new tweaking discovery

Whistle
1

I was reading last night and my whistles kept eyeing me saying “Please play us” and I being a good owner decided to pick up my whistles and play them. I hadn’t played my generation D that is of mediocre quality in quite some time. Upon playing it again I realized the low d still cracked a bit if I pushed the air too quickly through. I began working on the blade by making the window longer and dulling the blade (typical Jerry Freeman fashion), but to no avail. I looked inside the fipple and noticed there was an abrupt 90 degree angle that dropped from the inside of the blade to the top of the mouthpiece. I thought to myself, maybe if I smoothed that out with some sticky tack it might help and yes, it helped a little bit. The bell tone is a bit more pure and I can push it a bit more.

I tried this with my Bb gen and it worked less significantly.

2

This is interesting, Michael.

What I’ve found works to clean up the bottom notes (and generally clean up the whole range, too), is a combination of getting the window length right (longer, by taking a little off the end of the blade, usually), and scraping a bevel on the end of the windway floor where it enters the voicing window.

WARNING: Unless the soundblade edge is positioned at least halfway down towards the bottom of the windway height, putting a bevel on the “block” can spoil the whistle. However, if the soundblade’s well positioned, it works remarkably well.

Best wishes,
Jerry