Just bought an aluminium whistle Low G whistle on eBay, a respected make (not Goldie, MK or Burke) and the equivalent of the C# (all holes uncovered) is VERY sharp. Cnat is fine with OXXOOO but I can’t half-hole it. Is there anything I can do to bring the C# down?
You can try ooxxxxx or any other combination of fingers down and a bit of shading to bring it down. Or/and ease of the blowing. If that doesn’t work you can tape the hole to bring it in but then your Cnat will probably go. Compromises compromises.
Is there anything inside the bore that shouldn’t be there?
That would probably flatten it. Which is the way pipers tune their regulators so that may work if all else fails: a blob of blue-tack of appropriate size at the site of the hole (or slightly north) to narrow the bore locally may bring the note in. It may also affect other notes and have other effects but no harm in trying.
Yeah, it’s hard to tell. I’m confused because, IME, if a whistle’s C# is out of tune it’s flat. I’ve never seen a whistle with a sharp C#. Plus, if the C# is sharp, I’m also puzzled to hear that OXX OOO is on pitch–it should be sharp too, I would have thought. That’s what led me to wonder if there was something odd inside the bore.
How does the C# respond to fingerings such as OXO OOO, OOX OOO, or OOO XXX?
Correct me If I am wrong… but on most flute or whistle the 7th note or ooo-ooo fingering is usually flat around -10 to -20 cents.
And it sounds just right to my ears. I think it is called Just Intonation, which I prefer.
And a flat 7th note is easy to correct by blowing a little harder.
I would prefer a whistle that is flatter than sharper on that area.
I agree on covering the lower 3 holes OOO-XXX.
Atleast you just have one note in sharp. A conical tapered whistle I have has bothering sharpness on the second octave.
Mentioning the make of the whistle might make it easier for people who have experience with that specific whistle type to chime in on the matter.
Also, is it possible that you might be blowing it too hard on that note? Perhaps blowing the C# a bit softer might fix the issue and bring it down to tune.
A sound clip might be useful, too.
Try tuning the whistle to the C# rather than the D (seriously) and see how the rest of the scale falls then.
Interesting thoughts. Thanks guys. I have a busy day ahead but will consider your ideas and get back to you.
I would tape the c# and overblow for the c natural, if that doesn’t work and the rest of the whistle is in tune I’d just throw it away and get one that is.
…you’ll probably find a flat c natural easier on the ear than a sharp c#…
Or, could it be that this is one of the rare whistles that has an in-tune ET C#, and to your ear it sounds sharp because you’ve been conditioned to a C# that’s 20-25 cents flat of ET?
i always play C# as ooo oox
how is the intonation on that?
i bought a nice whistle from a maker that i normally like, but this particular whistle had a very sharp (40-50 cents) cross fingered Cnat, which was a deal breaker for me. i do like to 1/2 hole Cnat as often as i can, but there are still plenty of times i use the cross fingered one.
i replaced that whistle with a Burke, and am very happy.
very unusual to have a “very sharp” C# and an in tune cross fingered Cnat (0XX 000) - usually the Cnat tends to be sharp to very sharp with an in tune (ET) C#. So one would expect that a very sharp C# would result in a very, very sharp Cnat perhaps even an almost in tune C#!
There of course may be things going on internally that somehow cause this - in the right (wrong?) place a surprisingly small perturbation to the bore can make a big difference
A recording and/or a brand name would help people help
@dspmusik
as you probably know closing the bottom hole usually makes virtually no difference to pitch to C# or B and many players do it partially to help stabilize the instrument - so 000 00X, X00 00X - even 0XX 00X for A is barely different. But try those fingerings in the second octave…
Getting a usable cross fingered Cnat in my experience making whistles is a matter of tuning the C# flat of ET (I prefer JT anyway) and picking the correct size of holes. I chased getting the perfect Cnat over several iterations of whistle tubes a few years back but gave up (I did get an in tune Cnat but other things did not work). Now I optimize for other things and have ended with a pretty good Cnat after all, funny how things work out!
But try those fingerings in the second octave…
The effect in the second octave of this type of fingerings depends on the diameter of the whistle. Whistles using wider tubes don’t tolerate these fingerings very well, on the narrow ones there are no problems at all.
Thanks for all the input. I’ve learned a lot from it. Bizarre though it is, the whistle seems suddenly fine and I don’t think I’m doing anything different. I certainly don’t think it was overblowing. Goodness knows what the answer was. Something blocking it that’s now gone? Dunno!!
Couple of days ago I picked up an Oak hi-D and tried upper octave X00 000 / X00 00X and indeed no change/problem same fingering on a 1/2" CPVC whistle results a much sharper B with X00 00X (that is correct sharper - so sharp that it is not really a B, at least a quarter tone higher)
I’m in the middle of reorganizing my workshop and I just uncovered a Generation C and a couple of C CPVC whistles of slightly different bores but both narrower than the Gen. On both CPVC whistles X00 00X was sharper than X00 000 in the 2nd octave; on the Gen C there was no difference. So it seems that bore size is not the cause. My working theory is that it is the tube thickness that matters; thin wall = no problem.
I wasn’t talking about differences in pitch, in my experience with wider bore D whistles (not low ones) ‘lazy fingerings’ more often than not made notes break, necessitating ‘textbook’ fingering (i.e. take all fingers below the note played off). In some cases the walls were thicker, in some not. But they all had some second octave notes notes that wouldn’t tolerate keeping lower hand finger down. For that reason I reached the conclusion it was indeed the bore diameter causing the problem. YMMV though.
I suspect that with most diameter/thickness combinations, there will be hole layouts that cause problems with the high oooooo, ooooox, xooooo, and xoooox fingerings. I’ve seen at least one production whistle that needed ooooox to make the high C# speak properly.
Wider bore whistles have lower Q factors at the higher notes, which might make them more problematic in this regard. (Just speculating.)