I don’t have a lot of money to buy or replace instruments. Recently, I unknowingly knocked my Susato Kildare whistle in high D off of my computer desk. Later, I stepped on it and broke the body in half! This was my favorite whistle, even though it got a little “shrill” when playing the highest notes. Otherwise it had a sweet, concise tone and was easier to play…as a former clarinet player…
I was heartbroken, but was determined to save at least part of it. I like the chromatic abilities of recorders…so, I had a soprano recorder that I liked, but I like the sound of penny whistles better. Unless playing in a “recorder consort” where the sounds of the various instruments blend together.
I tried putting the “head” of the D whistle on the bodies of other whistles and even on my old Gemeinhardt “transverse” flute.
I discovered that if I wrapped the “tuner” area of the Kildare D whistle with a small amount of adhesive tape, as with the “corking” on a clarinet, it would fit onto the body of the chromatic recorder. I think that recorders have a “tapered”, narrow-ish bore, as with some penny whistles ???, but with the fipple mouthpiece from the whistle on the recorder, it sounded like a pretty nice penny whistle to me, except for the chromatic tempered ?? tuning..
I was sort of shocked that it would play at all, but it put out a nice, clear, “un-recorder-like” sound and from what I could tell, with the tuner pulled out pretty far, it was playing in the key of C, in tune.
I have trouble playing the highest notes without them getting really shrill, while using the fingering of the Baroque recorder up there is just not “intuitive” to me. Anything above the high “A” above the staff.
So, while I’m sure that some purists would faint at my “hodge-podge” instruments, I am pretty happy with it.
Now, the main reason for this post…The recorder comes in three pieces, with a flared “bell” on the bottom end. It has the two, small, tone holes, side by side, to allow the playing of the low C and C sharp, rather than the larger tone holes on the notes above.
I can play the second octave C and C sharp with the Baroque fingering, but the low C and C sharp are very “airy” and might be off tune. It’s hard to tell with the voice being so airy. To even play those two low notes, I have to be very timid with the breath/intonation level. The D above them plays easily and has a nice sound.
I have read some tutorials on building whistles, but am not sure why those two low notes seem so different from all of the others. Maybe the mouthpiece draws a line there, but somehow I feel that those notes are fixable and playable with good speech.
My first impulse was to make the opening at the bottom of the “bell” a bit larger, but I already am mixing a cylindrical bore “head” with a tapered recorder bore. I thought about making the two small tone holes into one larger one, since half-holing to get accidentals is pretty natural to me.
Any ideas on how to “fix” those two lower notes? I was pretty fortunate to get my “Franken-fipple” instrument to play in tune and in all octaves to begin with. I thought about removing the bell altogether and putting the bottom of the whistle down there, but the whistle was tuned to Diatonic “D”…And how to attach it to the middle half of the recorder body.
I should just replace the Susato instrument, but I am so broke right now and have lots of “health care” expenses.
Help???
That’s interesting! I never heard of putting a whistle head on a recorder body.
I would imagine that it’s still a recorder, still requiring recorder fingerings.
Just like sticking a Low D whistle head on a Boehm flute still requires using Boehm fingerings.
I did sort of the opposite. I had a Susato F whistle and one day I noticed the bore ID was identical to that of a Bb Clarinet.
So I stuck the Clarinet mouthpiece and barrel joint on the F whistle body, and sure enough it plays nicely! Sort of an Irish duduk.
I drilled a thumb-hole in the back though, so I got a full octave. I didn’t have much success overblowing it, due to me NOT being a clarinet player!