Just thought of something - if whistles can be made with a Cnat hole, why not make an uilleann chater type whistle with a back D hole and a D#/Eb hole on the bottom? Makes sense I would think - for those of us pipers who may want to try a run with back D using the thumb like a chanter would and yet don’t want to ‘strap in’ as it were.
Anyone tried making/playing something like this? I wouldn’t think it any different from a standard whistle with the exception of adding the two holes.
He’s looking for a whistle with uilleann-pipe style fingering, for quick practice. So it would need two extra holes (one below the bottom hole, and one on the back above the top hole), and some consideration of fingering methods as the piping fingering patterns are different from those of the whistle.
Brian, you mention “not mouthblown” (which didn’t register the first time I read this)…wouldn’t this mean you’d have to strap into some sort of bellows anyway?
I think Daniel Binghamton did some sort of up-whistle combo at some point but I really don’t remember what it was like.
Edit - and hey, belated congratulations on your 1,000th post. Now see, if you hung out here more instead of the pipe board, we’d have thrown you a party…
when he said “not mouthblown” he meant “not a reeded mouthblown uilleann chanter”. the song of the sea chanter has not pleased too many people and its rep in our (chiff and fipple) community is poor.
i believe he wants a whistle, (with a fipple, not a reed) but with uilleann fingering. i would also be interested. though i have a feeling at least one response will be “yes, they call it a recorder”
I just finished making Bagwhistle-III for someone.
This one has a high-D chanter and there are two drones ‘D’ and ‘G’ plugged into the three position dronestock in the photo.
The bag actually works pretty well with a high-D, the previous bagwhistles had a low-G chanter and ran out of air very quicky.
I actually have one of those Song of the Sea dealies. (I couldn’t wait for my Childress set to get started. ) In the respect that it can teach you fingerings of the UP chanter, it’s ok–better than the stick with holes and rubber endcaps from SharkinAM. In the respect that it can serve as a viable practice chanter, it doesn’t really reproduce the physicality of the pipes. Also these are pretty soft and kind of squirly in the intonation and octave switching. Probably from drilling the Eb hole in a reverse conical bore. Not a lot of back pressure and the bottom end doesn’t present very well with out jumping octaves. Makes for some very difficult cranning.–
Keep in mind, these things are(were anyway) made from a Susato regular bore A whistle body because it approximates the finger spacing of many concert D chanters. Meaning, it will play in A. Hmm. Maybe they should try one with the medium bores they have had out for a while. The tone is definately stronger at least on those.
IMHO, your money is probably better spent on one of those injection molded jobs you have been singing about. These things only come through with what I would estimate to be about 15-18% of what a practice instrument would be able to develop.
Best of luck.
Scott McCallister
BTW. PM me with your email, Brian. I have some pics to share from your travels through Denver in September.
I do NOT want the mouthblown thing from Lark in the Am or wherever it comes from.
I DO want a whistle with a back D and Eb hole is all.
I’m not interested in learning pipes with it - I already have a set of course. What I was looking for was a whistle that would allow even closer fingerings to a chanter while still being played like a whistle.
It sounds like you want a “thing that should not be” whistle in Eb.
My “thing whistle” simply has an extra hole on the top hand. It is a G whistle, and roughly matches my A 440 Chanter. (well sort of, except my A chanter is more like A +32% or 448) The extra hole is a G, and I get high A by fingering oxxx xxo and overblowing slightly. (I have never had success with thumbholes, and after learning to finger it with a touch of overblow for the octave.. i really didnt see the need)
IT is Just tempered, and when I tuned it/opened up the holes I used GHB fingering. I basicly did it one hole at a time starting with low G, and worked my way up. I started with the origional hole layout of the G Susato Tube, and 20ft of Pvc pipe later… I had the “thing that should not be”. Of course, now I know well enough to get rough hole layout with the flute-o-matic calculator.
I am not entirely sure which notes you need, but if you provide them I might see what I can do. I need exact notes. (Eb4 + 17cents, D4 +0 etc ) Maybe an UP piper with a Peterson tuner can indulge us with the notes and equal temp offsets???
Nope - not looking for anything fancy. Just looking for a D whistle with a back D thumbhole (as opposed to the Cnat hole that several makers alredy offer - same thing, just higher up on the tube) and an Eb hole, for the pinky under the bottom hand. Still a D whistle. Still in regular D whistle tuning, not the equal temperment of pipes (or whatever it’s called.)
Nope, sorry Zub. Just looking for a plain old D whistle with a couple extra holes really. Back D in particular. Not interested in GHP fingerings, or even true uilleann fingerings at all. The whistle is close enough to the u. pipes but the GHP are a different beast altogether.
Hi Brian, I use to have an old wooden flute with a thumb hole and
wondered the same thing about whistles. That was years ago when I first
started, and until I found out that wooden flutes w/o thumb holes are preferred
by nearly every piper/flute player/whistle player. The only thing
left is the reason why. I doubt if the pipes would have a thumb hole if the
upper (ghost) D was as reliable as it is on the flute and whistle.
Very true. I’m just finding some whistle tunes that I would like to play as I do on the pipes -meaning back D with the thumb- and some where an Eb would also be very cool to have.
I’m kinda supprised no one knows what i’ve been asking for. The whistles with an extra C hole at the bottom (modal??) and a Cnat hole up at the top seem common enough… :roll:
I understand what you’re looking for, and such a whistle wouldn’t be difficult to make… but the octave D thumb hole would have to be in a fairly uncomfortable position.
A C-Natural thumb hole can be placed in the same area where the thumb usually rests in a natural playing position, but an octave D hole would have to be placed even higher on the tube than the C# hole.
I could make such a beast, but it would probably make the fingers on your left hand cramp fairly quickly.
Give me a shout if you’re serious about having this Frankenstein monster brought to life, and I’ll get right on it… I’ve always loved a good challenge!
I’m enjoying my 1st Saturday off since early July, and I’ll be spending some time down in my workshop later this evening.
The excessive overtime I’ve been forced to work at my regular job keeps delaying the official announcement regarding the availability of my whistles and retrofit heads for sale, but the R&D is finished on my 13, 14, and 15mm retrofit heads, and on my complete 5/8" diameter polymer whistles from E-Natural down to C.
) In the respect that it can teach you fingerings of the UP chanter, it’s ok–better than the stick with holes and rubber endcaps from SharkinAM. In the respect that it can serve as a viable practice chanter, it doesn’t really reproduce the physicality of the pipes. Also these are pretty soft and kind of squirly in the intonation and octave switching. Probably from drilling the Eb hole in a reverse conical bore. Not a lot of back pressure and the bottom end doesn’t present very well with out jumping octaves. Makes for some very difficult cranning.–
