I got a used Goldie Low D and it sounds just nice.
But i have an issue that i can’t fix with my playing.
If go to the high D or E, there is a short squiking noice before it gets to the right tone.
It happens if i go up from C to D, with or without tonging.
It doesn’t matter if i change my air pressure at the beginning of the tone (if i go to low, i don’t get the high note, if i go to hard i reach the overtone A)
I never had this issue with any of my other whistles. I have an MkPro low D, a Susato Low D at home and i can not reproduce the issue on this whistles.
I cleaned the whistle properly, the mouthpiece with a piece of paper to get everything out of it but nothing changed. And it don’t makes a difference if the whistle is cold or heated up already.
It does not happen if i’m already on the high D and play the same note with tonging without any break. As soon as i make a short break between the two notes, i get a short squik.
So i asking myself, if there could be an issue with the Whistle.
Does anyone of you made this experience with one of your whistles? Did you find out whats the problem?
it’s in the 2nd octave.
pretty weired, never had this issue either.
So i’m at the point, that its an issue with the instrument… i’m just curious what it could be.
maybe i make a record and send it to collin Goldie. Maybe i’m lucky and he reads it and has the time to answer…
My Goldie High D actually has the same issue when going from Cnat to D, or (to a lesser extent) when going from C# to D. There’s an annoying squeak as it transitions notes. It’s even worse the other way around, when descending from high D to Cnat or C#. I actually have a few whistles that do this, but my Goldie High D is the worst offender.
Thankfully, I’ve found that as long as I give the C# or Cnat a big burst of air right as a I transition to or from it, I can avoid the squeak (it helps that I use an alternate fingering for Cnat, so it doesn’t go sharp). It took some practice to get it to stop squeaking, but now it basically doesn’t squeak at all, and I’ve stopped thinking about it. My Goldie is my favorite high whistle, so developing the muscle memory to get around this strange weakness of the whistle was easily worth it.
I have a low F Goldie whistle that has started to do this too. It didn’t used to do it, but now it does.
I’m pretty sure its me, not the whistle.
I’ve had some hand surgeries recently to treat a severe case of Dupuytren’s contracture – an incurable hereditary disease that affects the hands and particularly the fingers. I lost the use of my hands for a couple of years and couldn’t play any more, but now, after the surgeries I can play again. Woohoo! But, my hands are much less flexible than they used to be. Hence, it is sometimes hard to cover the tone holes accurately. I’m having to retrain my hands and I’m working against a lot of scar tissue and limited flexibility.
This is particularly problematic with my right hand ring finger, and to a lesser extent the middle finger. I have found that I sometimes inadvertently get a slight leak, temporarily, as I close those tone holes. Its just brief, but I think this is what causes my Goldie to squeak on the transitions to those notes.
As I said earlier, I’m sure it is me not the whistle, because it used to work fine, and its an aluminum whistle with really nothing that can deteriorate or change. I’m sure it didn’t change sitting in the drawer while I was waiting to get the use of my hands back.
But, I’m curious to understand why the Goldie seems to be a bit more susceptible to this behavior than some of my other whistles and flutes. I’m sure I have the same inaccuracies on other instruments, but they don’t seem to squeak as readily for some reason.
I know you’ve said you cleaned it with a piece of paper, but I would probably also try soap and water on the mouthpiece. Unwaxed dental floss put through the windway can also help to really clean the sides if there are any tricky bits. I don’t think I’ve experienced it myself with my Goldie whistle, but might have to go and play it tonight to see. You’ve certainly got others reporting similar sounding things.
Also, Colin is very nice so you should definitely email him if it remains a problem and post again to tell us how you resolved it.
Goldie whistles come with different windway depths, so it’s probably hard to generalise across all of them. It seems more likely a small change in technique is needed, though, than that there’s an underlying problem with the whistle.
It might be one of several things: not-quite-exact combination of air speed and pressure at the transition; not-quite-complete hole sealing; not-quite-right embouchure on high notes; not-quite-right angle of hold (letting the end of the whistle droop down too close to your body, which can mean your lip is partly obstructing the air flow).
I’ve sorted out several squeaks by changing one or more of those things, though I can’t remember now which of them worked best for this.
If you suspect tightening the embouchure might help, try playing one of tunes where you get squeaks with the whistle beak pushed further into your mouth (not a long way, just a few millimetres). If that helps, it might worth doing some experimentation with embouchure.
Adjusting to most low whistles tends to take much longer than high ones. It just seems to a feature of the instrument — one that’s never going to be perfect because it’s basically a two-foot-long bundle of compromises.
I’d second paddler’s thought – to check and make sure that all holes are properly sealing and that they’re sealing at the same time. I find that with my thin-walled whistles, I get squeaks if one finger lands even slightly later than the others.
Going from the high D to the high E, I’d maybe try lifting your right finger intentionally quickly so that the rolling upward is kept as short as possible. (When you lift off your finger from a tone-hole, there’s that brief period when the finger is far enough away for air to escape, but close enough for it to influence pitch. That’s what I’d try to shorten as much as possible.)
Alternatively, you might see what results you get going the other way – intentionally rolling up from the D to the E, and seeing if you still get the squeak there.
(Mind you, I’ve never actually played a Goldie, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt )
You guys have got me second-quessing myself so here I have my Goldie Low D and Goldie Mezzo F in front of me.
I’ve tried, but I can’t get either whistle to make any untoward sounds going from either 1st octave C natural or 1st octave C# to either Middle D or 2nd octave E.
People have mentioned going to High D, about that I can’t say, I don’t go into the 3rd register.
About Goldie whistles higher than F, I’ve never owned any.
I’ve been playing that Goldie Low D for several years now and I have done the toothpaste thing a couple times.
The Goldie Mezzo F I’ve not had long enough to require that treatment.
I can’t get any squeals of out it now, but I did when I first got it.
Once you’ve made little adjustments to get the best out of a new instrument, it’s quite hard to unlearn them. Often you can’t even explain what you did, it’s instinctive.
It took me a while because I wasn’t an experienced low whistle player. The biggest issue was that I was only used to plastic mouthpieces, and I couldn’t get through a 32-bar tune without having to stop to blow metal ones out. I no longer get clogging issues, but haven’t a clue why. It just gradually stopped.
I think if I were worried it might be the whistle rather than me, I’d try and get a more experienced play to see if they had the problem. But it might be easier said than done if you haven’t got a session in your area.
In my experience with Goldie whistles (I’ve had 4 low Ds over the years), they tend to require more attention to airflow + hole coverage than virtually any other make of whistle, particularly when just getting accustomed to a specific whistle. However, once I’ve spent enough time with it, really getting acquainted with what it requires from me as a player, Colin’s whistles are in a league of their own – which of course, is why his instruments are preferred by pros and amateurs alike. The narrow-bore low D I have now in particular has certain idiosyncrasies to it, but once I find the right airflow, it really sings. In a conversation I once had with Colin, he explained that there’s a type of embouchure that’s needed to get the most out of a whistle, and that most people naively think that merely by blowing into it without paying attention to how you produce airflow into the windway is enough. So, you might experiment with your embouchure to see if it helps.
I’d suggest playing only the Goldie for a good while (you didn’t mention just how long you’ve had it), make it your monogamous whistle and really get accustomed to it. I do find that when I haven’t played my Goldie for a bit, I sometimes have to make subtle adjustments to my playing technique to get back in sync with it.
But as was mentioned above, I also think a phone call (rather than email) to Colin would be wise. Looks like you’re in Switzerland, so perhaps even sending it over to him for a checkup would be worth it. https://www.colingoldie.de/impressum.html
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