How many of you whistlees hold the whistle in your teeth while playing?
I ask this because some of the whistles that come back for adjustment have some serious teeth makes on them.Also Mike McGoldrick is an ardent teeth gripper,I used teeth grip to when I first started as I didn’t know any better but stopped when I realized that the Overton I was using was wareing away.
Phil.
Not me-- it’s totally unnecessary and damaging to the whistle. I think it also interferes with a relaxed playing style. Just a moment ago I picked up a whistle and tried it and found it irritating as heck.
I used to teeth grip…
When I started playing whistles with alloy mouthpieces, I gave it up 
Though I still grip sweetones in my teeth…dunno what it is about them.
I don’t teeth grip my whistles, but sometimes when playing fast my Feadog hits my teeth… I think it may have something to do with the weight of the whistle and/or the size of the mouthpiece as this doesn’t happen with my aluminum whistles wich are heavier, and also have a bigger mouthpiece.
I have tried it a few times but did not bite hard enough to leave marks.
I wanted to see what it did for holding a whistle. My whistle grip now is mostly my right ring finger pushing down and my left thumb being a fulcrum pushing the fipple up to my mouth. My right pinky finger does not touch the whistle. Reading this may sound like there is a lot of pressure involved but it is only slight.
I grip the whistle with my teeth. I’ve developed this habit from playing saxophone. I grip the whistle with my teeth lightly enough to barely leave any marks on the mouthpiece. I have some whistles that I’ve been gripping with my teeth for years and nothing more than a slight dent can been seen on the mouthpiece. I can’t even image how hard people bite down on the mouthpiece to damage it so bad the whistle can’t be played, or the timbre of the instrument is compromised. Must be a very “active bite” as compared to my “passive grip.”
I also played Saxaphone and Clarinet for years, and so am used to putting my top teeth only
on a plastic mouthpiece. It just comes from years of burned-in habit. My first SweeTone has a dent
where the teeth go. I don’t think it’s a pressure thing, necessarily, but a scraping, over time, as the
teeth move around slightly while playing. I am trying desparately to give up this habit, but it’s tough for
me (I gave up metal whistles because I couldn’t keep my teeth off and the feel of metal on teeth
drove me crazy).
Now that I have read the Larsen book, I have been trying to give this up so that I can follow his
advice on emboucure. If you have the whistle so far in your mouth that you can put your teeth on
the mouthpiece, then you are going to have a hard time controlling the flow of air the way
Grey suggests…
I used to, and judging from some of the used whistles I’ve gotten, so did a lot of others… I also stopped when I realized the devastating damage it was inevitably going to do.
I learned to play re** **er when I was little, so I was taught to not bite it. Tell those people to play a Shaw or Clarke for a month or so, and then see if they bite their whistles still. I just tried it, and it is sooooo uncomfortable on those type of whistles. On others it is bearable at least.
Now that I have read the Larsen book, I have been trying to give this up so that I can follow his advice on emboucure. If you have the whistle so far in your mouth that you can put your teeth on the mouthpiece, then you are going to have a hard time controlling the flow of air the way
Grey suggests…
I don’t understand, and I didn’t see that in the book. I read it as saying that your teeth should just not touch the whistle. For me (and my large overbite), it is impossible for my lower lip to cover the whistle if the whistle is in front of my top teeth.