i was fiddling around with my old recorder and decided to see if i could play it exactly like a whistle, so I covered the first hole at the top and the hole on the bottom side with tape, and to my surprise it actually plays like a whistle, (when you use the remaining six holes to play it)
well, the upper octave is out of tune though, the fingering has to be modified slightly to reach the higher octave, by half holing the hole below the one covered with tape when playing the higher octave (left index finger for righties)
so there you have it, a recorder turned into a high C whistle, try it out!
Is that anything like recordering around with your old fiddle?
Clever! Of course, the “G” fingering (actual F) still requires cross-finger support to avoid being too sharp: G = xxxoxx and g = xxxoxo . And the second octave “D” (actual C) is now way too sharp.
Not really usable because of the intonation problems, but fun to try.
What you’re describing is effectively the inverse of the old “whistle capo” trick whereby you shift all your fingers up by one hole, such that the T2 finger covers the #1 hole, the T3 finger covers the #2 hole, etc. Your top T1 finger covers nothing, and just rests against the upper barrel. And you can use your bottom pinkie finger B4 to cover the bottom hole.
The natural scale starting on xxxxxx is now Dorian, but shifted up a whole step from the key of the whistle. A D whistle now seems to be in E, a C whistle in D, etc. Most useful for playing pentatonic A tunes with G fingering on a D whistle. And with a bit of cross-fingering and pinkie fingering, you can even play hexatonic or full A Major. The A setting of the “Coast of Austria” clip I posted as a GG whistle demo in another thread is an example of this technique.
Another fun thing is to tape the top three holes of your whistle closed and play it like a tabor pipe. Doesn’work perfectly either, of course, but it’s kind of neat to mess about with.
Just transposition, Adrian. Most usefully, it lets you play A tunes more comfortably as if they were in G (i.e., with G fingering), then mechanically transpose them back up to A with the finger-shift. It’s like a “whistle capo”, and saves having to carry an extra E whistle for that purpose.
The main adjustments are:
o Use the bottom pinkie finger for C-nat; i.e., xxx|xxxx instead of oxx|ooo. And the top finger doesn’t actually cover anything, so it always stays put.
o Half-hole and/or cross-finger the F#s, since the natural scale is now Dorian with F-nats. Depending on the whistle, F# xxx|oxxx and f# xxx|oxxo or xxx|oxox may be serviceable.
It’s not a panacea or substitute for learning to play in A, but it’s a fun trick to have in one’s bag.
