Cutting question!

Hi All.

I’ve now been playing the whistle for a year, that I’ve spend learning the whistle to know, trying out different whistles.
I’m now at the point where I’m cumfterbal :blush: (sorry about the spelling, hope you get the meaning) with the whistle so I’m beginning to take up ornamentations.
For now I’m working on cuts and i have a problem cutting the D, my book tells me to cut D with A, but I don’t think it sounds right/natural.
So.
What do You folks use to cut D??

Thanks :slight_smile:

Peter

I cut wth my ‘G’ finger for D. Not everyone does.

I use a G cut too.

If John cuts with the G finger, wouldn’t that be an A cut?

xxo xxx cut
xxx xxx D

:thumbsup:

Is it though? I’ll defer to you on semantics, but you’re not really playing an A either, since the F#, E and D hole are all covered. I can see why one would be inclined to call it an A cut, but I guess I don’t know the official names of all these things, which is why I chose to describe it as I did. And even that is fraught with uncertainty, since one could also say that the finger that covers the last hole that makes a G is not necessarily called a G finger.

Cut with T3?

That’s it, Adrian. Also Peter, sometimes with the vented D, it is difficult to get a clean cut using the standard method discussed in this thread. On some whistles, the cut is cleaner if one chooses not to vent the D, when cutting the note.

Not to confuse the issue…

Best to you.
Byll

This is an interesting one! I have noticed that some of the the thin-walled whistles tend to have a squeek problem with T4 - D cuts - specially Gens. It can be done with a whole bunch of practice. The trick seems to be getting the T4 vented just enough to interupt the note then closing it with sufficient speed to get some pop without bending the whistle. I imagine that after a few years of this, one will have either; a huge T4 cut muscle in their fore-arm or terminal RSI :laughing:

Peter try covering all the holes and cut with the F or E fingers

Hi.

Thanks for the advices everyone :slight_smile: .
I,ve done a litle experimenting and find that the one that sounds most natural (to me) and on the same time the easyest to play is Blaydos advise with all holes covered and cutting with the E finger. the most difficult about it is to remember to blose the top hole.

Thanks everyone.

Peter

Try also getting used to cutting it with the F finger, a combination of 2 quick cuts with the E then F fingers will later on give you a short cran or D roll.

Also don’t give up playing your high D with the top hole vented because depending on the whistle this can often sound better. It’s good to be able to do it both ways. Depending on the phrase you might often find it a lot quicker and easier to leave all the holes covered.

Thanks for the advice Blaydo.
Interesting effect with that twofinger cut, takes a bit of prakticing though. Well I’ve just been sacked for the winter (working as a gartner) so I’ve got a lot of time to practise at the moment.

Peter