Louder whistle with tapered bore?

Whistle
1

A constant problem I run into trying to play my Susato Kildare with other people is the inconsistent pitch/volume between the octaves. The second octave is naturally much louder than the first octave (which is true of all whistles, I suppose). I try to underblow the second octave to reduce the volume, but then it just sounds flat. If I tune the instrument up, I can get the second octave to be in tune and not overpowering. But then the bottom octave is either too sharp (if I overblow a bit) or too quiet (if I blow normally). I basically have to pick my poison: I can play with super inconsistent volume between the two octaves, or super inconsistent pitch between the two octaves. My Susato Oriole (which is completely cylindrical) has the same problem, only worse.

I’m starting to realize I that really like medium to heavy tapered whistles (like my Morneaux). They seem to resolve this annoying octave inconsistency problem. They allow you to overblow a bit on the lower octave and underblow a bit on the second octave, and the instrument will be in tune and have very consistent volume.

The problem is that every tapered bore whistle I have is rather quiet and doesn’t really work for larger sessions. Morneaux sort of works, but even it is a bit quiet, and I can’t really hear myself play if there’s 10+ people.

Does anyone know of a loud whistle that works for sessions that has a mildly (or even heavily) tapered bore?

I’ve heard a lot about Kerrywhistle Buskers and Colin Goldie whistles, but I’m pretty sure both of those have cylindrical bores. I’m sure they’re loud and all, but since they don’t have any taper, I imagine they have this same problem of octave volume/pitch inconsistency.

2

Maybe speak to Phil Bleazy about the volume & tuning of his whistles.

3

I believe I’m on pretty much the same quest, Cyberknight, but with the additional limitation that, perched on the furthermost reaches of the South Pacific Rim, I don’t get to see an awful lot of whistles passing by. So, I’m mucking about trying to make one! Desperate times call for desperate measures!

So I don’t have much to offer at this point, other than perhaps this observation. The Mildly Tapered whistles you mention appear to have head bores around 12.7mm, or 1/2" in the old money. So I’d expect you (and I) are looking for a whistle with a bigger head bore (and conical section below it). Such whistles are available in cylindrical form (eg the Mellow D, 13.5mm bore), but I share your doubts about plain cylindrical. (Happy to be proven wrong!) I’ve been messing around with a tapered whistle with a head bore of 14.9mm, which has promise, but wondering if it’s overkill (it certainly attracts a lot of complaints indoors!) But it suggests it may help to look for something in the 13.5 to 14.5mm head bore area. I do wish makers would throw in some numbers rather than vague descriptors such as “Session”!

I am told that Jon Swayne makes a boldly conical whistle with a head bore around 15.9mm (5/8"), which sounds a bit courageous when compared to the numbers above. His web site mentions: “The scale-range is optimised over one octave and a sixth.” Assuming we start that at D, sounds like he’s aiming to keep it real up to the 2nd octave B. Maybe that sets an upper limit for head bore that we might be wise to stay within? Halfway between 1/2" and 5/8" is 9/16", a.k.a. 14.3mm. Anyone making something like that?

4

Seriously, please keep us updated about whether you ever start making a whistle like this. I’m definitely a potential buyer!

One question I have is how much the bore size and taper really affect that volume of the instrument. I always assumed that the shape of the headjoint was the main thing that affected volume on a whistle. Experimenting with mismatching Susato headjoints with my other whistles seems to suggest that tapering the bore does reduce the overall volume of the whistle, at least a bit. But does bore SIZE - irrespective of taper - really change that much? The Susato Kildare, after all, has a fairly average bore size. It’s maybe slightly larger than a Generation. But it’s significantly louder. And I’ve encountered larger cylindrical bore whistles that are quieter than Susatos.

So I guess my question is this: Is the solution to making a louder tapered whistle really to make the bore size bigger? Or is there a way to just design a headjoint that gets more volume out of the instrument?

Also, just because I’m curious, have you ever tried a Kerry Busker whistle? I hear a lot of people complain about how much air it takes, but I don’t mind that at all, because I prefer whistles that take tons of air. But its apparently cylindrical bore is what’s turning me away from it. If you have ever played one, does it have the pitch/volume inconsistency problem I’m complaining about?

5

Seriously, please keep us updated about whether you ever start making a whistle like this. I’m definitely a potential buyer!

One question I have is how much the bore size and taper really affect that volume of the instrument. I always assumed that the shape of the headjoint was the main thing that affected volume on a whistle. Experimenting with mismatching Susato headjoints with my other whistles seems to suggest that tapering the bore does reduce the overall volume of the whistle, at least a bit. But does bore SIZE - irrespective of taper - really change that much? The Susato Kildare, after all, has a fairly average bore size. It’s maybe slightly larger than a Generation. But it’s significantly louder. And I’ve encountered larger cylindrical bore whistles that are quieter than Susatos.

So I guess my question is this: Is the solution to making a louder tapered whistle really to make the bore size bigger? Or is there a way to just design a headjoint that gets more volume out of the instrument?

Also, just because I’m curious, have you ever tried a Kerry Busker whistle? I hear a lot of people complain about how much air it takes, but I don’t mind that at all, because I prefer whistles that take tons of air. But its apparently cylindrical bore is what’s turning me away from it. If you have ever played one, does it have the pitch/volume inconsistency problem I’m complaining about?

6

I only have the alto G Busker, and it does have much a louder upper octave.

However, the volume difference tends to get more marked as the pitch of the whistle gets lower, so it’s probably not comparable with their high D. It’s a loud whistle all round with more volume than I really want, but I didn’t have a G and it was hard to say no at the secondhand price. That’s my excuse, officer.

I don’t generally worry a lot about the volume differential because it’s just what whistles do, but that doesn’t mean I won’t also be trying one of Terry’s new inventions! :laughing:

7

As you already mentioned, the second octave is naturally louder than the first, but on my cylindrical Overton low D and low G, as well as on my Goldie high D, I can play the first octave louder than the second (or the second quieter that the first - whichever way you want to put it) - it does take a bit of concentration and (of course) breath control and focussing, but it becomes natural after a while. Each and every Goldie whistle I’ve ever tried can do the same.
No tapered whistle I ever played could do it (I didn’t try so many, but among them were a couple of Copeland’s).

8

It would be useful to eliminate perceptions and generate reliable measurements. Perhaps there should a similar thread to the blowing machine one where people provide details of volume and frequency for each note over at least two octaves for the whistles they own where they measure those using an app like https://shaku6.com/software.php - [Sound color analyzer and Tuner for shakuhachi]. That would enable them to provide details of the range of viable volumes for each note and the corresponding range of frequencies produced. The frequencies should be consistent from player to player for the same type of whistle, but the volumes will vary based on the microphone (which might be placed half a metre away directly to one side). For those who don’t have one though, decent microphones for this come in at under £10 (e.g. the Gyvazla tie microphone).

9

Isn’t it all about perception, really?
Sheer physical parametres won’t help you in a playing situation.
Perceivable tone is more than just a combination of frequencies and measurable volume.

10

It doesn’t surprise me that many tapered whistles have less volume control overall than many non-tapered whistles. But the problem I’m talking about is not just volume. It’s a pitch/volume problem.

On your Goldie whistle, you say you can play louder in the first octave than the second. So can I, on my Susato. The problem is that the second octave is too flat when I do that. It’s about a quartertone flatter than the first octave, which is quite annoying and very noticeable. Does your Goldie whistle avoid this problem?

11

Perceptions vary from player to player while they aren’t hearing what the audience hears. If you ask for information about which whistles do what and you get answers about different ones from different people where their perceptions follow different rules (and hearing issues), you don’t get reliable comparisons other than where the same person provides their thoughts about two or more whistles that they possess, but there’s also variability between different whistles that are supposed to be the same model, so you could get a recommendation from someone for a particular whistle and then find it performs nothing like your expectations. If factual measurements were provided too, you could then judge the accompanying claims more reliably. By collecting properly measured values from owners we would end up with a nice database of information on a host of whistles and the variations within models. The blowing machine findings could then be related to that database and provide expectations for whistles untested on such machines which are beyond the reach of most whistle owners, but a cheap microphone and free app would put consistent measurement making within the grasp of most whistlers. None of that replaces people’s opinions, but would just make it easier to calibrate them.

12

I agree with the basic premise, David, that it would be great to be able to get real-world-data on all the whistles out there. We’d learn so much. But I’m not sure it’s going to be that easy, not that that should stop us trying!

Coincidentally, I did a little experimenting along those lines just before the discussions here turned in that direction. My plan was to measure the sound levels produced by 6 whistles I have here, stretching in headbore sizes from a Killarney (11.7mm), through 12.7, several at 13.5 and then up to my tapered PicWhistle (15.1mm). I planned to use my portable sound level meter, conforming to IEC 651 Type II, at 1 Metre on axis. Because my arms are not that long, I roped Jesse in to take the measurements, as I sat with a tape measure set to 1M keeping my distance. My plan was to take the measurements at 6 pitches - D, G and B in the low octave, and d, g and b in the second octave.

Suspecting that all might not go to plan, we embarked on the quietest and loudest whistles in the pack, the two mentioned above. The Killarney is really quiet (by my standards!), and the PicWhistle is excruciatingly loud, especially up around top b. Jesse wore ear protection.

We immediately ran into issues. Testing loud first, we found we needed to be on the Sound Level Meter’s Hi range to avoid the “Over” warning coming on. On that setting the background measures higher than you would like, though not impossibly high. Switching from the usual Fast setting to Slow reduces that dramatically, and makes it a bit easier to deal with the rapidly fluctuating levels produced by a human blower. (Yeah, I know, “human” might be an exaggeration…) But it means the blower has to blow each note longer to make sure the meter has caught up with the full value of the reading, and of course, as you blow longer, you tend to run the levels down! The meter has a Max Hold setting, but I wasn’t really convinced that was assessing me accurately either.

In the washup, we found that the PicWhistle was louder than the Killarney, but not as dramatically louder as I would expect. We got differences of 2.7, 7.6, 5.7, -3.2, 3.1, 3.5 dBA on the notes mentioned above. Remembering that 3dB is a Just Noticeable Difference, that doesn’t seem realistic.

I also tried a few Sound Level apps on my phone, but ran into the same sorts of issues. I also tried using the Youlean Loudness Meter available for download on line; it does seem to give more credible results but it requires really long notes, and that can be a source of error. I haven’t tried the AutoTuner in any depth but should.

What would be really nice would be an upgrade of our RTTA systems that measure pitch as you noodle, to get them to measure loudness too! And compute the results!

Anyway, clearly more to be done when I get a chance!

13

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Copeland as a potential “loud” tapered bore whistle.

14

I should have added the additional qualifier of “not morbidly expensive.” :stuck_out_tongue:

15

I had a go myself (with the shakuchi tuner), and the fluctuating levels make it hard to decide which value to record for the loudness, while higher notes appear to be rated at lower volume even though they sound louder. I can think of a potential explanation for that which would mean that it’s only giving true dB levels for one frequency while higher ones are underrepresented.

However, I’ve just tried this program, and it gives results that look more likely: https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/ - it’s designed for analysing speech, but it’s good for values between 50 and 100 dB, providing a graph of the action where you can click on the line and get a precise readout of the volume level for any point on it.

Click on “new”, then “record mono sound”, then “record”, and click “stop” within ten seconds to avoid having to select a smaller chunk of the recording later. Click “save to list” (vital step or you lose the recording and can’t go into the analysis). The latest recording should be highlighted in the list of recordings, so you just click on “view & edit” to bring up the graph. Click on “intensity” at the top, then “show intensity” to bring up the dB graph. You can now click anywhere on the line to find the dB level at that point. If you’re unsure which bit of the sound is where on the graph, click on “play”, then “play…” then “OK” and it’ll play it while a progress line zips along it, and that makes it easy to know which bit of which sound you’re measuring.

16

Tommy makes a conical tapered soprano with 14 mm bore tapering down to a 11 mm end.
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/cp-woodwhistle-pvc-copper-prototype-makers-tip-moving-holes/64875/1

17

I would speculate that the cross-sectional area of the windway, and width in particular, might have more impact on overall volume than the cross-section of the tube. That said, a wider bore can accommodate a wider windway.

18

Interesting. You make these? Is there a website for them or any video of someone playing one? :slight_smile:

19

I think I can help with this too. :wink:

I thought about this question for a long time. How to make lower notes louder without sacrificing the second octave.

The cone, yes, partially solves this problem. It makes D-E notes i bit louder due to high harmonics. But there is a better solution. More precisely, two solutions. One of them does not require anything from the musician. Other - adds another level of control. Like a recorder, an octave valve compared to a whistle. If you write me on X, I may connect you with musicians who plays on my whistles (the first solution).

The second solution - is an experimental, I’m still working on it. This solution allows you to make the second octave twice as quiet as the first.

20

Thanks for your insights!

I have a few thoughts I’ve developed on this topic since I wrote that post back in August.

First, I’m now a HUGE fan of whistles that have a small taper in the head, rather than a completely tapered bore. I find that this completely solves the octave spread issue without sacrificing any volume in the first octave. My current Colin Goldie whistle is pretty much perfect in this regard - when played perfectly in-tune, the first octave is stronger than my Susatos, and the second octave is quieter. Of course, the second octave is still louder than the first. But the volume difference (while playing in tune) is substantially less than on any of my other whistles.

Second, I’d of course still love more volume control over both octaves, if that were possible. Venting holes, like on a recorder, are an interesting idea. But another idea I had (I have no idea if this would work, but I’m just throwing it out there) is to have a spring-loaded windway that can change in size as you tighten your lips. It could narrow just a tiny bit - a few millimeters, say - which would (I think?) allow you to play notes slightly quieter without going flat.

I know the idea of a lip-activated key isn’t new, but I’m not aware of a whistle/recorder type instrument that has a windway that actually gets smaller when you press it with your lips. I’m very curious if this - or something similar - would be effective.

And I’m looking forward to seeing your innovative solution as well!