I posted last night about the thumb damage endured wrestling with my latest acquisition. I first named my malaise ‘Low A Thumb’ a ‘Mod’ added at the bottom of my post that I was referring to ‘a Bass ‘A’ an octave below a Low ‘A’ (duly chastened I’ve since amended)
However is this entirely accurate? Surely for a whistle to be designated ‘Low’ it has to have a ‘High’ equivalent (this applies to ‘Low’ G/F/E/Eb/D/C/Bb that all have a ‘High’ sibling)
If the ‘A’ an octave above mine is considered ‘Low’ where is the ‘High A’? The highest whistle I have ever seen was a miniscule Generation ‘G’, surely there can’t be anything higher? (Please correct if I’m wrong)
According to Goldie’s site, who has the biggest range I’ve seen the so called Low ‘A’ is listed with his ‘High Whistles’
There is no sense in bucking the nomenclature trend that has been in use for a long time. You outbid me and a few others for what is generally called a bass A. A low A is a tiny little thing compared to that drainpipe you won. The reason you have never seen a high A is that they are only used in rodent extermination and are otherwise outlawed by the Geneva Conventions. They are so small that only dogs can see them. Whistles don’t follow that SATB thing like those fipple flutes that shall not be named.
I am not attempting any ‘bucking’ of ‘nomenclature’ or anything else. I’m a relatively new whistler (less than three years) who is confused by the often contradictory designations used
Again using the Goldie’ site as a reference my ‘drainpipe’ is indeed listed as ‘Bass’ but comes under the ‘Low’ pricelist. The one an octave above is under the ‘High’ pricelist?
Does a ‘High A’ seriously exist Fea? Surely not, I had a go on a ‘High G’ once and it hurt my fillings it was so high
‘Rodent extermination’ … now there’s a thing I’ve never had a rodent problem in my home in 20 years but in the Summer I rescued a small cat that was being neglected/abused by his purported owners (I named him NDC = Next Doors Cat) I now receive rodent ‘gifts’ daily
How do I get a ‘High A’ without falling foul of the Geneva Convention?
There’s no universally agreed-upon terminology. But historically, the high whistles are defined by the standard Generation set: G F Eb D C Bb. With the advent of low D whistle and the rest, the keys from the Gens down through one octave below the Gens have usually been designated low. Below low Bb, the term bass (or low-low) is unambiguous.
Accordingly, I dare say that 99% of whistlers will interpret “low A” as the whistle immediately below the Generation range.
That there’s no Gen high A is just historical accident. Playability is obviously an issue, though offset holes à la Garklein recorder could help overcome too-tight hole spacing. I do have a high-high F (one octave above the Generation F). Yes, it is tiny.
Oh I see now, I never realised that the Generation model set the standard but knowing that it becomes somewhat clearer
Thanks for that
Good friend of mine adores the Gen ‘F’ to me it sounds like scratching nails down a blackboard (remember that from schooldays?)
I recently had a very nice ‘Low A’ from new maker Shearwater, beautiful little whistle but even that was too small for my inordinately large hands and still a little ‘High’ for my taste (years of Baritone Sax have me very ‘Low’ biased)
Just for a bit of fun I made a “High” A, it’s 18cm from the window to the far end, with an 8mm bore. Using “normal” fingering I can’t play it, but by using the second, third and “pinky” fingers on each hand I can just about reliably cover the holes, then all it takes is an extreme of concentration to coax a basic melody from it
Offsetting the holes wouldn’t have helped (much), the holes are all just too close together for my fingers.
I don’t usually have too much problem with rodents … maybe living on the third floor has something to do with that … mind you, the downstairs neighbour’s cat doesn’t visit as often as she used to
A 1%'er here! If its good enough for the alphabet to start on A, then its good enough reason for me for to start groups of whistles from A.
Keep it simple high/high, high, low, low/low. Otherwise we’ll finish up having sopranos, subcontra bases and the like, and we don’t want that now, do we!
No surprise, Eric. Everyone knows that Ozzies do things upside-down. In fact, when you say high whistle, you probably mean low whistle!
Of course, the basic uninflected note range is C to C, not A to A, again thanks to historical accident. So if anything, C might be the natural dividing point, with high C whistle and above as the high range etc. This would also mesh nicely with Scientific Pitch Notation: high whistles starting at C5, low whistles at C4, and bass whistles at C3.
But I still like the Generation range approach. It’s something concrete and meaninful to whistle players, and it acknowledges the importance of the Gen whistles to the history of modern whistling. Unfortunately, the reasons for the Gen choice of pitches is also lost to history - at least until someone rediscovers the secret Codex Generationis hidden along with the Holy Grail in a hollow tree trunk in Oswestry.
I agree about the other naming schemes, though. Applying recorder labels etc. always seemed forced to me. It’s fine for instruments with discrete voices clustered at particular pitches, C/F, Bb/Eb, etc. But with whistles in every possible chromatic key over a range of 2 octaves … not so much. Not to mention the oddness that a Bass G whistle, for example, has the same pitch range as a violin, the Soprano voice of the viols.
Different strokes, of course. But to my ear the Gen F is a very sweet little whistle. Certainly mine is.
Actually, consider that the (Gen) Eb whistle seems quite popular especially in recordings. Perhaps because it’s a wee bit brighter than D and a touch more agile. For example, the majority of tracks on Mary Bergin’s two Feadoga Stáin albums are recorded with Eb whistle (18 of 29 tracks). And without perfect pitch, you wouldn’t necessarily notice it’s not a D.
F is only one step up, and Mary’s 4 high F whistle tracks on FS1 don’t qualify as nail scratching.
I’d put up a clip of my Gen F if this rotten flu I’ve still got didn’t have me under the weather.
Funny, I also played Bari Sax for around 15 years, and I’ve never been particularly attracted to the low whistle. It seems to me that the high whistle has a unique voice in the Irish trad instrumentarium, And learning to exploit that uniqueness properly is a challenge I most enjoy.
It’s hard to imagine your hands are so monstrously big. I have medium-large male hands: my middle finger measures 9 cm from base to tip, and 1 cm across at the nail. My hand breadth at the base of the fingers is also 9 cm. And even I can handle the tiny high F whistle, not to mention a spacious stick like a low A. But if it’s just a matter of your preferred feel, then fair play.
The generation G is very good for complex upper register parts in D or G that require a lot of articulation.
Thats what I use it for but the holes are very close together and I have big fingers.
Its very useful to have one. I also used it to replace the clavioline solo in my veriosn of Simon and Garfunkles The Boxer.
Generation did, at some point and for a while, make a low G (listen to the Kitty’s gone a milking set Mary B’s first).
During the early eighties French makers of instruments Camac did a whistle range going down to A, possibly G. At the same time the Hohners were in the shops, they extended further down but I can’t remember how far, G was the lowest I got at the time.
Ah, interesting. That track is the odd one out. The tunes are pitched in Db/Ab on what seems to be an Ab instrument. Never could quite figure that out.
Hmm … I wonder if this means that the recording was sped up a half-step, as was sometimes done back then.
Ah, interesting. That track is the odd one out. The tunes are pitched in Db/Ab on what seems to be an Ab instrument. Never could quite figure that out.
It was listed on the cover as ‘low G’ and was elsewhere quoted as one of the Generation Gs. But who knows.
… mind you, the downstairs neighbour’s cat doesn’t visit as often as she used to 
