Hi guys, to those who owns a low whistle in F* which fingering do you use for the 2nd octave of F?
a) oxxxxx
b) xxxxxx (blowing harder)
I’m asking this because I’ve got a Goldie in F and when I jump from the lower octave to the higher octave I can’t get a pure pitch using the xxxxxx fingering, and it feels more like a mix between the lower and the higher octave.
Thanks in advance for your feedback!
*I really don’t mind if it’s a Low in F or any other key…
Either will work and are used in practice. It depends on the context of the note in the tune mostly.
My preference on any whistle would be to use OXX XXX as the second octave note, especially on the long notes. It offers a cleaner, fuller, richer and more balanced tone and it speaks more easily. With that fingering there is no doubt about what note you are sounding, the physics dictates it.
The XXX XXX is still used a lot however. Sometimes it is simply more motion efficient to not lift the LH1 finger to play the note when the notes preceding and/or following it may require that the LH1 finger remain down.
On the other hand if you are using OXX OOO for the flatted seventh note preceding or following the root then the OXX XXX fingering may be more motion efficient.
Feadoggie
oxxxxx would be the recommended way to play first octave D (F, or whatever key you’re having) although you can get away with xxxxxxx in a lot of cases (depending a bit from what direction you approach the note), with s less clarity of tone and a higher risk of breaking the note (as you are experiencing).
x posted (or is that oxxxxx posted?)
Hi, my hobby is making whistles (http://www.redheadwhistles.com) and the best fingering I always use is oxxxxx …on any whistle in fact when playing the upper octaves.
I have an “F” …nice mellow tone …hope that helps.
While oxx xxx is the official/correct/academic fingering, decades of fluteplaying made me appreciate and use xxx xxx more and more due to its more percussive quality.
I use both, I’ve always used both, and as people say it’s a matter of context.
To take a simple example, play the 2nd part of The Kesh Jig using both. On a flute or Low Whistle you can play all those Middle Ds closed and “push” them, giving a nice syncopated drive to the tune.
To me something is lost in some tunes when the Middle Ds sound like the rest of the notes.
I don’t play Low F much, but the Low F that I do have is a Burke which of course lends itself to pushing Bottom D and Middle D, those being the most powerful notes on the thing.
Hey, thank you for your feedback guys!
The thing is that I’ve always played high whistles (mainly D ones) and getting a pure high D by using XXXXXX is quite easy (so I got used to this one), but the thing changed when I moved to low whistles, I guess I’ll have to learn which fingering to use depending on the context. All of you have given me great ideas and I’m going to put them into work right now.
I’ve always played OXX XXX on my low whistle but when connecting two high D notes by a cut, I prefer the sound that comes from XXX XXX.
One thing that’s perhaps esoteric is that gracenotes played on Middle D come out differently according to whether Hole 1 is open or closed.
When Hole 1 is open, gracenotes on Middle D (on my whistles anyway) come out below D, when Hole 1 is closed they come about above D. I don’t know what the actual pitches are.
This gives “rolls” on Middle D two different possible sounds. (These aren’t “rolls” per se but crans consisting of only two cuts, which could be called short crans or semicrans I suppose.)
Also, and this is the esoteric part, you can start a “roll on Middle D” with Hole 1 shut and open it halfway through, making the first gracenote above D, the second gracenote below D, which sounds like a proper roll on Middle D.
I play fake rolls on Middle D with the oxx xxx fingering, cutting with R3 then L3. Sounds like a real roll, is easy.
oxx xxo usually sounds as C natural (it’s not my favorite Cnat cross-fingering though, oxx xox gives better results on most instruments). But if it’s just a quick cut in the middle of a D (oxx xxx), it sounds like an E for some reason. shrug