I recently found the boesman’s whistle from my childhood, and it brought back a lot of memories.
I remember the fun we would have piping each other aboard our tree fort, walking the plank, riding in the ambulance, looking at cool x-ray pictures, learning the difference between a fracture and a break, good times, good times.
But upon examining the boesman’s whistle closer, I noticed that it is in fact simply a tube, and ball that form a fipple on a closed chamber. Is this not an ocarina? Also most “sports whistles” are the same thing, are they not both ocarinas? So what has happened to lead so many astray in to this world of mind numbing confusion? What is next? Shall we interchange the word “pipes” and “trombone“ ? I mean , they are both made with length of pipe, or perhaps we are unearthing the horrid reasons behind the recorder confusion?
I say there are only to solutions to this problem: 1) We go about informing everyone we know and many we don’t that it is in fact an ocarina they are blowing to call the plays, get rescued, or to inform you that it is a crime to dole out bits of trivia to a officer while he is directing traffic. 2) To rename our whistles to something else, and let ocarinas have both names. This would give the community a chance to rename our beloved whistle to something that better describes its significance.
Personally I would like it to have the name of “the coolest instrument ever”, “babe magnet” or “the coolmaphone”
So help fight this on slot of disinformation being spread, rename or correct, it’s up to you.
There’s a difference in type between a boatswain’s/bosun’s (I assume this is the US version of what you’re referring to) whistle and a referee’s/sports whistle. The sports whistle has a bead in it, and I’ve never been able to get one to go up a register. The boatswain’s whistle has a long, thin tube, and one can change pitches, definitely getting a second register, and possibly a third. In that way, it’s not like an ocarina, but the sports whistle is.
An ocarina is by definition a closed system fipple flute. It is very easy to see that in regard to the “sports whistle”. All the parts are neatly separated, and easily definable. However, with the boesman’s “whistle” the parts are not as clearly defined, however it is still a closed system flute, that depends on the oscillation of air over a blade (a fipple) to generate sound, there for making it a ocarina.
Myself, I have never gotten my own whistle to go to the 2nd resister, however this may be because it isn’t the most expensive of bosun’s whistle, however I can get a wide verity of tones by cupping my hand over the fipple, and varying the position of my hand. Regardless though, it is theatrical that a properly shaped chamber would allow the oscillations to double and reach a 2nd octave. Most ocarinas are of an odd shape, like a sweet potato, or bird, or other odd things.
But this is all a moot point, as it is clearly not a whistle, as we know it, a six holed open system fipple flute, or as I would like it to be known, a “Coolmaphone”
Actually Lark, I probably have to stand corrected. I suspect that all changes in pitch in the bosun’s whistle are due to cupped hands. I had one as a kid and was never able to get it to flip registers, which is what I thought they were doing in all the nautical movies.
And the construction – the bosun’s whistle is to the sports whistle as the flageolet is to the tinwhistle.
Closed ended whistles don’t flip octaves too easily. The unique sound is rich in odd harmonics. I used closed ended drones in the “Bagwhistle” to keep them from changing pitch easily.
