Does anyone know how to do slides up to D, on a D whistle please?
Start low, (cross-fingered) C nat even and gradually peel your top hand fingers off so you gradually raise the pitch until you reach your destination. I say destination as there’s no really effective way, other than using your breath pressure, to slide from C# to d’ but you can fake it well by doing as described (‘slide’ from Cnat to C#) but continue on to d’. Peeling a half-holing top finger off the whistle, gradually opening the top hole, will achieve more or less the same.
Thanks for the reply Mr Gumby but you’ve lost me. In peeling off all the fingers to reach C#, how do then get them all down for D. Or does overblowing C# produce D?
You can lower the D somewhat by covering the end of the tube with your pinky, or on the low whistle maybe with your knee or your calf, and slide up from there. I don’t know to what extent these kinds of “special effects” are convincing within a tune though… but as usual, that’s probably just a matter of practice.
Edit: x-post, I didn’t mean to answer your question to Mr. Gumby.
I’ve just been experimenting starting with Cnat OXXOOO and then rolling the bottom three fingers down to produce D. It produces a degree of slide but not convincingly so. Likewise starting with C# as OOOXXX and rolling two fingers down to produce D.
You obviously put your fingers back again for d’
So you’re really only sliding from Cnat to C#?
I say destination as there’s no really effective way, other than using your breath pressure, to slide from C# to d’ but you can fake it well by doing as described (‘slide’ from Cnat to C#) but continue on to d’
You’ll get something like [this clip, that is no longer there].
Thanks Mr Gumby!
At least three different topics are being addressed by the various posts above
- bending up to middle D
- bending up to Bottom D (which can be overblown to Middle D of course)
- bending down to Bottom D (which can be overblown to Middle D of course)
It might be confusing to someone who thinks all the posts are talking about the same thing.
As far as #1 goes, hey it’s an excuse to drill yet another hole in the backside of the whistle, for Middle D, just like the uilleann pipes have. Then you could do a proper bend up to Middle D.
As far as #2 goes, some makers put an extra hole on the whistle for C below D making bends up to both Bottom D and Middle D easy. When I played flute I’d create the illusion of bending up to Bottom D by doing a C# gracenote with the footjoint key. Cool in tunes like Bunker Hill where fiddlers are scooping up to that D with their little finger on their low G string.
“Slides” might well be kept to mean the type of dance tune.
The thing Gumby is talking about is creating the illusion that you’re doing something that, theoretically speaking, is impossible. An analogous thing happens on the uilleann pipes when you bend from E in the 2nd octave down to the chanter’s Back D. Theoretically you can’t smoothly bend from a note in the 2nd octave down to a note in the low octave, but there it is.
Thanks Richard.