I have made myself a nice cup of tea and for the whistles a mug of hot water and removed mouthpieces from bodies on a Generation D and a Walton Black D. The Walton has a tendency to screech in the lower range, and I wanted to have a look at the mouthpiece. I also wanted to try how the mouthpieces sound on other bodies, so I switched them.
Apart from Gen blue on Walton black looking really strange, I now have two hybrid whistles that might even sound better than the originals. Has anybody done similar experiments, and how did you like the results?
(The Walton mouthpiece still screeches a little bit. Any hints how to start tweaking it without immediately destroying it? By “screech”, I’m referring to a very easy, but not complete jump to the note one octave higher, so that both sound at the same time.)
I’ve also noticed that sometimes just switching heads between two tubes will produce two whistles better than before.
If you’re talking about the Waltons black head tending to break into the upper register too easily, the tweak for that is to dull the blade slightly.
A sharper blade tends to strengthen the upper register and weaken the lower, a duller blade tends to strengthen the lower register and weaken the upper. Usually (not always) there’s a “sweet spot” in the sharpness/dullness of the blade where both registers play acceptably.
The way I dull the blade is with a narrow strip of #350 or #400 sandpaper cut to a width that allows me to thread it into the window in front of the blade, across the blade edge, and out the bottom of the mouthpiece where it goes on the tube.
I hold one end of the sandpaper strip in each hand (balancing the mouthpiece against my stomach), and pull the sandpaper back and forth (in and out) to sand the edge of the blade. Then I take an exacto knife and very gently scrape (scrape is too strong a word because I barely touch it) the blade edge from above and underneath to remove any plastic debris from the sanding.
If you do this one or two times, you’ll be able to tell if it’s producing the desired result. If so, continue a time or two until you have solved the problem. But don’t be so aggressive that you remove a significant chunk of the blade edge, or you’ll ruin the mouthpiece.
Best wishes,
Jerry
P.S. If you haven’t done it already, the “sticky tac tweak” can help clean up the voice, too. Take a ball of sticky tac (or “Blue Tac”; they’re a kind of sticky putty used to hang posters, etc.) a little bigger than a pea. Drop in into the tube end of the mouthpiece so it falls into the cavity under the windway. Tamp it down with something that has a flat end. I use the handle of an exacto knife. Add bits of sticky tac until you’ve filled the cavity exactly to the end of the windway and have a nice flat surface.
I have a hybrid whistle nearing completion, soon to be shipped to Australia. The buyer and I call it the Jerry Lee Lewis whistle. The head is Blackwood, and the body is Pink Ivory ( the head of that one exploded in the lathe, but the body was too pretty to waste…). Stainless steel fittings. Very '50s looking…
Changing headjoints can work without problems if the voicing windows are nearly the same. Problems will happen when they are different,such as a larger undercut size (if any) and the length of the tennon. These will cause pitch variations that will be more evident in the upper octaves.
Mujo stated in another “hybrid” post that he put a shallow ramp head on a Sweetone whistle and wondered why it switched octaves way too fast. A shallow unstable ramp coupled with a decreasing conical bore’s backpressure is the answer.
I agree with Jerry’s statements on labiums but would like to add to them.
A rounded labium lip promotes better oscillations at low pressure but with a shallow angled ramp the tone will still have high frequency “chiff” and will have less stable pitch with minor breath changes. This shallow ramp is good for fast octave changes and a “flutey” tone as well as whistle “pitch bending” with the breath.
A sharp labium lip resists oscillations at low pressure and when added to a steep angled deep ramp will have a “reedy” tone. This voicing is used in Recorders for a mellow tone and pitch stability that resists pitch bending with minor fluctuations of breath.
You can blend both of these features,like a rounded lip and deep window for a stable low whistle that uses less wind, or a sharp lip and a shallow window for a Tabor Pipe with lots of high frequency “chiff” and lightning octave changes. The combinations are legion and should be experimented with for whistles in a million voices!
I fiddled around the other day with whistle exchanges too. The one I liked the best was–no joke–my Elfsong head on a Doolin body! It gave the Doolin alot more stability without changing the sound I love too much. Of course, the Elfsong head didn’t fit it exactly, but it was fun to experiment! I also like my Doolin head on a LBW body. The thing’s impossible to play otherwise.
Here would be a good place to repeat my periodic request (and thanks to all who’ve helped with this in the past).
If anyone has whistles, heads or tubes you don’t want, either because they’re hopelessly unplayable or because you just don’t play them anymore, please consider donating them to the Pennywhistle Hospital and Rehabilitation Research Center (that would be me).
I’ve succeeded in producing a fair number of pretty outstanding whistles from others’ hand-me-down or castoff whistles or whistle parts. Several of these rehabilitated whistles are now in the hands of C&Fers, enjoying a second, useful life, and the information gained from my tweaking research goes up on this board for all to make use of.
If you would care to make a donation, please email me (remove the .REMOVE THIS SPAMBLOCKER part from my email address), and I’ll reply with my mailing address.
Thanks again to all who’ve helped with this in the past, and thanks in advance for any new contributions.
We’re working on that. Or, to put it more accurately, I’m hoping that Paul can produce one, because I’m incompetent at getting photos into a computer. I’m very excited about this one, I must say.
I did the same thing, with wonderful results. The Feadog head on the LBW body, however, made the ugliest and worst sounding whistle ever!
And Paul, did you know that Skip Healy sells quite a few fifes with pink ivory heads and blackwood bodies? It does look kind of funny. Especially when the player wears a tricorn hat and powdered wig.
I did the same thing, with wonderful results. The Feadog head on the LBW body, however, made the ugliest and worst sounding whistle ever!
What model Feadóg was it? From what I can tell mine is the worst one, mk II. Mabey that has something to do with it. Also, for some reason, the Feadóg just feels so much thinner in my hands, but it’s not, which is another reason I don’t like it.
Two of the best whistles I’ve done have been tweaked Waltons heads on Feadog tubes. (They’re now both in the hands of fellow C&Fers.)
I wonder why mine turned out so-so, then? On my LBW head/Feadóg body, the upper register is more clear than the bottom one, and if you’re coming from a high A or B down to low D, it’s hard to do. I’m sure a part of it is that I just don’t like the sound that much anyway. It goes ‘SQUAWK’ over the littlest thing, I mean, it really yells ‘SQUAWK’.
I’ve switched heads on just about all my whistles. I put a Meg C head on the Sweetheart, and the sound of the lower octave is lighter, but still pure, and the upper one is very thin, and delicate.
The Meg body and Sweetheard head sounds like Cher (that’s the best wa I can describe it). But the upper octave is virtually non-existant with this combination.
Each head’s a little different, even from the same brand, same model, and you just never know when you set out to tweak a whistle, whether you’ll get a really great player or a wrecked head. (But with practice, the percentages do get better.)
Well Jim, now you’ve got me worried. There I was thinking that all I needed to do to have the image side covered was to wash down a handful of pills each day with a bottle of whisky and marry my 13-year-old cousin.
Ok, Sir, er? Professor Vladikov, yes… See, last time we came you said this 13-year-old “cousine” was your step-daughter. Now, your neighbors have been talking, y’know.
Argh!! Kov, kov. Now don’t go listening to the neighbours here. No nabbing step-daughters for Humbertian manoeuvres at all. Jerry Lee was a southern boy who knew where to draw the line … sort of.
