Shush whistle high pitch sound

Whistle
1

My Shush D whistle, which is the only whistle that I have, often produces high pitch sound when tonguing or switching octaves. If I slowly increase breath pressure on the lowest note it first starts to play D two octaves above before jumping into D one octave above. This is behaviour is repeatable and always happens at breath pressure that is inbetween first and and second octave.

Is this a problem with my unit or do all Shush whistles behave like that?

Any information would be very much appreciated

2

The best way to get an answer to that would be to make a video of it being played (you don’t need to appear in it - we only need the audio, but it’s easier to do a video and stick it up on youtube), and it would then be easy enough to tell if you’re blowing it competently. You can also delete it soon after getting a diagnosis. If you’re doing it right, it’s most likely a fault with that individual whistle.

3

Thank you for your reply! I will upload video later, to better show what I mean. I now realise that maybe some clarification from my post is needed. When played normally, whistle sounds good and this high pitch sound is pretty quiet and mostly appears when tonguing.

I bought Shush as a first proper whistle, because I was making my own diy quiet whistle and wanted to compare against it and learn more. Because of this I’m trying to pay attention to all the sound details to learn why Shush sounds the way it does.

The only repeatable way I found to highlight this high pitch sound is to very slowly increase pressure on bottom note. I was expecting it to maybe sound distorted and then flip to second octave, but instead it first plays D5+D7 at the same time and then flips to D6. This seems strange to me, but since I’m relatively new maybe it is actually normal and I just wasn’t aware

4

Here is the video. Phone mic isn’t the best, but I hope it works as an example

5

I can get those three octaves on my whistles if I blow them like that, but I don’t usually increase air pressure and speed gradually when playing. I give it the right amount to produce the note I want.

Some notes need a tiny break in the airstream to jump the octave cleanly, which is one of the reasons for tonguing. When you first start out you might get a little click or squeak at that point (specially with the highest notes) but it usually disappears with practice.

If tonguing is noisy, try doing it by making the letter K inside your mouth instead of the letter T. It’s harder to do, but gives a softer transition.

6

The whistle here is performing perfectly normally. When you play the lower note, it is a stable standing wave in the instrument. As you increase the air pressure it goes through a “break”, a period of turbulence, before it hits the next stable standing wave and produces a note an octave above.

Some whistle have a more turbulent break, others a less turbulent one.

When playing a tin whistle, we do not play the break between the octaves as you are doing here. We simply learn to apply the right amount of air for each note and skip the turbulence. Often an octave break like this is tongued or even ornamented.

7

Oh, tonguing by doing letter K does seem to work a lot nicer on the Shush. I didn’t know that was also an option. Thanks for the suggestion!

8

Thank you for the explanation!

My diy whistle does have a much less turblunet break with the biggest differences between my whistle and Shush being labium thickness (thin on mine, big and round on the Shush) and windway height (1mm on mine, 2mm on the Shush). Is it reasonable to assume that one or both of those parameters strongly effect the turbulence of the break?

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I’m not sure, but I do think the issues you’re experiencing are probably typical for a new player.

It’s only two or three years since I came back to playing, and I found it really hard to adjust to any new whistle I tried. They seemed to handle so differently that it took a frustrating length of time to get used to them.

That disappeared as I got better, and it will for you too. It won’t be long before you’re wondering why on earth you found octave transitions difficult.

10

Ah, I see what you’re exploring; so you can play it fine, but have found differences between whistles in how they handle these in-between pressures. I’m getting different behaviour from different whistles too, and I can replicate a variety of them on a single whistle just by making small changes to the windway height (I have a prototype on which I can move the whole windway up and down easily). With the windway lower I can get it to go from the bottom octave through a stage where the second octave note comes in along with the first octave note, and then as I increase the pressure more the lower note disappears. With the windway higher it can go straight from the lower to the higher note without playing both.

Each maker tries to find the best compromise position for the windway, and for its dimensions, to try to produce what they think is best over all for two or more octaves, and because different people have different ideas about what’s best, you get different compromises from different makers, and from model to model within a brand, and from instrument to instrument for a single model where unintended differences creep in. I don’t think many people would prioritise the whistle making cleaner transitions from low to high octave through gradual pressure change at the expense of other factors that may be more important, though the higher windway position that produces the cleanest transitions on my prototype does seem to provide optimal performance in other important ways, but other geometrical differences between whistles may not make that universally so. Also, I haven’t varied windway height (floor-to-ceiling) when testing this.

1 Like
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Good to know windway length also affects this. Movable windway does sound like an amazing thing for prototyping. How did you make something like that? Is windway a separate interchangeable module?

I ended up with 25mm long windway on my whistle, because it felt nice. Shush is also around 25mm. Is it a right assumption that long windway and thin windway have the same effect on this aspect of playability because both of them constrict airflow?

From you response it seems like windway explains most of this effect. Do you think thick round blade on the Shush has any effect at all or not really?

12

I didn’t mention windway length, but longer seems to help reduce turbulance by the time the air reaches the exit, generating less hiss, aided perhaps by a vertical narrowing of the windway as it goes along which may be done primarily to help with demoulding the part, but it will also drive an acceleration of the air through the windway, and it reduces the clogging with water drops in most of the windway. I have yet to experiment with that systematically as it takes a lot of time making parts, but it’s something I’d like totry some day with a 3D printer.

“Movable windway does sound like an amazing thing for prototyping. How did you make something like that? Is windway a separate interchangeable module?”

I simply make the windway as a distinct component so that I can try it in different places with blu-tak holding it in place temporarily, and also vary the angle it directs the flow in, then once it’s right I can remove the blu-tack, glue it in place, then fill in any gap with resin. I can also switch to alternative windways with different heights and different amounts of narrowing until I find the best one for a specific whistle, although there’s more than one best one depending on how loud you want it to be. With 3D printing it would be possible to make a system with interchangeable windways to let the user do all of this too. Another thing to vary is the shape of the exit where it’s common to see a 45 degree exit slope for the floor for a millimetre before it makes another 45 degree turn to complete the 90 degree turn downwards. I suspect that a 135 degree angle would be better, and a concave curve there better still, because the jet of air exiting the windway attracts the air it’s passing to join the flow, and you want to make the pathways for that additional air smooth so that it doesn’t make sudden direction changes.

“Is it a right assumption that long windway and thin windway have the same effect on this aspect of playability because both of them constrict airflow?”

I don’t know; would have to experiment with that.

“From you response it seems like windway explains most of this effect.”

When it comes to how much pressure you feel blowing through the thing, it’s likely entirely the windway geometry.

”Do you think thick round blade on the Shush has any effect at all or not really?”

You can get away with a lot of different shapes for the edge. To test it systematically you’d need to make a head with interchangeable blades and adjustable windway so that you can make comparisons in a more convenient way. Rounded works, but whenever I experiment with this I always end up with the edge sharp as that seems to work better across the full range of notes with the instruments I’ve made, but if you’re using different geometries, a rounded edge may be best for some of them, but if the aim is to make a quiet whistle, I suspect it’s better just to make the window narrower rather than blunting the edge.

1 Like
13

Thank you very much for this detailed reply!

”I didn’t mention windway length”

My bad, I must have misread.

”I have yet to experiment with that systematically as it takes a lot of time making parts, but it’s something I’d like totry some day with a 3D printer.”

Very interesting! As it happens, I’m actually making my projects on an fdm 3d printer. I can highly recomend it. The ability relatively to quickly do many dozens of iterations is the only reason I’m able to make something decent as a beginner. I can only imagine how quickly someone experienced with whistle design can iterate on their designs with 3d printing.

”Another thing to vary is the shape of the exit where it’s common to see a 45 degree exit slope for the floor for a millimetre before it makes another 45 degree turn to complete the 90 degree turn downwards. I suspect that a 135 degree angle would be better, and a concave curve there better still”

I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean. Is it something like on this sketch or am I completely misunderstanding?

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image1729Ă—567 23.8 KB

What would be the effect of tone and playabilty of this windway modification you are describing?
I have both high D and low D whistle heads that I can quickly add this modification to, to see if there are big changes

”if the aim is to make a quiet whistle, I suspect it’s better just to make the window narrower rather than blunting the edge”

That’s pretty much what I tried to do. Result ended up a bit louder then Shush, but I do enjoy how it sounds and plays. Here is a picture of window size difference

image
image960Ă—1280 118 KB

Thanks again for answering my questions, I appreciate it!

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Three diagrams to help explain what I was referring to. In each case I show the windway roof and floor, then at the exit of the floor (which is at the left-hand end - I had to reverse the diagrams as the software doesn’t respect leading spaces) we change direction as we go into the main tube of the instrument, and the issue is how to make that transition. The angles used below are dictated by the slopes of the “/” and “\” characters and I am not suggesting using those angles in instruments.

90 degree turn
__________________________________

__________________________________
|
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70 degree turn followed by a 20 degree turn

__________________________________

__________________________________
/
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110 degree turn followed by a 20 degree turn back the other way

__________________________________

__________________________________
\
|

Now, what I mostly see in instruments is the 90 degree turn or a 45 degree turn followed by another 45 degree turn, so it’s just a chamfered edge with the sloping part typically only a millimetre long. I think a 135 degree turn followed by a 45 degree turn back the other way (to the vertical) could be better for reducing turbulance, but better still would be to use a concave curve, the purpose being to enable smooth airflow round the curve to join the main stream that’s exiting the windway.

Of course, minimising turbulance isn’t what everyone’s looking for; it’s turbulance that generates the chiff that many people want, but it may also affect the ease with which some notes can be produced.

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Oh, I think I understand now. Would this sketch of windway exit towards the labium be correct?

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That’s close to it, but make the exit a sharp edge and make the 45 degree bit curved (concave). Here’s the windway floor (the top line), and sorry to blind members of the forum who read this and have to get through about 180 X characters:-

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

That kind of curve to enable airflow up it and round to the horizontal where it gets sucked along to the right by the air exiting the windway.

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Got it. I can’t make a super sharp edge on a 3d printer, but it might be thin enough. I’ll try adding this to my low whistle mouthpiece to see what effect it has.

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It’ll likely be a very subtle effect, so it’ll be interesting to hear if it’s detectable. The top of the windway exit should also be shaped to allow this gentle addition to the flow from above without sudden direction changes.

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I tried it, but it had some strange effects. Bottom octave became too easy to overblow. However, top ocatve did sound more clean (less wind noise). Top octave of my low whistle started sounding more similar to bottom octave of high whistle, if that description makes sense. Maybe it doesn’t fit well with my current design for some reason. I will try it again with future designs, might work better.

20

I’ve tried it too, but it’s hard to judge if any possible improvement is anything other than imaginary. It certainly isn’t worse though. The problem with these little changes is that they may only show up in combination with getting a whole lot of other things just right, but the evolution towards better sound willl certainly be easier if you can make accurate duplicates and precise changes with 3D printing. The variability that I get from filing parts by hand depends far too much on luck.