Cathal McConnel of Boys of the Lough fame has been doing a similar sort of thing for years - playing two whistles, each one with one hand. Amazing effect to see and hear live. Beth sent me a recording a while back of this very phenom. You can hear it here (though to see it live is magical!):
I’m pretty sure he tapes the top three holes of one of the whistles, and fingers the top three of the other. I’ve seen him do it, and it’s pretty amazing
Saw Larry Nugent do it for the craic at a session after Tom Dahill put him up to it, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered, he said. He taped the three upper holes and played the lowers on the lefthand whistle and played the upper three on the other one (he’s lefthanded). After a bit I could make out Miss McLeod’s. I could see why L.N. considered it a mere parlor trick as it did nothing worthwhile for the tune, even though the whole effect was very amusing. Sorry if I’m playing the wet blanket here, but in the end I found it irritating that the trick overrode the music. But that’s just me.
Haven’t I seen Kevin Crawford do something similar? I didn’t see any tape, but I might not have been close enough. As I recall he was playing whistles of different keys.
Kevin did the two whistle trick at a concert this fall, in what I think was the “wedding tune” set. I’m fairly certain that they were different keys, and that he was harmonizing for the fiddle or pipes, I can’t remember which.
Although not exactly what you are asking about, you might find this interesting: Tully makes a double whistle where one leg is a D drone and the other leg has all of the tone holes and carries the tune. The whistle looks like a mouth full, but I imaging that it sounds good. Here’s a link to see it: http://www.tullberg.com/tully/whistles.html
Nancy Rumbel does some amazing things with these (as well as single ocarinas, and oboe and English Horn) along with Eric Tingstad’s guitar on their several recordings…
I read in “A Dossan of Heather” that Packie Manus Byrne could play 3 whistles at one time. One would be taped to act as a D drone, the other two, he played using the top 3 holes (maybe 4 with little finger?). There’s a song in the book he would play that way – but I’ve loaned out my copy and can’t recall the title. Talk about a mouthful!
I imagine it would depend on the tune being played, and what the final effect was you were going for such as a D, G or A drone etc. Depending on the notes you wanted to have harmonize, you could conceivably tape - or not.
You’re right of course Amar, I am stark raving mad, but in denial most of the time. I was quite sober the night I saw Lunasa this year, but for whatever reason, my mind is a little fuzzy on the whole show…
Paul has the closest answer with stopping the toneholes with tape etc. The technique of playing 2 whistles/pipes is ancient and there are many ways to do this. I believe the most common in Europe is based on the Italian Bagpipe call the Zampona.
This instrument has a double chanter with 4 toneholes in each melody pipe. There is an overlap of scale in the middle so a drone may be played on the bell note or the overlap notes (usually an a’ note). The Launeddas is a similar pipe and both are related to the “Magdeburg Bagpipe” listed in the plates of Michael Pretorious in “The Syntagma Organistrum vol.II”
To play this technique, the bottom 2 toneholes of the left (upper) pipe are plugged and the top 2 of the right (lower) pipe are plugged so there is an overlap at the a’ note (on a set of d’ whistles of course). This allows the player to trill a drone note between d’ and g’ with an optional a’ note drone on the open right pipe that can be doubled on the left pipe. d’ g’ and a’ are an acoustic match.
I have seen pictures of instruments that consist of two six holed whistles connected together or made as a unit in one piece of clay or wood. I believe the trick was to use the pipers grip with one hand and the fingertips with the other hand on one whistle and do the reverse hand wise with the other whistle. By holding the hands and bending the fingers just right I believe you could play any two fingerings, even with half-holings, with the same dexterity it takes to play the guitar. I imagine playing notes in two different octaves was where things could get complex, but perhaps using the tongue to reduce the airflow to the lower note might do the trick. A novice probably had to do things rather slowly and work up in speed after getting the hang of the instrument. When I think about how hard it would be to play such an instrument, I imagine it took a lot of practice, but would not be much harder than playing different notes and rhythms at the same tempo with both hands as required in much of the keyboard repertoire.
There was a guy from (I think) Sicily touring with Kathryn Tickell a year or two back. he played two `whistles’ at once. I understood this double thingy to be a standard instrument in some out of the way place. The music was fantastic and I’ve often wondered if a recording is available somewhere.
I suggest using the same brand of whistle as using different whistle makers means that each note pitch will have a greater chance of being different. I did it with 2 sweetones a few years back and it worked wonderfully. Playing things in G tends to work the best…
