However their tone can be piercing without care. They produce more of a pure tone, and are LOUDER than the fipple style whistles. Whistles like the Dixon in plastic, have a smaller air channel, and a smaller window where that air hits the blown edge. Very authentic and traditional but not particularly pure of tone. The is the only way to play high notes, that aren't ear splittingly loud.įor the whistles themselves, wood fipple whistles with large air channels have more breathy and flutey, and mellow sound. IE instead of just blowing harder, you learn to use your lips to help jump to the higher octave without necessarily blowing much harder. Tilting your airstream up, and tightening your lips more, helps to play high notes that aren't too loud. Relaxing your lips and blowing a thicker, slower, stream of air reduces air noise and makes a warm, mellow sound. Blow directly into the instrument with a fast, thin, stream of air, gives you airy but strong tones with a lot of overtones. The ability to direct it up, straight, and down, helps with the tinwhistle. You're trying to see how you can purse, and move your lips, to direct air straight, or to the side, or up, or down. Now without moving your head, change the shape of your lips and try to blow in a different direction, all without your head moving at all. If you hold a piece of tissue paper up in front of your face about a foot away, so it's hanging like a flag or a curtain, keep your head facing forward and blow a tight, thin air stream. You can improve the tone by directing the air directly out of your lips in a tight, thin stream at high speed (for high notes), or a slower, fuller, stream for low notes. This is called the "chiff" and it changes with the size of the window and air channel leading to it. Your clarke has a wood fipple and a relatively large air channel and this is where the breathy, flutey, sound comes from. You know how when you have a garden hose running, and you put your thumb over the end to spray water? You notice how the entire hose moves a bit as you lift your thumb off and on? The air in the instrument does something similar as you lift and place fingers and blow notes. Instrument speed is related to how long it takes the air stream to change and how cleanly it does it. It has to do with the air stream inside of the instrument being turbulent as notes change, then going stable at the new frequency. Have you noticed that when trying to jump from low notes to high notes there is a slight period where the note bends then tries to lock in? The dixon locks notes in very quickly. Her videos were a great source of information when I started. This helps to balance out the sudden jump in volume between low and high notes. Later on it's possible to play the higher octave by tightening your embouchure and speeding up the air instead of blowing harder.
This teaches you how to keep notes from jumping unintended, and to play more stable low notes. And do long note practice using your breath to alternate between low and high range.
It's less mellow than the wood fipples of the Clarke and my Shaw, but sounds nicer than the ultra cheap "whistle on a metal tube" of my generation and waltons.Ī very good use of your time is doing scale runs up and down jumping the octave, so your fingers get really comfortable doing runs up and down. Notes just lock in like a laser guided missile. Jumping octaves, even jumping 2, 3, or 4, octaves is easy without much effort. I mostly play my Dixon now which wasn't much more expensive, is all PVC, but most importantly, it is lightning quick. The wide air channel allows for some lip tricks to speed up the air and play quieter at the higher octave, but it isn't fast or precise (which is not a big problem). The seem on the back is less distracting and it has a nice breathy, flute like tone. I have the whistle you do, and it was one of my first along with a Shaw. Once you get used to uncovering the top hole to make octave jumps easier, it becomes second nature. It fingers like a recorder and other keyless instruments but without a break key. The lord of the rings theme, Christmas in Kilarney, even the popeye theme song. I spent the first few weeks just trying to figure out songs I've always wanted to play on one.