Tracks and trails; whistling while I work

[mdlbear]

Took my new little UP3 ogg player out for my walk this morning. Five miles again (might actually be a little longer, or I may just be walking more slowly than I used to). Nice and clear. There was a nasty moment when I heard childrens' voices over "Paper Pings", but it wasn't there when I checked again on the way home. Not on the CD, which I was playing in the car, nor on the player when I pulled over by the Rose Garden and gave it a careful listen. Must have been in the background when I was walking.

Came home (after looking for whistles at Guitar Center and coming up empty, as expected) and looked online. Turns out A whistles are generally considered "low whistles" and are somewhat scarce, though I turned them up at Susato who seem to have a very complete and not terribly expensive line-up.

The best website I've found so far appears to be Chiff & Fipple: The Tinwhistle Internet Experience. From the FAQ:

Q: What is a tinwhistle?

A: Ok. The tinwhistle, also called a pennywhistle, a tin whistle, a penny whistle, or just plain "whistle," is an end-blown fipple flute which utilizes the 6-hole, "simple" flute fingering system. This is an old system that predates modern "Boehm" flutes. In popular usage, the word "fipple" often refers to the sound generating system in which air is blown through a channel, split by a blade--which causes turbulence in the area--which produces vibration--which produces sound. And so on. The 6-hole system consists of open, unkeyed holes, normally covered by your fingers and uncovered in various patterns to produce notes. The 6-hole system also appears on instruments such as fifes, bamboo flutes, 10-speed bicycles and many Tex-Mex chili dishes.

I started looking for an A whistle because I've been hearing a countermelody for "Someplace in the Net" that I think would work well on a whistle. But even if I'd found one, and even if I could play it straight off without practicing (HAH!), I don't think there's time to get it onto the CD, which is close enough to done that I'm actively looking for things not to fix. For example, the drum parts on "Guilty Pleasures" and "Wannabe" would benefit from fixing a couple of missed beats. Worthwhile? Probably not. If I started tweaking those I might not come up for air until next week sometime. That would be bad.

After the album is in the can, I'm going to get back to flute, recorder, and whistle. Really. Meanwhile, I have verified that my Yamaha recorder can be tuned a quarter-tone flat. Evil is possible. OK, it's not as potentially evil as what you could do with a 12-string.

Tracks worked on this afternoon: "Little Computing Machine": pulled up the guitar part a little. "Vampire Megabyte": pulled up a too-quiet word at the start of the last verse. Decided that "Daddy's World" is just fine without a percussion part. So I can stick a fork in that one, too.

Comments

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

An A-whistle. Jeez. That would be either too huge or too tiny for most people to finger, depending on the octave. The biggest I've seen was B-flat below middle C, the smallest was G and that was teenier than a piccolo. I'm not saying they don't exist, every possible thing is out there on Google, but I've never seen one.

[mdlbear]

I've never seen a high A; Susato has them up to G and down to an octave below the usual D (which is notated as D above middle C, but is actually an octave higher). So the A would be only about 20% bigger than the common C whistle.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Jeepers. Maybe your big daddy bear paws can handle them, my itty bitty paws barely manage the B-flat. I look forward to hearing what you come up with!