Okay, so I was Googling slide whistles - don’t ask - and in the course of my search decided to see what Wikipedia had so say. Yes, I was pretty bored. Anyway, the entry had this:
(like the clarinet, the only closed-end, cylindrical Western orchestral instrument)
My eyes are still all blinky.
Well, are you going to fix it, or what?
Fix? I think my clarintetist friends should know the truth after all this time.
Leave them in the darkness. Serves 'em right for choosing the claminet.
written by a clarinet player no doubt
…could have at least added woodwind ta that orchestria thing.
them brass players ain’t gonna like that.
Looks like the revision of 2 December 2005 by Gary Cziko was responsible for that gem. Much of it seems to need a re-write. I will edit it a bit later (unless someone else does) but is does not seem like letting it sit for a while longer will hurt anything.
I’m amazed. I always thought those things were called “Calliope Flutes”.
(like the clarinet, the only closed-end, cylindrical Western orchestral instrument)
Yep. What’s the problem? Acoustically closed pipes overblow at the twelfth as opposed to the octave, right? What am I missing?
I was under the impression that clarinets were not “closed-end” instruments.
That is the crux of my unease. That, and how can there be two “the only closed-end” wind instrument (singular intentional)? Of course the whole thing can be chalked up to careless punctuation and delivery. Or not.
I think the implication was that only the clarinet is an orchestral instrument and the slide whistle isn’t.
I was intrigued by the idea of a slide saxophone so I looked it up. Here’s something to take to the session. http://www.nununugent.com/Triborg.htm
And here’s one for sale.
I wasn’t getting that, seriously.
Well, reading a little more than I initially did, the article said the slide whistle had been used by classical composers. The article also mentions the Hoosier Hot Shots. I remember hearing them on the radio when I was about three or four years old. My grandfather listened to all the barn dance shows from Cincinnati and Chicago. “Are you ready, Hezzie.”
It’s the mouthpiece end that’s acoustically closed. Has nothing to do with real open- or closed-ness, just where the nodes and antinodes of the soundwaves lie. Puts them in the same category as ocarinas, whiskey-jugs, many organ stops, and Swanee whistles. Yes, there is a sonata for slide-whistle (PDQ Bach, from the Yakima years), but you’ll probably find a concerto for bodhran if you look hard enough.
I would never have guessed.
even odder than the 3rd finger on the top hand closes the “A” hole, innit? 
I’ll have to trust you on that one, too. I admit it: I never played a clarinet.
oh…well in one octave it does finger pretty much normal like…
I ment a D flute/whistle/whatever folk nomenclature
I played a clarinet for three months before I switched to saxophone. A wretched instrument, that one.
bit lighter, eh?
'course ya don’t get that keen neck strap.