Let’s avoid the topic of adding more than 6 holes, for more notes, because that’s an obvious one.
Mine:
some better way to create and control quality vibrato, no matter what note(s) are being played
some adjustable mechanism that let’s you choose between more of a wide-bore tone or a narrow-bore tone (some adjustment up by the window/blade area)?
a whistle that can, with an adjustment during playing, switch between two keys, such as between D and C.
a way to improve how sliding notes can be played, so you can more easily slide through a range of notes in one long unbroken sound. This may be the easiest idea to work on? Different shape for ideal interaction with the fingers?
a little note holder for the end of the whistle, where you write down the song list for the evening. Sort of a mini version of a sheet music stand.
Adjustable from soft to hard blower would be mine. I find most makers make soft / mid blowers, I like a mid to hard for extra strong low notes. A softblower is a no go for me. Adjustable would make it easy to get perfect, or close to how I want.
I think these two are entirely under the player’s control already. We can’t rely on the whistle to do the playing for us!
I think the only way to get the effects of different bores is to change the bore.
This is easy to do with a “rush” however shoving a rush up the bore is going to effect tuning and voicing as well, requiring a different mouthpiece design, different fingerhole placement, and different tube length, in other words an entirely different whistle from end to end.
Somebody patented a flute like that! And it could be applied to the whistle just as well.
The body was made from two tubes, one sliding inside the other, the outer tube having the finger-holes and the inner tube having long spiraling slots. The flute could quickly transpose to any key while retaining the same fingering.
Yes! I would love to have a Colin Goldie with two little adjustment knobs, one for the back of the ramp and one for the front.
So the windway could be adjusted to various heights, and could be angled in various ways.
Colin would really only need to make one, which would be loaned to a client so that they could experiment for a few days coming up with the exact design they wanted.
More 3 piece whistles. I know Parks and O’Brien exist, but honestly I feel like there should be more. I usually have a 2 piece Dixon in my pocket, but the body is still awkwardly long for a normal men’s front pants pocket. Thinking about trying out a Parks at some point, but he’s not taking orders! Plus, with the variety of playing styles and preferences in whistles, there’s no guarantee I’d get along with one of the existing ones.
More pocket whistles please! Maybe even 2 piece ones than meet in the middle like the Clare, although the only Clare I’ve tried has been severely lacking IMO.
This has happened in the recorder world; look up the Helder Recorder.
It has your adjustment knob for the block, and interchangeable inserts for the front of the airway.
I can see the advantages for the recorder player who wants radically different voicing for different pieces or occasions. Though I wonder how many simply find a setting they like and stick to it; or even if they would think this an issue.
There’s at least one (certainly more) recorder maker, Adriana Breukink, who will actively design aspects of her recorders around the specific player. She also has a description of players as “exhalers” or “inhalers”, an equivalent to our hard/soft players.
What do I want in a whistle? Decent intonation, attractive tone, rapid response, economical air requirements, two-octave range with sweet(ish) top, smooth slurred transitions between registers all the way up, usable OXXOOO C nat without excessively flat C#… oh, wait, I’m describing a good trad whistle!
As I understand its to do with where the most active part of a player’s breathing is. Inhalers will more actively inhale and blow more passively. Exhalers will exhale more actively. It’s a bit more complicated in application I would think, but that it very basically.
I read about it in an article a while back, but I seem to remember it being mentioned in a Youtube video somewhere. I’ll have a look when I’m back later
Since people have mentioned “exhalers” and “inhalers”, how about adding a feature to whistles that allows music to be produced on the inhale in addition to the regular exhale!
Take that dare of an idea, you innovative geniuses!
On the other hand, someone might re-invent the bagpipes and most people would run for the hills. This could be bad. I’m so sorry.
Yes you’re describing a bagpipe, which evidently started out as a way to be able to play the aulos/tibia without having to learn circular breathing and potentially suffer the Disfigurement Of Athena.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think flutes and whistles have enough backpressure to work with a bag.
If you were to rank backpressure from “1” being as soft as it’s possible to blow to “100” being the hardest it’s humanly possible to blow without getting a hernia, Highland pipes might range from 80 to 100, while whistles range from 5 to 10.
In fact hernias amongst pipers are relatively common.
What does a comparison of the finger-hole placement and sizing tell us?
That in truth there’s only one way to skin the cat.
Ideal performance dictates the holes have even (or nearly even) sizing, with every note fully vented (for example, a full-sized open F natural hole between the E hole and the F# hole) which would be impossible to finger. This conundrum led Boehm to create his fully keyed flute with evenly sized and spaced huge holes that no-one could finger if keyless.
Human anatomy dictates smallish holes spaced as the fingers are spaced. This leads to an instrument with numerous neutral intervals rather than any Western musical scale.
Low D Whistle makers are forced to compromise between these conflicting dictates, and trial and error have inevitably led them all to the same conclusion.
Make the holes smaller and closer together and the evenness of the voicing suffers- it cannot be avoided. It just depends on how poor a voicing is acceptable.
(The one solution is a conical bore, which brings the lower-hand holes closer together.)
