I have a problem that I haven’t seen discussed here. Arthritis is setting into my fingers and when I play one of the typical metal whistles (Feadog, Sweetone, etc.) my fingers hurt terribly after a couple of minutes and I have to quit playing.
I’ve found that my Susato is a lot easier on the fingers. The slightly wider diameter relieves the strain of keeping the holes tightly closed.
So my question is - does anyone make a (high) D that is even wider
in diameter than the Susato?
If anyone else has had this experience, I would appreciate any tips
on coping with achy fingers.
Try a piper’s grip (yes, even on a soprano D whistle it works unless your hands are unusually large). This alone will pretty much erase the difference between a thin and a fat whistle.
Use good posture.
Raise fingers just far enough to cleanly uncover the holes. A lot of people “clinch” when they close the holes because they’re compensating for the finger being too far away to begin with. Many guitarists do the same thing. They raise their fingers too far from the strings, then “slam” them down when trying to finger notes quickly.
I watched Paddy of the Chieftans through binocs at a concert a couple of years ago – his fingers barely seem to leave the holes at all, they just kind of flutter above the whistle constantly.
Try to warm up with nonsense (i.e. scales and random fingerings) before playing. You may be clinching with the “effort” of playing the tune right. If you’ve warmed up good your hands won’t fatigue as quickly if you do happen to tighten up and “clinch” when you start playing tunes.
All the typical arthritis things, warm dry hands, a glucosamine supplement if it works for you, and so on. Oh, and a family sized bottle of ibuprofen…
Walton’s Mello D’s (not the regular D) are pretty fat - they use the same head and tube diameter as the Walton’s C whistle.
Others have mentioned the Dixon high D.
The Serpent Polly whistles are also pretty fat, and in the same price range as a Susato or Dixon. You can get one of these in Eb or F, too (check with Serpent, but I think they all use the same tube diameter).
First, when he states they are louder than standard whistles, he means it. They are well balanced, but just about as loud as a clarinet. The tone is quite nice and somewhat pure.
The second thing to note is the little MP3 file of a scale is fairly horrid sounding and doesn’t do his whistle justice. I have some better MP3s of this whistle:
I’ll second OutOfBreath’s recommendation to try piper’s grip… that would probably give your fingers more ease than a fatter whistle would.
If the Cronnolly soprano D has a 3/4" outer diameter as James said, then it is probably the largest available… I’ve never seen one even that large, with the exception of my most recent wide bore D/C prototypes.
After having to learn piper’s grip to manage a low D, I found it easy to apply similar non-fingertip style to smaller whistles. Plus, really fat whistles don’t look as pretty. (Yeah, well you guys probably don’t buy wine because of pretty labels either, but I do.)
I think his whistles sometimes take it on the head because people associate him with polymer flutes (“Oh! Cronnolly? Isn’t that the guy who makes the plastic flutes?”).
I have found his whistle to be quite good and it has some unique qualities that I’ve not found in any other whistle I’ve tried.
Just to mention there’s a 100-poundish (price, not four stones) M&E wood whistle for sale direct from the manufacturer on eBay right now. It says it’s cocus, but when I inquired, had answer it’s cocobolo (just as well, and matches the picture better).
I’d also suggest easing the grip by flattening the fingers…ie: pipers’ grip. Funny comment I heard once that might help you to mentally image the pressure you need - think of your whistle like it is made out of waffle cone. If you grip too tightly, it will crush under your fingers. That’s all the “pressure” you need. In fact, I’ve found I play the best when my fingers are only laying over the holes, not really exerting any pressure to speak of at all. It’s much easier to be quick, precise and controlled then.
