Having boldly announced my penny whistle prowess to my high school band director, I have been assigned the task of putting down my clarinet to play the penny whistle part (about 8 measures)when our band performs the theme from the Lord of the Rings film. This works best on the Bflat whistle, but here are my problems:
My Generation Bflat whistle has never been great - too breathy and muddy separation of registers.
My band director wants it louder (without amplification) and an octave higher than I can play it on this Bflat whistle.
Can anyone offer advice? Any easy fix for my Generation B flat whistle? What is best option to play this piece an octave higher on an alternative whistle?
By the way, does anyone know who played this in the movie? It’s easy with a microphone!
On 2003-01-08 22:40, Bagfed wrote:
(In your best Dr. Phil voice)This is not the post structural recorder experience, my friend.
No no, I know, but if the piece was originally played on a recorder (it was) and the recorder has better volume (it might), than why not try a recorder?
Ok, ok, well, for what it’s worth, I know Susato’s are supposed to be pretty loud (I don’t own any though), and I don’t think they’re that expensive. I don’t think it would work to well to just play up an octave and run up to the third octave, though. Even really good whistles tend to sound bad by then. The susato would probably deal with the volume though.
If you could find a high F (I don’t know that such a beast exists) you could transpose up a bit, and that key would have just about the least half-holing.
Another option would be to see if one of the various whistlemakers could make you a custom high Bb. Mack and Serpent both do excellent work, and I’m sure there are other good whistle-makers here as well who could help.
Hmm can’t say I’ve tried to make any high whistles yet. How about in Bass Bb that would sound better anyway… oh wait you said Good whistle makers… my Bad. I can’t speak for Bill (serpiepie) he’s seams to be busy a lot, but I bet for the right price Right Bill???
On 2003-01-08 23:04, tinker wrote:
Another option would be to see if one of the various whistlemakers could make you a custom high Bb.
The small fingers of a Hobbit might be able to negotiate the hole spacing on a super high Bb, but not the average Man. To take it up an octave, I would try a Susato F (assuming the arrangement is in the key of Bb).
As I was curious, I just played the LOR melody on my standard Bb whistle…Your band director really wants this thing played in the stratosphere, if he wishes you to play it one octave higher. This will be in the highest complete octave of the piano. There are a lot of high school auditorium sound systems that would make mince-meat of fundamental tones, amplified in that range. Your band director is aware of the fact that your Bb whistle sounds one octave higher than written, I hope.
In any case, be careful of microphone placement and levels on the audio mixer…
If the band leader really knows what he wants when he’s asking for an octave higher than you can play on your Generation Bb and the key really is Bb, a Susato high F might be the ticket.
Their Dublin model (non-tunable, but should be a good, pure-sounding, strong, easy-to-play whistle) is $12 + $6 shipping at http://www.susato.com. Or the Kildare (tunable) is $20 + $6 shipping. If the Susato gives a clean, pure sound up there in the stratosphere, it might be quite beautiful.
I’m willing to bet that the band director really doesn’t know the whistle plays an octave above written. I just can’t imagine he wants anything played that high. It would sound awful.
Since we really don’t know the time period involved before the performance, its hard to help. A Gen F will probably have the same problems you dislike in your Bb. A Susato is louder, although even that might not be loud enough to front an orchestra unamplified. Not to mention, if you really have to go that high, a lot of folks complain about difficulties in the upper half of a Susato’s second octave. There are other F whistles from some makers like Colin Goldie and Mack Hoover). But there are factors of 1:cost or 2:order delay, that probably make such a solution impractical for a concert this school year.
I kind of agree that your band leader may not know what he’s asking when he wants you to go up an octave. Maybe you should ask if you can play it for him first just to be sure before trying to find another whistle or trying a little lung busting in the second and third octaves.
If, after that, he still wants you that far up, I’d try a Susato F since that one is both loud and readily available.
On 2003-01-09 10:34, Redwolf wrote:
I’m willing to bet that the band director really doesn’t know the whistle plays an octave above written. I just can’t imagine he wants anything played that high. It would sound awful.
Redwolf
Yeah! Someone should remind him that piccolo music is also written an octave lower than it is played.
When I saw this post, I wondered why the band director didn’t assign the part to a piccolo, which would have no trouble playing in B-flat. (Not that a piccolo sounds like a whistle, though. Perhaps that was the point.)
piccolo, well, record would so the “likely” sound, but piccolo have a really powerful sound, I am wonder if record would do…
I try to compare piccolo with whistle, piccolo sound are really special ( maybe the diameter is larger than whistle one ), so…
The Susato small bore Bb whistle does not have the second octave problems of many of their whistles. (Or, at least, mine doesn’t.) There’s definitely more volume than with a Generation, and the intonation is quite good. As an added bonus, many people complain that Susatos sound too much like a recorder; as already noted, the movie sound track had a recorder playing the part. If you really wind up having to play in the upper octave of a high F Susato, please wear ear plugs!
