Hello, I’ve got a gig coming up in March that calls for a low C# whistle. I have only been able to find very expensive ones or ones that will take too long to get to me with shipping, tariffs, customs, etc.
Ideally I would like to commission a cheap PVC whistle to be made somewhere domestically.
Is there anybody who might be able to recommend a solution?
Thank you,
I’ve had good luck with Daniel Bingamon. He’s a member here.
He’s made a few oddball requests for me.
Good luck 
Thanks for your reply. Do you have any recent contact info for him? These links seem to be mostly broken.
I’ll try to dig up the email I used previously and send you a PM here on C&F.
In the meantime, you could PM him. His username here is “Daniel_Bingamon”.
Michael Burke makes them, they’re not cheap but play great.
You might also check with Nick Metcalf. https://www.irishwhistle.com/
Been a little while since I checked in on here, glad the new layout had an easy way to get logged back in.
Anyhow, I can get one made up as a tunable or non-tunable if you need. Had made up a non-tunable low C back around Christmas time, video for it can be found on my YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/shorts/1EvOskKSoNY?feature=share
Details for what I’d have for pricing: Pennywhistles, presentation cases, and more by HHFI
geleybou,
I just sent you a PM w contact info for Daniel.
geleybou,
Just out of curiosity, what circumstance calls for a low C# ?
A particular tune ? A particular accompanying instrument ?
Thanks very much.
Thanks Trill,
I am not sure of the specifics for this whistle actually because I have yet to see the sheet music. In my experience, musical theatre often has numbers in various keys, some with a lot of key changes. But I do know it is used to play in C# and F# in the show.
I think the orchestrators understood that its a diatonic instrument and just slotted in whatever whistle they thought made sense. But having discussed this with other people who have played the show already, some of the choices don’t make sense, and would be better played on other whistles, different registers, that sort of thing. Apparently the C# whistle shows up 4 or 5 times though. Most of the show is on D, Low D, C and flute though thankfully.
Well, now I’m really curious . . .
What is the name of the show ?
Do you happen to know the tune titles that call for the C# and F# keys ?
Also, are both keys Major ?
Inquiring minds . . .
I’m curious as well. It seems like a career-limiting choice for a composer/arranger to require such an uncommon instrument. One made by a handful of people worldwide, at a premium price, with almost no other practical use? Wow.
The show is Come From Away
I wish I had more information, but I have not gotten the sheet music for the part yet, I was only told what instruments were needed.
geleybou,
I did a search on “Come from Away”. Sure enough, I found tunes with the keys you mentioned:
“Stop the World” - F#
“Me and the Sky” - Dflat
I’ve never dealt with those keys, so I searched and found this:
https://www.music-theory-for-musicians.com/key-signatures.html
Has a nice graphic:
If I read it correctly, it shows C# and Db as “enharmonic”. (C# has 7 sharps).
I wonder if you could take a (tuneable) low-D and simply move the slide out a half tone. Not perfect, I’m sure, but perhaps good enough.
Not on a standard low D. The reason being that the top hand flattens faster than the bottom hand when pulling out the tuning slide. When the lower hand is in tune, the upper hand is too flat, and vice-versa.
If you have a three-piece low D, with a join in between the two hands, you can pull that out and end up with an in tune, if a little rickety, low C#. I do this on one of my flutes when I’m playing along with an older A=415Hz flute. Actually, a whistle should be more stable than a flute, due to it being held more vertically.
WhistlingGuitar,
Thank you for explaining. It was a hopeful guess on my part.
Also, interesting trick with a 3-piece. One of my low-Ds is a 3 piece.
I wonder though, if the extra flatness of the upper notes could be fixed by pushing the breath harder. Again, I’m grasping at straws here.
trill
I don’t think so, the notes tend to be flattened by as much as 40-50c. It would depend on the whistle, though, how far it can be pushed. I don’t have a low D whistle handy to try, but I just tried on my flute. I (just barely) manage to lip up the B and C especially, and then I have to quickly adjust back down before hitting the high D. So yes, maybe if you really practised, it could be done on the flute. On the whistle, I think the dynamics of volume would just be really weird, if it could even be done.
I just tried using my normal trick, and the joint was more stable than I recall, without much wobble. To tune down the flute, I pulled the tuning slide out about 22mm, and the middle joint by about 10mm.
But give it a try with your whistles, three piece or two piece. I’ll be interested to hear your findings! (Is it a Dixon three-piece, or a different make?)
As soon as I saw C# I knew - I’d say CFA is directly responsible for the existence of more Low C# whistles than anything else in history!
I’m a big fan of the show - played it in 2024 and am playing it again this year. Feel free to drop me a message if you have more questions about the whistle part. If you’re going by the list from MTI, it’s not particularly accurate as things are labelled a little inconsistently in the score so there’s a few double ups and things that don’t exist (and some things are more necessary than others).
