I have a Waltons D brass whistle that plays sharp. I have Oak and Acorn whistles that have good intonation, so I lined these all up by the holes to see how they compare. The Oak and Acorn are essentially the same design (same mouthpiece, barrel, and hole-distribution). Based on the Oak/Acorn, the Waltons is:
• 1cm shorter at the mouthpiece end (based on the window).
• 1mm-2mm shorter at the other end.
• 8mm shorter overall.
• Has a mouthpiece that’s similar to the Generation brand, in that you can’t see the end of the barrel after it enters the mouthpiece (looks modifiable to me).
• 1.5mm wider in diameter (this aspect could be an advantage, right?).
Is it worth trying to fix the Waltons? I do feel I have better control of the Waltons than of the Oak/Acorn, and it does have a pleasent sound, but I’d like to play it with people rather than just by myself, so proper intonation would be nice. I haven’t made a non-tunable whistle into a tunable one yet.
I have heard that extending the barrel of Waltons whistles (tape etc) works OK.
I also have a waltons LBW tweaked by Avery Levine that intones very well with no extension but has significant tone hole mods and a moveable head for tuning.
Jerry Freeman also does a famous tweak involving a Waltons/Feadog hybrid (+ Jerry’s special magic).
It all kind of depends on which Waltons whistle you have. When I compare a realy old Waltons Mellow D with the LBW - it seems like they forgot to address the bell note on the narrower bodied whistles. Then again, I just tried a Hoover Blacktop on both original and Avery narrow bodies - nah, the walton’s narrow bodied D’s have issues. Sound nice but intone with difficulty.
Even the Mellow D is challenged on both the F# and A in both octaves. They can be “puffed-in” with great difficulty (Both about 10-15 cents flat on an even tempered tuner)
These can be very nice whistles but a fairly extensive mod is likely before they can be used in company.
Some of the traditional mass produced whistles are set somewhere between equal temperament and just intonation. This is also the case with harmonicas, btw. It would not be correct to say that a just intonation tuned instrument is “out of tune” because an equal temperament tuner says some of the notes are flat. Here’s the difference:
Just intonation scale compared
to equal temperament scale
If the A shows flat on an equal temperament tuner, that would not be correct in either system. You can raise the pitch of a note by judiciously lengthening the tonehole for that note, enlarging the hole towards the mouthpiece end of the whistle. This is easy to do, even with something as basic as an exacto knife, which will cut brass or aluminum well enough to do the job.
After you tweek it and if its still a bit sharp,
bare in mind that not everyone plays at A 440.
They tell me concert pitch has been getting higher since that standard was set. I’ve also been told this holds true more in Europe than in the USA.
This might be your special whistle for playing with that special fiddler who likes the brightness sharpness offers.
Some harmonicas, Jerry. Most Hohner 10-holes (blues harps) and tremolos are tuned as you say, but the Hohner Golden Melody is tuned to equal temperament. Lee Oskars are in equal temperament, as are most (all?) Suzukis I’ve come across. Stock chromatics will always be in equal temperament. The only readily-available harp I know of that is in Just intonation is the little Hering Vintage 1923. The rationale with harmonicas is that chording sounds smoother the nearer to Just you get. Not a whistle issue I suppose…
One solution to your problem would be to change the brass tube to one thas in tune. I´ve found that Feadog is exeptionally well in tune and I have a couple of Feadog tubes on a couple of Generation mouth pieces (including one tweaked by Mr. Jerry Freeman!)
On the other hand if you are playing alone or with a guitarist it´s not a big problem if you whistle is a bit sharp, the guitarist could always pitch up his instrument a little.
As Jerry Freeman points out in the table there is a slight difference between just intonation and equal temperament. What one must have in mind is that these differences are very small. If one is playing two notes in succession no human can distinguish less than about 3-4 Hz (in the area around 440 Hz), that´s about 15 cents. On the other hand if you are playing two notes at the same time with that same difference on a piano, you will hear in interference tone (sounds like: woah-woah-woah…). Even tone deaf people will hear this! In this perspective, 5 cents, on a wind instrument, is within the error margin. 15 cents is on the verge of what a human can percive.
On the other hand, I think it gives you confidence just to know that your instrument is well tuned!
