i just received my first low d. a dixon with the duo whistle/flute head. it sounds great. however, i am having trouble with the distance between the holes. is there some sort of stretching technique that i can practice? i love the haunting sound and i want to start playing some songs, but i can barely reach the last hole. any pointers?
c r a m e r
Piper’s grip: http://www.chiffandfipple.com/pipers.html
I’m a new low whistler myself and I have trouble with the D and E holes but I am getting there.
but i can barely reach the last hole. any pointers?
c r a m e r
Hi Cramer,the piper grip is the prefered fingering for low whistle.The low whistle index on the main website has some info and pics on this. 
Mike
avanutria wrote:
Piper’s grip: > http://www.chiffandfipple.com/pipers.htmlI’m a new low whistler myself and I have trouble with the D and E holes but I am getting there.
What’s this I hear you’re a closet piper too?
Nope, have only ‘piped’ twice. I like it but don’t have the time to put into it.
But I am taking a bodhran class and a flute class in November, so we’ll see what else I turn out to be!
[ This Message was edited by: avanutria on 2002-09-25 21:41 ]
One day Beth… when Bri gets his full set you might have a good opportunity on some o’hand-me-down pipes.
Just practice and practice… thats how i learned. Sometimes I would sit there and just hold it so I would learn the stretch. Maybe not play anything (mainly cause I didnt know anything). Maybe that will help.
Good luck!!
On 2002-09-25 21:43, Tony wrote:
One day Beth… when Bri gets his full set you might have a good opportunity on some o’hand-me-down pipes.
You know, I was seriously thinking about that…but he better get his chanter fixed first!!!
Cramer,
I agree that you’ll likely find that a couple of weeks of regular practice will do the trick. I started off a bit frustrated myself, but in no time my fingers were able to do the walkin’. Hang in there, and have fun!
Jef
good advice from all which i can confirm:
a word of encouragement: i have small hands and the above method has worked well on my susato low d.
i have no experience with other low d whistles, though.
cheers!
On 2002-09-25 19:05, cramer wrote:
i want to start playing some songs, but i can barely reach the last hole. any pointers?
Use your pinkie on the last hole. A number of people do.
Wandering Whistler’s solution sounds pretty extreme to me, and only to be tried as a last resort.
Stick with slow airs - or even improvised slow doodling - for a while till you get comfortable finding the holes instinctively.
I dunno about extreme. ‘Not common’ perhaps. This topic’s come up several times, and the use of the pinky has been mentioned almost every time. And not always by me.
A quick search of the mssage board and newsletters pulls these names.
I seem to recall more, but that’s all I could turn up on an easy search, and C&F’s search engine doesn’t allow for complex search expressions.
Two other things that helped me get started.
Costly, of course, but you do have WHoa don’t you?
I bought a plastic keyless flute once. No way on earth could I reach the last hole. I relocated the hole. I kept it at the same distance from the end, but around to the side to where my finger could reach. Here’s what I did. I got the exact distance from the middle of that last hole to the end of the flute. Then I marked a fine circle around the flute at that point. I held the flute and brought my third finger down on the line where it rested naturally, more or less comfortably. Then I marked that spot. This mark didn’t have to be deadly accurrate. I stuffed the barrel tightly with newspaper, up as far as that last hole. Then I filled the hole with 2 part epoxy filler (“JB weld” was the brand, I think). When it was dry I pulled out the newspaper and then filed down the outside. (First pull out the paper then file down the epoxy. If you do it the other way the epoxy “plug” you’ve created might come out for lack of support.) Then I drilled the new hole on the spot I had marked. It was surprizingly easy, worked like a charm.
[ This Message was edited by: E = Fb on 2002-09-26 13:22 ]
A surgical procedure might help - the addition of an extra finger?
I use the pinkie fingers on both hands as well as piper’s grip. The stretch on my Howard is big and the holes are huge, and no way can I cover them playing with the normal fingers. It’s worked fine for me for 3 years, I don’t have a problem switching back to a soprano whistle and normal fingering. It gets me some funny looks at sessions though.
thanks for the replies..i have been practicing like a madman and am happy to say that serious progress has been made! thanks for the encouragement, my fellow whistlers!
c r a m e r
Another trick is to have the bottom tonehole on a separate coupler so you can rotate to your favorite position. I’ve done this on PVC whistles (plenty of material for turning) on Low-Low-A’s.