Could you share with us the process you use to apply the de-clogging solution to the Clarke? I am curious, given the wooden fipple, how you apply it, how long you leave it on, do you rinse it/wipe it/ let it dry, etc.
Thank you!
AW
I prefer twerking.
Turn the whistle upside down and use an eyedropper to drip the solution into the windway from the window end. Then blow into the window to blow out excess liquid. Leave for a while to dry. I bought some cheap droppers from Ebay for this purpose, though I’ve also used old eye-droppers that used to contain drops for hayfever.
That specific advice came from a recorder maker website (Mollenhauer). The mix of one part washing-up liquid and three parts water came from either the Moeck or Mollenhaueur websites, though I can’t find it right now.
I tend to put my thumb over the end of the windway to keep the liquid in place as I drip it in, and then blow through the window to remove the excess. Using the window means that the liquid does not get into the rest of the instrument.
The general advice is not new to these boards and has been mentioned many times. The way it works is that surfactants in the washing-up liquid will cause any condensation in the windway to sheet off and not form droplets.
You can buy commercial anti-condense liquids (such as Duponol or those from various recorder makers), but the active ingredient is the same as in washing-up liquid.
Edited to add. PS
I should note that I do not use this solution on all my whistles, only a couple of them that benefit from it. It gets reapplied every few weeks, or when I remember, or before gigs. Just see how you get on.
From my experience, it’s generally because beginners don’t immediately make the whistle sound great, blame the whistle, and buy (or follow guides online to try to do) something that they hope will make the whistle better (without any effort on their part). But it’s also that when a tweaked whistle still costs less than $50, it’s not really a big deal to buy. So a lot of good musicians might just buy one that they tried and liked, or buy one just to try.
For me, I have several Generations, Feadogs, and others, all untweaked, that are all great. I might buy another whistle just to try it, and the pain of buying such an instrument is far less than the thousands needed for a good set of pipes or a flute…
I too think it’s mostly beginners that have been convinced cheap whistles need someone to overhaul them before they are playable. Which really is a load of nonsense. Convince people they will need this and they’ll buy it. So there you have a large part of your market.
Another side of some modifications is that they are not so much ‘fixes’ but revoicings. For example, over the past ten years or so I have had a Cillian O’Briain close at hand and it is a lovely little whistle. If I didn’t have any other whistles, I’d be fine with that. A few years ago one came up for sale on the forum and I jumped on that to have a spare, just in case. But Cillian is a fine player who knows what he wants from a whislte and he voices his accordingly. So that’s a whole different story.
Isnt the tweak where you fill the cavity done to make the octaves closer in tune? If so generally I’d call that an improvement, as long a it doesnt screw something else up. I havent done a whole lot of research on tweaking so I’m not 100% sure. But one of the reasons I don’t like my Feadog C, is the first and second octaves can be so far apart in the higher notes. I just did a test, and My xxo ooo (first octave G note) breaks as a sharp F#, and needs to be pushed way up to G. On my Reyburn G which I used to compare, the oxx ooo (is a D), breaks 18 cents flat, making it effortlessly blow into tune. And I dont believe the feadogs mouthpiece placement is off, just as a note haha. I’m obviously more used to playing whistles like the Reyburn over the Feadog. But I just see no reason to want the harder to play tuning. Easier to play just helps me sound better and focus on other aspects of playing well because I dont need to worry about tuning.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t play untweaked gen and feadogs. If you like how it sounds and plays go for it. Professional players obviously dont need it to be easier to play in tune as proven by their play. But I think a lot of people enjoy how tweaked and hand made ones play for a reason. And tweakers exist to fill that market.
I havent done a whole lot of research on tweaking so I’m not 100% sure.
If you read posts on the subject there’s a wide variety of opinions, but no agreement, on what the backfill actually achieves. It seems to act as a sort of panacea against all perceived ills.
I have never found it to have any beneficial effect on any of my whistles but there was an unpleasant dulling of the tone in some cases. YMMV ofcourse but I sometimes wonder if the effect isn’t merely psychological, it fixes whatever you want it to fix. A great placebo.
That’s my experience. I play music to be expressive, to take an adventure, to get going in the music, to explore the instrument’s possibilities. Playing a song live should feel like a two-week adventure with a storyline. I don’t want to spend any % of my effort or attention on fighting the instrument (at worst) or being speed-bumped or road-blocked by an instrument that can’t handle the full range of notes with uniform quality or has intonation or other breakdowns. For that reason, I refuse to play any instrument that’s not up to being a fully functional facilitator of the player. Along those lines I’ve sworn to never regularly play a “student” level flute again, because I have to fight it for expressive possibilities and intonation tends to be quirky above the second octave, and they all tend to have a muted tonal quality (except Jupiter and Yamaha). With whistles, I need the full range of tones from first octave to third to sound like one instrument, to have very good intonation and to not break down above the middle of the second octave, and certainly not into the third. Up there, a note should either play or not, I don’t want 7 scratchy notes that sound like a $2 toy.
It’s a rare exception to the rule, but they exist. I’m not too fussy about air requirements or volume differences between octaves, but tonal consistency is important. On one recording of a whistle tune I did, I used a Walton’s “Guinness” whistle, which is their “Little Black D” whistle with a “Guinness” beer label on it (can work as a beer straw when upside-down), which has a nice but thin tone and though the highest notes anywhere in the third octave start noticeably breaking with more windiness, the intonation is still good and I thought it had a peculiar and appealing character, so I found I could use that as a form of expression by pushing it the right way according to the musical phrase and making it like an exclamation point, a gesture, put some spice, some “english” on the phrase’s attack and follow-through. I didn’t stay up in the highest range for more than a few notes at a time, so it was quite successful. For much other music, I’d use a different whistle, according to the needs. It’s not necessarily a whistle I’d recommend as a first whistle, but if you got one, as a beginner, you’d probably like it more than some of the more common brands lowest priced models. I’d say it’s a medium-volume whistle.
So my advice to anyone wanting to play with a band, at a session, for expressiveness, for musical composing, for FUN with friends, to play with confidence that the instrument will work WITH you wherever you go, then you’re going to want an instrument that facilitates you exploring all your possibilities; you want the intonation to be no issue and the full range of notes has to be accessible, meaning two full octaves plus learning maybe another 5 or more notes in the third (and practicing that quite a bit, so you can nail them!). You WANT to listen to that thing like listening to a bird sing, and leap into the music. I don’t yet have advanced WhOAD, but after exploring YouTube reviews of whistles for years now, there must be at least 8 top pics of whistle brands in the alto to high range I’d be personally satisfied with, for them being fully functional, and not expensive at all, all mid-range priced. Other issues like air requirements, tonal preferences, clogging issues, volume, how many tone holes, keys, that’s your personal preference, but be sure it works WITH you. You owe it to yourself to demand that much of something you purchase for musical expression, and “personal expression”, isn’t that a precious value and experience!