Hi all,
I’ve been learning this beautiful tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW8Lgn5pweM on a high D whistle. Has anyone got any good tips on playing the high b note without sounding shrill? This song hangs quite long on the B note and it shouldn’t be overpowering. I have a reasonably good sounding D whistle so it’s not a whistle problem.
The guy is playing a low G.
Thanks in advance
Shrillness is not really a matter of being good/badly sounding whistle. What brand do you use?
Part of the problem is, that he´s got low G - so that´s much lower and much less prone to be shrill.
You can try toying with embouchure (in my case, playing with my lips relaxed gives out much more breathy and less shrill sound than when playing with lips stiff) or with breath pressure - but I believe that shrillness is mostly aspect of a whistle, not of technique.
Shrillness is not really a matter of being good/badly sounding whistle.
I wouldn’t discard the possibility that easily either.
Hi B is a tough note.. try adding a little bit of tongueing to get the note started, but not enough that it blasts.
Once you have the note sounding, experiment with breath pressure to see how hard you can blow before it tries to jump up again, and how softly you can play it before it wants to break down. Somewhere in between is the best spot for your particular whistle. With practice you’ll learn to hit that spot consistently.
I’ll slightly highjack this topic with a related question of my own. While trying to tame the wild high B, I’ve found that several of my whistles sound better when the high B is fingered XOO OXO or XOO XOO. Putting that lower finger down seems to eliminate some of the shrillness while allowing the breath pressure to stay up and leaving the note in tune. Does anyone else use an alternate fingering on high B? I haven’t recorded this fingering yet, so I don’t know if the effect is just to the player’s ear or if it actually affects the sound of the whistle at large. Feadogs seem to like the alternate fingering more than other brands.
Shrillness is not really a matter of being good/badly sounding whistle.
can you explain this?
Haven’t tried wallri’s suggestion yet, but it sounds interesting. Breath control, and embouchure helps to a degree, but i think this note in this song needs to be as sweet as you can get it. This particular tune hits the B and hangs there.
I am well aware that a low G isn’t so shrill, it was playing this tune on a D whistle i was asking about.
thanks to all suggestions
X00 XXX works for me.
The answer is to look at good (and I emphasise ‘good’) whistle players playing. I think you’ll find all of them in some shape or form shade the note a bit by keeping a number of fingers on or just over the lower holes (with maybe a bit of vibrato added) to control the sound and the pitch of the note. A well focussed blow contributes to a better sound as well.
The whistle itself contributes to shrillness, some whistles are more balanced for volume between the octaves but today’s quest for ever more louder whistles will almost inevitably come at the price of more shrillness in the higher notes. I have a number of (old) whistles where the high a and b don’t stand out volume wise at all, very lovely and sweet. Most forum members would dismiss those as not suitable as ‘sessions-whistles’, whatever those are (which is nonsense of course).
[edited to add:]
you may want to try forking like : XOØØOX where the middle two holes are shaded by keeping the finger just above the hole, you’ll hear how close you need to stay. May not work on all whistles, some are fussier about closing extra holes than others and jump the harmonic into notes you don’t want at all (although XOOXXO can get you a close enough top c sometimes)
Some whistles are simply more loud/shrill on the high B.
I’ll have to try the alternate fingering idea. It seems I’ve read that before, but don’t remember if I ever actually tried it.
One thing that helped me a bit was really learning the difference between simply blowing harder versus actually getting the airstream to move faster. There is a difference, and it’s tweaked mainly with the embouchure.
This is not to say that I never hit a shrill high B, but it has helped.
Jason
Thanks Peter/Tommy,
Seeing some video clips of good players, shows this.
Playing with vibrato or hovering the lower holes seems to make everything sweeter. Practice makes perfect.
Great tips thanks Guys
I learn something new every day. Life is good.
I would say that shrill high notes is definitely is part of the character of the whistle though the embouchure can soften them to some degree. This thread made me curious so I made a little test on the whistles I have in my collection.
I tried going from a low to high B and back trying to find the threshold where the tone would start to break and fall back to a low B and to my surprise it is a character I find that I don’t particularly like on my Burkes (I have several) with two exceptions. 
My Burke Alu C session bore has a really sweet high A which would be the equivalent of the high B on a D whistle and it’s the same with the high G on my Bb. The high B’s on both my narrow bore Alu D as well as my brass session bore D are a bit on the shrill side and a lot louder than the low B’s. This is not to say that the Burke’s are great whistles; -They are, and in a session loud notes in the high register can even be benefitial. I would prefer a little more balance in volume between the octaves though.
I’ve also got two tweaked Walton’s "Little Black Whistle"s and they do not behave the same. One of them has a really sweet high B and can even be pushed beyond into the 3’rd octave without being shrill (Well, my neighbours cat doesn’t like it…), the second “Little Black” doesn’t behave the same at all, the high B is earpiercing… 
My tweaked Generation Bb behaves similarly to the first of the two Walton’s. Though it can’t be pushed beyond the third octave A the high G is still very sweet.
On my low D’s the Chieftain has a much sweeter high B than on my Dixon Alu whistle and the Chieftain has a lot more character across the whole register as well.
Thus I agree with Pyroh who said:
I believe that shrillness is mostly aspect of a whistle, not of technique.
You can get rid of some of the shrillness by training but not completely get rid of it.
Cheers,
Anders
I know this one…
And since I make my own whistles, if the High B is shrill, I’ve only myself to blame.
I play “Tamhair dom do Lamh” and honestly never noticed a problem with the High B. The tune I do notice a problem with is “The Drop Dead Waltz” by Kathryn Tickell. Since I play that on a C whistle, it’s a high A that’s shrill, not a high B. Generally I shorten the note a little. If I shorten it too much, it sounds like a squeak. But mostly this shrillness makes the note sound longer, so it works out.
The odd thing is that tunes that start high don’t seem to give this problem - I’m thinking of “The New Rigged Ship” and “The Full Rigged Ship”, and “Tatter Jack Welch”.
I’ve found with certain tunes that using the Tabor-pipe technique can get you a clearer note. Instead of fingering a B
X O O O O O
finger an F
X X X X O O
And blow for the next octave. You get a B! It depends on the whistle whether you get a cleaner note than the regular way, but it can make a useful difference to some tunes.
Shouldn’t that be “finger an E”?
On the C whistle he was discussing earlier, I assume.
It something I tend to do on the A whistle mostly, so I’d be fingering C to get F. …Unless I’ve slipped a cog and am fingering C to get G.
MTGuru is rarely wrong and I often am, so go with yer man, while I check. I’m playing by ear so it’s whatever sounds right. The point is you can use the fingerings of the bottom three notes and overblow to get the next (half) octave.
It is indeed as MTGuru says.
What he should have said was the shrillness is partly a function the instrument’s tone AND the frequency of that particular note. Because your ear’s frequency response is not flat, some notes are louder than others. For example, a smoke detector is particularly piercing because the alarm’s frequency is near the peak response of your hearing. High B on a regular D whistle is nearing that peak response.
There are other things you can do to make that tune work for you. Buy the same whistle. Choose another whistle. Substitute the note. Put a bead of blue sticky tack at the blade. Play harp (or bodhran).
I play this song too, usually now on my B flat, but also on my high D, the trick is to not be afraid of the note, just go for it, let it sing out, and it sounds better, if you build up to it too, it doesnt sound as high or shrill.
and i really the version you gave, its so pretty
IMO this is a much nicer example of “Give me your hand” :
http://www.tonyhinnigan.com/movie.php?pageName=tony6.mov
The high notes are a very long B followed by 3 shorter B’s then a long B. I presume this is what you are having trouble with. On my Dixon trad these notes are really sweet but if your whistle is shrill or if you are not yet able to control them then one way you can play this series of notes is this:
Theres a high A before these, so slide from the A up into the first B, leave this first B short and take a breath instead, then Cut (grace) ALL of the other 4 B’s. You might find though that by sliding up into the first B you can keep it from sounding shrill, in which case you can hold it longer instead of taking a breath. Theres a gradual build up from G to A to those B’s so it shouldn’t really be a problem holding this note long. It would be harder coming from a low note straight up to a long high B, in which case I’d normally tongue the B, cut it short and take a breath. Or if it’s a very long high B, tongue it short, breath, then cut another B, effectively breaking it into 2 B’s with a breath in between.