Apparently there are whistles
being made in ‘modal’ tuning.
Can anybody tell me what this
amounts to? I’m especially
interested in knowing what sort
of music one plays on such
whistles…
Most recent thread on this topic here is http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?topic=7545&forum=1&12
Keys ? The whistle can get fully chromatic
I’ve never heard of these modal whistles but just from the name I wonder if they have to be chromatic. I think it would be pretty cool to have a whistle, say, in the dorian mode, in which a lot of early music was written. What would I play on it? Not sure . . .
On 2002-11-23 15:04, Michael Sullivan wrote:
I think it would be pretty cool to have a whistle, say, in the dorian mode, in which a lot of early music was written. What would I play on it? Not sure . . .
If you have a whistle it will play in the dorian mode. In fact it will play in two dorian modes. Those would be E dorian and A dorian on a D whistle.
Steve
Lark in Seattle said they sell
flutes in modal tuning. I didn’t
have a chance to check these out,
cause my car was gonna be towed,
but my impression was they’re
6 holed–so I wondered what music
one plays. I think the solution is
to find such a beastie and play it–
being a music-theory idiot. Thanks to all,
Daniel Bingamon (Jubilee whistles) sells low whistles tuned to different modes/scales, e. g., to play Klezmer or other styles.
AFAIK, these are whistles have the scale going up from the keynote in whatever mode is appropriate for the particular style of music.
Colin Goldie (Overton Whistles) makes
a modal whistle - check out his website.
Thanks to all.
If you think of a mode as just a scale, then I would assume that every European mode could be got on a standard diatonic whistle just by choosing the right starting note. Off hand, I can’t think of one that can’t.) Scales would be tempered though and therefore you would not quite get the older modes as they would have been heard prior to tempered tuning. Transylvanian Gypsy fiddlers still play in untempered scales and can sound out of tune to those unaccustomed to them.
Middle Eastern, Greek rembetika and other modes are a bit different. The Greek word for mode probably translates better as route. They are often not scales in quite the way that we think of European modal scales. Often the choice of which note to play next is delimited by the preceding notes and not just by which notes happen to be in that scale. Intervals often sound a bit bizarre to European ears. One would need specially made whistles to play this sort of modal music.
modals are basically the same as major keys, just starting on different notes. So D Dorian is the same as A min. because the 6th note in a dorian is raised. So it would depend very much on what modes. Modes are not however, totally devoid of flats or sharps, in fact some have 8 or 9 flats or sharps, in other words, some would be double sharps or flats. For more about modes, if you are interested, try the Grade 2 Rudiments book, by Grace Vandendool. In it she gets into the ancient church modes.
On 2002-12-17 19:12, quicksilver wrote:
modals are basically the same as major keys, just starting on different notes. So D Dorian is the same as A min. because the 6th note in a dorian is raised. So it would depend very much on what modes. Modes are not however, totally devoid of flats or sharps, in fact some have 8 or 9 flats or sharps, in other words, some would be double sharps or flats. For more about modes, if you are interested, try the Grade 2 Rudiments book, by Grace Vandendool. In it she gets into the ancient church modes.
That’s only if you are thinking in terms of the stock European modes and only if you are thinking in terms of the modern tempered scale (which not even Europeans would have been doing until a few hundred years ago.) If you want to understand musical modes, that’s two ‘only ifs’ too many for my liking. 
Middle Eastern and Indian modes contain quarter tones. Some klezmer modes don’t fit the pattern described here. What’s described is just an adaptation of the ancient Greek modes to the tempered scale—just one amongst many ways to go.