Hey all, I’m planning on picking up a Dixon Soprano D from The Whistle Shop soon and I was wondering if there is any advantage to getting the more expensive tunable over the nontunable.
I’ve got a few tunable Susatos but I’ve never adjusted them. I don’t really play in a group as I am the only instrument-wielder I know in my area. (anyone near Rochester NY?)
Is it worth the extra $8 out of my student budget to get a tunable? Why?
Thanks,
Beth
I have 4 Susatos: D, C, Bb & A. To my mind, even though they have a removable head, they are not really all that tunable. At least it hasn’t help on my whistles, but others on the board may have more experience.
I do take advantage of the tuning slide on my Dixon; it sounds best pulled out about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch.
Blaine
I too, have no need for a tuneable whistle. I do have one Dixon non-tunable soprano D and have ordered two more from TWS, which may give you a clue as to my opinion of them. They are loud, if that makes a difference to you.
They are loud, if that makes a difference to you.
Are the non-tunable louder than the tunable? I’ve got a tunable D Dixon, and it has a lovely sound, but not loud at all.
-brett
Unless you’re on a very tight budget, I don’t see the harm in paying a little more for the tunable, esp. since the Dixon tuning slide actually works. You never know when you’re going to be playing with guitars and keyboards that are slightly off in pitch.
I just rec’d my Tuneable Dixon High D and love it - It has a really nice sound and I think for the few extra $ is probably worth it.
Just my 2c
Gerry
Thanks Gerry and everyone who responded.
For those who have a tuneable Dixon (which I will probably get) - is there a best position to set the tuning slide when you are playing alone? Do I wander to someone’s piano and match the “D” or something? =)
I suppose a tuneable is easier to transport, too, since it can be split into two shorter sections.
Does anyone know if the whistle shop carries whistle cleaning supplies?
Yes, tune it to A440 if you can. Whenever you use a tuning slide to put an instrument out of the “factory” tuning, you’ll be using your lip more to get it in tune with itself, so if there’s no reason not to play at A440, then do!
You can tune to an in-tune piano, to a tuner, to the A440 tone on your metronome, to a whistle you know is in tune, or to a pitch pipe or tuning fork if you have one..
Yeah, I’ve got a program called Tune-It that should work.
The low A is the 440, though, right? Can someone give me an equivalent D or A for a soprano D whistle?
[ This Message was edited by: avanutria on 2001-08-20 12:36 ]
Piece of cake. Concert Pitch A-440 is Perfect 4th below the Soprano D whistle’s range. Thus, if you want the Frequency for A on the low octave of the whistle it would be 880 (440 x 2), the frequency for the A above that would be 1760 mhz (or 440 x 2^2).
Here are the frequencies for some other notes based on A-440. You’ll just have to multiply by 2 to get the next octave up.
Middle C: 262 mhz
C#: 277
D: 294
D#: 311
E: 330
F: 349
F#: 370
G: 392
G#: 415
A: 440
A#: 466
B: 495
Believe it or not, we had to memorize those numbers for our Musicology class… eek.
-Frank
Believe it or not, a Musicology class sounds very interesting to me, hehe
Thanks for the numbers! Now I will start memorizing them, 
Oh Gosh!!! Don’t do that! I needed that class for my major… Now go out and buy yourself a Tuneable Dixon (unless you’re a strapped for cash, starving student. Then buy a non-tuneable IF YOU MUST) and (Quoting Brian Lee)…
Enjoy the Music… (sorry, I had to say it)
-Frank
I have already placed my (tunable) order, my friend 
Thanks for the help!
On 2001-08-20 12:47, DrGiggles wrote:
Believe it or not, we had to memorize those numbers for our Musicology class… eek.-Frank
Frank, Isaac Asimov wrote a WONDERFUL article on how and why A got to be 440, how the scale was acheived, the possible origins of the do re mi syllables, etc. It’s in one of his collections, I think “Science Numbers and I”.
nevermind, I posted this in a new topic.
[ This Message was edited by: avanutria on 2001-08-22 18:21 ]
I love my Dixon tunables (D & C). I think they’re great whistles for the price.
One trick is to tune them up to a tuner. Then scratch a small groove on the inner barrel where it slides into the larger tuning barrel. It gives you a visual mark to adjust to in a loud environment. (Onless you’ve discovered one of those really rare entities, the quiet Irish Pub.)
The PVC isn’t subject to the expansions and contractions that metal whistles are so they aren’t affected by the weather as much.
Quick tuning to …
WhoA! on that one. OK, so I’ve never been to a Worlds Fair, nor stayed in a motel with an attached restaurant, but I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck either…
Explain that one to me: how can a tone of a specific frequency which, I assume, has existed for centuries be arbitrarily “assigned” a frequency. Are you trying to say that the tone for “A” was ie, 429 Hz and someone came along and said, “I know. Although we have no way of measuring frequency, lets changed the value to 440 cycles per second!”
Couldnt find a explanation in the link either..
I think you’re greening me!
BTW, to keep in topic, buy the tunable. Worth eating a couple of PB & J sandwiches for a few days.
Baroque pitch varied all over the map. There was no central agency to decide what concert pitch was, and there was considerably less moving between regions, so what mattered was that your A was the same A as the A of the people you were playing with. It didn’t matter if a player in France (A=392 for much of the Baroque – a modern G!) couldn’t play along with one of Bach’s organs (A=466!). It was common in the time for Baroque flutes to come with corps d’echange which would let them swap a body section to change their instrument’s pitch when necessary.
A=440 was the decision of the Paris Conservatoire in 1812 as a real standard for concert pitch, but even then it took a long time to catch on; A hovered around 435 for a ways after because of a competing standardization effort from Vienna. In 1925, the American music industry decided to standardize on A440; 1936 saw the ASA standardize on it, and 1939 an international standards body picked it up (I don’t think it was the ISO, although it may have been.)
Some (many?) Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical (era) performers, especially those on period instruments, tend to think that A440 is too high for the music, as it was usually written much lower (the A466 organs were the exception, not the rule); of course, they also face the problem of having to decide on some standard pitch so that period performers from different regions could play together. The standard – ad-hoc, as far as I know – is A415. A415 is a G# at A440, which means that they can tune off an A440 instrument if necessary, which I suspect was a contributing factor in deciding upon a pitch.
I’m afraid I don’t have a reference handy, although I’ll swing an incomplete B.Mus. around if it makes you feel better.
On 2001-08-25 23:23, rich wrote:
I’m afraid I don’t have a reference handy, although I’ll swing an incomplete B.Mus. around if it makes you feel better. >-Rich
Hey, I’m impressed, and I will buy it. Thanks for a very good explanation.
Stew