Based from Dr Gonzato, the 4th and 7th should be flat in order to have a good sound.
My tuner is making me crazy and probably my breath control or its breath equilibrium
I am tuning the 7th about 20 cents FLAT, but after finishing the DIY, it is now exact 7th (C in a C# whistle) after playing it and the flattened 7th (B in a C# whistle) is about 10-15 cents sharp.
I have noticed that when I make the 7th note flatter (C assuming C# whistle), I seem to get a good flattened 7th (B in a C# whistle) in the Cross fingering OXX-OOO.
In short my observation is under 2 conclusion.
The flatter the C the closer the B to the exact tone.
The Closer the C to the exact tone, the sharper the B.
Im really bothered by this tuner. It is making me crazy.
The question is, how flat should the 7th note be (C in a C# whistle) and how sharp should the flattened 7th be (B in a C# whistle) assuming OXX-OOO. What is the tolerable variance? Help…im getting paranoid
My mind is in a constant debate under the closer tone versus the expected breath upon hitting the tone.
Yes. You’re crazy. So are the rest of us who have ever tried to tune a DIY whistle.
First, I believe that Dr. Gonzato made a typo when talking about making the 4th and 7th flat of the tuner. I think he meant the 3rd and 7th. 14 cents flat of the tuner is more or less what you’re looking for. This whole topic is called just intonation. It makes for interesting–and confusing–internet reading.
Your other issue, about your B# ooo ooo being flat and/or your B natural oxx ooo being sharp, well, that’s a pretty common problem among whistles, whether homemade or store-bought. I’ve found, while making my own, that a smaller T1 hole, slightly further towards the mouthpiece, helps widen the interval between those two notes. You’ll have to drill a new whistle body, but I bet you were gonna do that anyway.
I’ve found that computer-based tuners (I haven’t tried any stand-alone tuners) don’t pick up whistles well, especially any with a less-than-pure sound. I use a reference whistle, taping over which holes are necessary, and do a direct comparison blowing both at once.
How does the whistle sound to you, regardless what the tuner says? Do your octaves sound good? Thirds? Fifths? If you play a few tunes, do any notes sound off key? If all of those are OK, I’d disregard the tuner. A whistle is an imperfect instrument which is part of it’s charm and also a frustration. Bottom line is how it plays.
Before you condemn the tuner, you might want to read this thread: /viewtopic.php?f=1&t=90943. Unless you have impeccable breath control, you’re not going to get repeatable pitches. Paul’s suggestion is one way around this problem: how does the whistle sound when you’re playing it. Unfortunately, my sense of pitch is shaky, so this may not be the best approach for me. I’ve had more success measuring the range of frequencies for each note. The frequency at which a note jumps between registers seems to be more repeatable.
Another option is a recording tuner like http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tuner/tuner_e.html (middle of the page): play a scale as naturally as you can, without watching the tuner, then go back and read the frequencies for each note. However, if you do have a decent sense of pitch, you may find yourself blowing the scale into tune, even when the whistle doesn’t make it as easy as it could.
Can I clarify this? Do you mean if my T1 hole is smaller…which means closer to the mouth piece, then the 7th and flattened 7th distance increases?
I have perceive it as either the more flatter the 7th and the flattended 7th becomes more sharper.
Or is it the other way around. The 7th lessens the flatness and the flattened 7th lessens the sharpness.
Oh…i heard that many times. And is convinced, and sometimes not. I guess I am really crazy.
In playing a fast music like reel, the tone sharpness or flatness does not seem to matter, at least for me.
But in a slower music, it does. Atleast for me again. It is so i can’t explain.
I am bothered whenever I hit the flattened 7th being sharp for the following conditions:
Hitting it longer say a quarter note, and hitting it with a “half mute” volume is what bothers me the most.
The strength of tone specially affects the mood of the song, at least on how I perceive it.
Some slow music composition requires a certain volume increase on some specific notes (crecendo) to signify a build-up.
In which I try to strengthen it by blowing it harder.
The Dilemma of doing so, is it became a little loud but sharper, which irks me for some reason. My ears is telling me, that’s totally wrong.
I tried to cheat by doing a thumbhole.
I am relieved by the volume and sharpness/flatness issue.
It has a nice strong sound of flattened 7th. I like the smoothness of tone quality transition from 8th to 7th-b to 6th.
But the problem is…it confused my brain.
Can I ask how do you deal with this crazyness?
PS: My tuner is accurate. I tested it on my keyboard and tuning forks.
Just a little wierd it gave a +5 cent variance on my A-440 tuning fork.
My sense of breath control is very good. I have trained in voice for choirs and self trained in opera music, via internet and resources.
My sense of pitch is also good. I sing as backing vocal in our church and backing vocals need to have good ears to improvise in harmonies whenever there are impromptu or short practice performances.
Having both qualities enhanced, my pitch and breath control sometimes create a big debate in the treatment of the flattened 7th on some slow songs.
I have no complains on the 7th being flat. I can control it by blowing a little hard to make it close to the exact tone. The flatness is quite an advantage specially when you launch the 8th
My problem is sometimes when hitting the tonic (or the 8th) with a fairly large amount of air, then blowing it quiet on the flattened 7th.
Listen to Paul (and Tunborough). You are over thinking this.
Tuning matters a lot (just as much for jigs and reels as it does for airs) but the way you are going about it will not result in a well tuned whistle in my experience. It has to be in tune when you play the music with the breath pressure that you normally use to play that music and at the tempo that you normally play the music. You’ll get better results using the Real-Time Tuning Analysis tools for all the reasons already given.
Now that is the experience I would suggest that you employ. As a harmony singer you are probably aware of the harmonic blending of pitches into chords. You know when the blend is on or off. Good harmony singers can adjust this quite naturally on the fly when they perform. Unfortunately the adjustments can be rather subtle and automatic. The human voice is the most adaptable of musical instruments. That’s part of the issue with testing individual tones on the tuner. You can make the subtle adjustments to breath pressure and pitch without even thinking about it. The same thing happens when playing slower pieces of music. We can blow things into pitch using our innate pitch correction techniques. It’s more difficult to do that playing music at dance tempos. So do use your ears and vocal harmony experience first. Play along with pre-recorded pieces and see how things sound. Listen to the blend. Record it if you must to hear the fine points. If it sounds good, don’t fuss with it. The RTTA tools do much the same in the end anyway.
Making the T1 hole smaller, all other things being equal, widens the distance between ooo ooo and oxx ooo. Depending on WHERE you position the smaller T1 hole, this can mean a slightly sharper ooo ooo, or a slightly flatter oxx ooo, or some of both.
Another option is to switch to oxx xoo or oxx xox for your flattened seventh. Either of those generally produce a flattened seventh that’s flatter than oxx ooo.
Feadoggie’s suggestion of Reel Time Tuning Analysis is a good idea. I’ve used a program called Flutini, based on RTTA, that has been very helpful for tuning my DIY whistles. You can get it for free here:
Another thing-- when you’re sitting at a workbench trying to achieve perfection, you’re going to notice all the variations in breath pressure and how they effect each note. You’ll need a bit more on one note, a bit less maybe on the next note of the scale. You can go nuts trying to equalize this perfectly.
Just play the whistle for a few days (weeks?). In time you’ll automatically adjust without even thinking about it. Really.
It’s the player not the whistle I guess. And I am making a major fuss about its charms and imperfections.
But can I ask, what is the reference of tuning that most whistle player and other instrumentalist agree with?
In classical it is normal that everyone follows the tuning of the keyboard or piano, which is ET. Other than the fact that tuning a piano is impractical to bend with other instruments tuning.
However, I seem to notice the Irish music a little sharp around I guess playing between 10-20 cents sharp, but not quite sure.
I seem to hear the key of A a little sharp instead of A440
Assuming I have a ready made whistle and in D. What is the key of your reference tuning with other instruments. Do you tune it by following the D of the other instrument or by following the A?
i can’t explain.