic tuners, but I don’t really understand the concept of flat but not flat. If it sounds flat, it’s flat.
AngelicBeaver, I won’t attempt to embellish Hans excellent description of Temperament, but I found the Wikipedia treatise on this very helpful when I first grappled with it a few years ago. You might check that out. It was good to understand, then just let it go, shrug and move on for the sake of playing whistles.
Nonetheless, I am comfortable talking to you about how I cope with this playability issue since, as you’ve questioned, it does get easier to manage half-holing over time and I consider this issue moot now IMHO. If you’ve been playing consistently for any length of time you’ve probably noted that many notes on the whistle have quite a lot of “dynamic range” (my terminology) in that notes can often be blown flat, in tune or sharp and that this is a very useful feature for dramatic effect as well as a tuning benefit. Therefore, by slightly reducing breath pressure one can blow a sharp note in-tune. The best example I have is with my Sindt. It is notoriously sharp on the Cnat by design because of the Temperament choice made by the designer as Hans described. So I have become accustomed to using slightly less breath pressure when playing that note on short passages when I find cross-fingering a better choice, and I use half-holing when playing longer notes. That took some practice but it’s been years now since I’ve been questioned about tuning by another musician.
So you do get used to it, and good at it. Of course some will say that half-holing is inherently inaccurate and I can see their logic since it is difficult to be precise. One gets used to the fact that it’s not half-holing but more accurately partial-holing, and that it will vary from whistle to whistle. Then muscle memory or autonomic response will develop with oft-used instruments to the point that it becomes very accurate.
In my opinion, you seek the holy grail and some truly great instruments are designed this way to bring out the best or emphasize other desirable characteristics. Just my two cents.
I don’t really mess with electronic tuners, but I don’t really understand the concept of flat but not flat. If it sounds flat, it’s flat.
If it sounds flat, it’s flat. True - But something only sounds flat compared to something else!
So what are you comparing it to?
A few thoughts:
Tuning is a relative thing - there really is no such thing as a perfectly tuned note, only notes that are in tune with each other.
Tuning to an A440 (or whatever your choice is) just gets everyone close, playing in tune is what happens after ‘tuning your instrument’.
Instruments (such as pianos or electronic keyboards) which have fixed ET tuning are in a way perfectly out of tune - and playing with one ( a piano) is a different experience (tuning wise) than playing with instruments that can adjust tuning on the fly (being played by good, sensitive players)
Speaking generally, and NOT specifically about your Chieftain, another option is to drill a thumbhole for C natural, and not mess with the C# hole at all. This way, you keep the cross-fingered C natural you like, and you have another option for C natural which you’re under no obligation to use.
Then, when you’re playing a sustained C#, just lift your thumb off the thumbhole. That should bring your C# right up to pitch.
I’ve done this with some off-the-shelf high whistles, and I find that it helps a lot, especially in the high octave.
Again, I’m not recommending that you perform surgery on your Chieftain. Talk to the maker about options.
Angelic (or Beaver, if you prefer!) … It might help us to hear a clip of your playing that whistle, in order to assess just how flat is flat that you’re hearing, and to compare it with the rest of your intonation.
the half holed C natural was weak and a bit off, so I did less cross fingering.
Sorry, do you mean more cross-fingering? If the half-hole is weak, I’d think you’d tend to favor cross-fingering.
And ditto what highwood said (and hans and ecohawk). If “in tune” to you means only 12-TET (Equal Temperament), then the solution may be to re-educate your ear and technique, not carve up your whistle.
I like the cross fingering because it’s snappier. My finger can’t move fast enough to go from a B to a C natural crisply. Does that change with practice? If that’s the case, losing the cross fingering wouldn’t be too bad.
I don’t understand your last sentence. Yes cross-fingering is snappier, because you can’t do a discrete transition between B and half-holed C-nat without a secondary articulation. Yes, quick cross-fingering is a matter of practice. But then your last sentence doesn’t follow.
Sorry. I meant that the cross fingered C natural was weak, so I half holed more on the whistles that had an in tune C sharp.
As for the other statement, I was saying that if one can, with practice, get a half-holed C natural to become snappy (comparable to the snappiness of the cross fingering) then losing the ability to cross finger the C natural (due to modifications making the C sharp in tune) might be an acceptable loss. Right now, I like having the cross fingering option, as my index finger is kind of slow at the moment.
I’ll try to get a recording done. For all I know, the C sharp could be spot on and everything around it might be sharp.
And as for my screen name, I came up with it years ago. I just put two words together kind of randomly for some website, trying to find something that wasn’t taken. I thought it was kind of funny. Later, some guy assumed I was a girl. I thought it was odd. Then I found out that beaver can mean something other than a furry woodland critter that builds dams. Ever since then, I haven’t cared. I use it anyway. You can call me AB, if you want to shorten it. Or you could call me Nathaniel, which is my name.
All notes seem a bit flat compared to a standard A=440Hz pitch tuning.
The whistle is non-tunable, right?
Can you push all notes more, to raise their pitch?
Perhaps your C# will be just fine then.
Silly Hans. That would mean the problem was me. As master and commander of all I survey, I categorically deny any fault of my own in this issue. However, since last night, it appears that someone or something altered my whistle and it now plays in tune.
But more seriouser, you may have a point. I did play around with pushing the whistle harder as I went up the scale, and coming closer to maxing it out at each note does help, both at the C sharp and at the very top end B (which always seems sharp). It’s like the whistle plays pretty much in tune with itself at a lower breath pressure until it hits those notes, and they respond a little differently (sharpening or flatting at slightly different rates).
This certainly makes for a louder whistle, and one that demands greater breath planning. I’m going to have to mess with this a while to see if I can do it without making it sound like a train is coming.
I agree with Hans on this. Each whistle needs a certain amount of air to play right on pitch. There is a small amount of room to play louder or softer. As you were pushing the whistle harder last night with more air, you also probably
warmed it to playing temperature. Cold whistles play flat. Wrap your fists around it and blow through till it feels warm then play. Depending on ambient temperature you may have to keep doing this. When you get to that high b you need to back off slightly with your breath to stop the train.
Warm the whistle.
Use more air to bring it up to pitch.
Back off air a little on the high notes.
Phil Hardy has contacted me, offering to look at the whistle an fix it. I’m going to try adjusting my breathing before sending it over the ocean, but it is nice that he takes notice of these things. Stuff like this makes me feel like this is where the rock stars hang out. I’ve been listening to Enda Seery’s Winding Clock and then he’s posting on the forum. I ask questions about the Chieftain V3 and I get an email from Phil Hardy. Pretty snazzy. And Jerry Freeman is a rock star too.
I dug out my Snark tuner just to get a better idea of what the whistle was doing when I was playing it. I first warmed up the whistle really well. The low D was spot on. Going up the scale, the notes tend to sharpen a little, but not too bad, and blowing softer can bring them into tune.
The middle D tends to be very sharp unless I back off a lot. THIS IS THE PROBLEM: The C sharp is flat at reasonable breath pressure. As it, going up and down the scale, there is an incremental increase or decrease in breath and volume. When I hit the C sharp, I need a lot more breath to get it to be in tune (and it sounds strained to me). Coming down the scale is even worse, because the middle D tends to blow sharp, so it emphasizes the flatness (or the abrupt volume increase).
The top B is a little sharp, but I can shade it a little by lifting my finger almost straight up. This makes some ornamentation difficult, but I think I can eventually get it down so it isn’t an issue.
I think I will send it to Mr. Hardy, but it will be a few weeks, at least. I’ve got a replacement D coming some time in the future (a Shearwater low D), so I’ll probably send it off when that one comes in, so I don’t have to go without during the Chieftain’s trans-Atlantic voyage.
