Low whistle history - older than I thought!

[Cyberknight]

I was randomly browsing various museum and library archives for pictures of old instruments, and I came across some photos that seem to challenge the narrative I’d heard that Bernard Overton “invented the low whistle.”

Take a look at this photo:

Image 2 of Vertical Whistle Flute, DCM 0641 | Library of Congress

This looks to me like a complete set of whistles, from high D to low D (though, to be fair, they all might be higher pitched than that - any insights on this?). And according to the Library of Congress, this whistle set dates back to the mid-1920s at the very latest. So it’s certainly much older than any of Bernard Overton’s whistles.

Were there low D whistles even older than this? It seems like there arguably were. At least, there were low D wooden flageolets with whistle-style mouthpieces, like this one:

Flute Flageolet, DCM 0820 | Library of Congress

I also found (but for some reason can’t find at the moment) a picture of a traverso-style low D whistle from I believe the 1700s. Basically a one-key traverso flute with a whistle head on it. This is arguably an even older “low D whistle.”

This raises an interesting question in my mind: What is the actual history of the “low whistle”? When was the first thing we could indisputably call a “low whistle” actually created? And were these early low whistles from, say, the 1920s commonly used for Irish music? Were they common or niche?

The history of the low whistle, it seems to me, is an underdiscussed topic.

[Mr.Gumby]

@Cyberknight

Take a look at this photo:

Image 2 of Vertical Whistle Flute, DCM 0641 | Library of Congress

This looks to me like a complete set of whistles, from high D to low D. And according to the Library of Congress, this whistle set dates back to the mid-1920s at the very latest.

If you look at the cataloguing details in the link sizes are given for the whistles in the photo.

The smallest is a high g. The whole set does not go lower than A or G. Which is not unprecedented, even Generation made low Gs for a while.

FWIW, I have a near full set of the same make myself from high g down to Bb, plus a fully keyed D.

[Cyberknight]

@Mr.Gumby

The smallest is a high g. The whole set does not go lower than A or G. Which is not unprecedented, even Generation made low Gs for a while.

Ah, good catch! Thanks for pointing this out.

@Mr.Gumby

FWIW, I have a near full set of the same make myself from high g down to Bb, plus a fully keyed D.

When you say “same make,” do you mean the same make as the first picture I posted? Or Generation?

I’d love to see a picture of your fully-keyed D! It was a high D, I’m assuming?

[Mr.Gumby]

@Cyberknight

When you say “same make,” do you mean the same make as the first picture I posted? Or Generation?

I meant the London made ‘in tune’, as described in the LoC catalogue entry. Which in itself us interesting as the woman/harp image is a heraldic design strongly associated with Ireland.

But I have a set of all metal Gens as well from Bb up, across different periods.

You may want to search for Ch.Mathieu, Paris. They made all sorts, walking stick whistles and odd things. I have some recollection they made some low ones, possibly down to D. Often conical ones although I have a cylindrical Bb as well.

I have posted these old pics a few times but there you go:

These are two Mathieu, Paris ones, one conical the other cylindrical:

@Cyberknight

I’d love to see a picture of your fully-keyed D!

[paddler]

@Cyberknight

At least, there were low D wooden flageolets with whistle-style mouthpieces, like this one:

That one has a very interesting “whistle” mouthpiece that seems to be designed to be played transversely, hence allowing the same “grip” as a low D flute. I guess the idea was to cater for those who might struggle with a flute embouchure??

I’d be curious to find out how such an instrument plays/sounds, and to what extent a pair of alternate head sections, one flute, one whistle, can be used on the same conical low D body. Maybe that is another experiment to add to my list of prototypes to try making?

[Cyberknight]

Very interesting!

And I just found another that isn’t designed to be played transverse:

(Although, come to think of it, it isn’t quite clear that this is a “low D.” I was just assuming it was based on its resemblance to a flute.)

[pancelticpiper]

I would say that a distinction might be made between somebody who, in a bygone age, invented something which now is a museum-piece and somebody who re-invented it and popularised in modern times.

The standard accepted narrative about the creation and popularisation of the Low D Whistle by Bernard Overton remains valid in that sense.

Another fascinating chapter to the story is Joe McKenna coming across a bag of Generation-like plastic Low Whistle heads in a pawn shop. He then made metal-tubing bodies for them and used them in is numerous performances, and probably did as much as anybody to popularise the Low Whistle sound. Did this predate the Bernard Overton Low D?

I can’t recall is how low the lowest size was.

The strangest thing about the story is that making the moulds for injection-moulded plastic things, especially of that complexity, is extremely expensive, and it would require doing a run of thousands (of each size) to make the project economically feasible. So where did the thousands of other big plastic Low Whistle heads go?

[RoberTunes]

I don’t have the backup information available, but I have to suspect that Australian Aborigines, all of Asia’s and Africa’s musicians, and First Nations flute makers throughout the Americas may have made at least one low whistle in their many millennia of making musical instruments, which would adequately fit the description of being part of “low whistle history”. Maybe Ireland is actually the most recent in the sequence to get them.

[stiofan]

Hopefully others with deeper knowledge than myself will chime in here, but first off, I suppose it depends on what one refers to as a ‘low whistle’, since there’s clear evidence of wind instruments being made/used in most or perhaps all cultures going back to antiquity. Certainly, end-blown ‘flutes’ (or whatever name you’d prefer) have existed for millenia in the cultures you mention, and others as well. For example, the Divje Babe ‘flute’ found in Slovenia has been dated to 50,000 to 60,000 years old. The Hols Fel flute in Germany was dated to 35,000 BCE.

These artifacts have survived for archaeologists to uncover because they were crafted from animal bones. But of course, there may well have been (and probably were) wind instruments made out of wood, reed, or other materials that simply didn’t last because they degraded and decayed into the natural elements. This may well hold true for ancient cultures in what’s now known as Ireland, England, and Scotland (as well as other geographic locales), even though we don’t have tangible evidence. As for what’s known about the instrument we all know and love as the tin whistle, L.E. McCullough’s ‘Historical Notes on the Tinwhistle’ in his ‘The Complete Irish Tinwhistle Tutor’ is worth perusing.

Personally, I go along with the view that Bernard Overton ‘invented’ the modern low whistle as we know it today, but I think of the instrument belonging to an ancient musical tradition, going back to early humanity, perhaps even the dawn of our species.

[pancelticpiper]

About Native American flutes, at least here in California the older flutes in museums, and the flutes still made and played in certain tribes (cf the Ahwahnee) don’t have any sort of fipple mechanism, rather, they’re open end-blown flutes like the Bulgarian kaval.

Is there concrete evidence that Native American fipple-flutes predate European contact?

I also wonder about the Tarka of the Andes.

Yuma fluteplayer; there seem to be only four finger-holes.

[Geoffrey_Ellis]

@pancelticpiper

Is there concrete evidence that Native American fipple-flutes predate European contact?

As far as I know there are theories about this but nothing concrete. There are definitely some pretty old flutes that could have been the precursor to the modern Native American fipple flutes. So they might have evolved on their own, or they might have been inspired by early contact with European instruments. You can read about a lot of this here:

History of the NAF

[paddler]

Fipple flutes have a very long history in the Americas that pre-dates European contact by thousands of years. The best preserved ones were made from ceramics.

For example, here is an example of a double bored, double fipple, flute from Mexico that dates back to the period 300 BCE - 250 CE. There are many others from various regions in North and South America.

Flutopedia Image Detail: Double Duct Flute from the Colima Culture

Here is another single duct, single body, one which has 6 tone holes and plays a C major scale. Click the link below and scroll down to the Jaina block flute section. This one predates European contact by almost 1000 years.

https://www.flutopedia.com/dev_flutes_americas.htm

The fipple flute is considered a universal technology – invented independently in many different cultures, so we have to get much more specific about what we are claiming has been invented. The resonant air chamber, the fipple sound production mechanism, the mouth piece, etc are all ancient technologies. So is it the tone hole lattice and the musical intervals it produces that we are claiming as an invention? The use of a cylindrical bore? The overall pitch? The material? All of these concepts have existed in instruments going back to antiquity.

So maybe its just the combination of all of these in a single instrument – fipple flute with an aluminum, cylindrical, tube, 6 tone holes that gives a D major scale at a reference pitch of A=440 hz, and pitched an octave below a high D whistle?

Which begs the question: if I make a slightly bigger one, pitched at C# on a reference pitch of A=437 (say), have I invented a new instrument? Or maybe I move one of the tone holes, or add a tone hole. Is this a new invention?

I think, somehow, the instrument itself and its widespread common usage contribute to the notion of invention here. In my mind, the underlying contribution is more akin to being credited with something like coining a phrase than, say, inventing something technological that is fundamentally unique. I know that this under-states the contribution, and I don’t mean to belittle it, I’m just trying to illustrate the kind of difference I see. With respect to the underlying technologies of sound production in musical instruments, the more you dig into it, the more you learn that there really is nothing new under the sun.

[ecadre]

@pancelticpiper

The standard accepted narrative about the creation and popularisation of the Low D Whistle by Bernard Overton remains valid in that sense.

Hmmm, to be a little pedantic, the whistle Bernard made for Finbar Furey (to replace the Indian fipple flute that someone sat on in the Old Dyers Arms) was an Alto G, not a tenor (“low”) D.

The tenor D came a little later.

[Marat]

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, low whistles with conical bores were crafted from copper and silver in the city of Kazan (Russia). Only descriptions of these instruments have survived: they measured 580–800 mm in length, with a top diameter of 20–30 mm and a bottom diameter of 10–15 mm. They featured five to seven toneholes. In that region, people played (and continue to play) flutes similar in their method of sound production to Persian ney and in the city itself, during that era, there were many metal embossers, some of whom crafted such whistles. Turbulent history is the reason why so many artifacts haven’t survived.

[pancelticpiper]

Oh yes I had forgot about the ceramic Native American flutes.

There was a guy here who was really into ancient Mexican ceramic flutes, he used to perform regularly at a local theme park.

I was thinking of the fat wood modern Native American flutes with external fipple setup, a far cry from the cane end-blown Ney-like native flutes around here.

I’ve read that the oldest Native flutes found in the US are from the Broken Flute Cave in Arizona, they’re the Kaval-like kind. Here’s a guy playing a replica of one of those flutes.

Peter Phippen A-14450 Broken Flute Cave Anasazi Replica Improvisation

Interesting that he’s blowing straight across, while that vintage photo clearly shows the same embouchure (off to one side) that’s used with the Kaval.

[paddler]

@pancelticpiper

I’ve read that the oldest Native flutes found in the US are from the Broken Flute Cave in Arizona, they’re the Kaval-like kind. Here’s a guy playing a replica of one of those flutes.

Peter Phippen A-14450 Broken Flute Cave Anasazi Replica Improvisation

Interesting that he’s blowing straight across, while that vintage photo clearly shows the same embouchure (off to one side) that’s used with the Kaval.

A few years ago I spent a lot of time studying the Broken Flute Cave flutes and making acoustically accurate replicas (being careful to match bore dimensions and tone hole locations). I also spent time examining the wear marks on the originals and trying to relate them to various playing styles and embouchure approaches. My take away from that work was that they were almost certainly played using a Persian Ney style interdental embouchure. The design of the rim and the wear patterns on the rim very strongly suggest this.

I also found some fascinating historic photographs from over 100 years ago of Hopi tribal members playing very similar rim-blown flutes. The Hopi are Pueblo Indians and some of the closest descendants of the people who made the Broken Flute Cave flutes around 1400 years ago. You’ll see that in all but one of the pictures below, they are playing using an interdental style. In only one they are playing using a shakuhachi style embouchure approach, like Peter Phippen used in the video you posted.

I learned to play my replicas using all three embouchure approaches - kaval style, shakuhachi style, and interdental style. The flutes sound surprisingly different with each approach. I’d be happy to elaborate more on this, but I realize this is getting quite far from the original topic.

Well, here is an audio clip of me improvising on one of the replicas I made using an interdental embouchure approach. The low octave is very much louder using this approach, but the higher registers are much harder to reach (maybe because I’m a novice at it). It is kind of the opposite when using a shakuhachi style embouchure. With that the flute is much quieter, but you can reach many overtones due to the very long thin aspect ratio.

Broken Flute Cave replica played using interdental, Persian Ney embouchure