I am a music teacher who is trying to build an affordable version of an ancient Spanish instrument we use in the south of the country, in order to be able to teach my students how to play it. The body of the instrument is similar to that of the whistle, but with only three holes (two in the front face and one in the rear face) and I think it can be build using PVC pipe or something similar. But when it comes to the head, things get much more difficult. I have been looking for a cheap option but I don’t seem to be able to find one all over the internet. However, I am pretty sure that there must be someone building and selling the kind of cheap head that you can see in the attached picture.
Does anyone have any idea about where to buy that whistle head or some other similar one? Thanks in advance
The whistle head in your picture is from a Walton’s whistle.
These sell for less than 10 €, so rather than wasting your time and energy searching for single whistle heads it would be easier buying the complete whistle and discarding the tube.
You may be interested to know Generation still makes a Tabor pipe, a whistle with three holes, as you describe. They are available from a number of outlets in the UK. I haven’t seen them much elsewhere although they used to be in shops on the continent during the seventies.
Here’s one that I have, alongside a standard whistle :
Susato http://www.susato.com/konakart/Tabor-Pipes/1_158_-1_30.do supply separate heads for their tabor and txistus pipes (both three-hole, but different scale) … as always, finding tube to fit the heads may be a problem on different continents if the scale of your instrument is different again.
Lengths of plain brass tubing that will fit a Generation/Walton/Feadog/Clare-type whistle are available in the UK and may be the easiest way to go.
