So I’m finally starting to play with other musicians more frequently, and the issue of having my instrument in tune has come up. I normally play Generations, and Feadogs, and the tuner I use is a Korg CA 40 chromatic tuner. This tuner is very sensitve to even the slightest bit of varying air pressures. I also have a tuner off a metronome, which plays an A=440 note, so, you would tune your whistle by ear with that option. Given what I’ve said here, I’m wondering if there are any fail safe tuning methods out there which I don’t yet know of… It seems I’m having a difficult time with this.
The gen tends to be a bit flat in the upper second octave or conversely the low notes in the first octave tend to be sharp. However you want to look at it, the instrument is not quite in tune with itself. I play a tweaked gen, which has pretty good intonation, and back off on the air pressure in the low notes and use more breath support in the upper notes. It’s really the higher notes that tend to clash in a group setting, especially if another whistler is present. Also, as the crowd gets bigger and louder, you’ll be blowing harder and sharper. And FWIW, whistlers are not the only ones who play out of tune. So just retune with the crowd as needed.
I tune to the bell note (push it to almost breaking the octave, or until you can hear the A harmonic) and the octave as they are more “stable” than any other note. The other notes vary with breath pressure, especially with the conical bore whistles. The cylindrical bore whistles have more stable notes and the second octave needs to be pushed pretty hard to play them in tune.
I usually tune against somebody else’s A. It’s all well and good getting a perfect A440, but what’s really important is to be in tune with everybody else. I usually watch to see who everybody else is tuning against, and tune against them by ear with the rest of the folks. If everybody else is tuned a little sharp or flat, and you’re tuned perfectly, you might as well be the one out of tune.
Whistles are especially hard to tune and keep in tune, since as the whistle warms up the tuning tends to change slightly. Especially if you’re constantly changing whistles, this can become a bit of a problem. Just something to keep in mind.
Some valid points made, I was wondering if it would be more wise to try and tune to others as my whistle is already warmed up, or right as I first pick up the whistle… Seems to me while it’s warmed up might be the better option, but then I guess you’d have to keep it warm the whole time in order for that to work.
Warming up isn’t as much of an issue with a plastic headed cheapie whistle. If you were playing something like a Chieftain or an Overton then it would be critical to have the metal warmed for best tuning but temperature doesn’t affect the tuning nearly as much in a moulded plastic head. That said, even just holding the whistle body in your hand during the tunes that you aren’t playing will keep it warm enough for your standard Gens and Feadogs in an average “room temperature” situation.
I don’t think that tuning your whistles before going to a session is a wasted effort either, if others in the group have done the same then there is a possibility that you’ll be spot on together, or at least very close. Small adjustments can always be made.
The other issue is, if you’re playing with other whistle players that are playing a different whistle make than you, then it’s always possible that your whistle and their whistle are tuned differently to themselves. For example, playing a Feadog next to someone playing a Generation; you may both get the same A but other notes (or the entire second register) may differ enough to make them sound bad together.
I only have temperature problems with low whistles. All my treble whistles seem to be rather temperature insensitive, that is unless the temp drops to where my fingers get numb…