I prefer my Clarke’s to my Faedog. However, on my Clarke’s, my second octave is too breathy (the original more than the sweetone). I know Clarke’s are more breathy by nature, but what can I do to make the sound more “solid”? The warm tone of the Clarke’s make them much more enjoyable to play than the Faedog, but not having a clean second octave is killing me. So I’ve been playing the Faedog more lately. Because with the Faedog I hit clean second octaves, but I’ve noticed I really don’t like chiff. What can I do about this? Just keep playing the Clarke’s till I get better at the second octave?
Hi mattE,
I’m fairly new as well just a matter of months.
The advice I received from the forum was to just play the lower octave till you fingers
learn to go where you want them to, and then concentrate on the higher octave, worked for me.
All the best.
Even an original Clarke that has been tweaked is going to take more air than a Feadog.
To get solid requires the right breath support, on and un tweaked Clarke that my be substantial.
So there are two solutions.
One, buy a sweet toned whistle with low breath requirements.
Two, practice. Scales in particular. Two is far harder for most.
I noticed last night that, after using my faedog for a couple days, the breathy 2nd octave really tightened up on my Clarke. So I can only assume that playing the faedog forces me to correct something that I’m doing wrong. Maybe I’m actually blowig to hard into the Clarke on the 2nd Ocatave? I’ve noticed that the lower notes in the 2nd octave don’t ,so much require more breath, rather a change in my lips and throat.
BTW- I’ve been running scales on my whistles all morning. I do think that is the real answer to all my problems. Play scales, play scales, and then play some more scales. Thanks, God Bless
Have you tried Arpeggios?
I call them fun scales.
That’s much more fun, Thanks! I bookmarked that page, good stuff.