According to this table, I would have to get whistles in G, A, C, and D in order to hit all the keys I commonly sing in. I will probably start with C and D, which are common. There's a Clark C whistle somewhere in the house...
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.
Don't know, but it's going pretty well so far. After some recording, some editing (I'll post about those separately), a stack of mail that included the CD I ordered last week, some lunch, and a nice five-mile walk, the Bear went shopping. The main targets were a a cheap MP3 player (Fry's has several on sale this weekend) and a pennywhistle in A. I started with Guitar Showcase.
GS often has woodwinds in their consignment shop, but no whistles today. What they did have was an M-Audio Delta 1010, for $115. Since this has a list price of $500 and a street price of something like $400, and since I'd been thinking about buying a Delta 44 for a street price of around $150, I snapped it up without thinking twice.
Next stop was Fry's. They did indeed have cheap MP3 players, at prices all the way down to $15, but the one I ended up with was an LG UP3 for $60. It has a sharp-as-a-tack little OLED display, 2GB of flash, plays OGG as well as the more usual formats, and lists Linux on the box under supported systems. When I got it home (getting a little out of order here) I was a little puzzled by the lack of a USB cable until I discovered the knob that slides out the connector that makes it into a USB stick. I was also puzzled by the fact that my box wasn't seeing it, until I traced the USB extension cable back and discovered that it wasn't connected. Duh. Only thing missing is FM, but I can live without that. Especially in these days of ubiquitous podcasts.
The final stop was Starving Musician. They had whistles in C and D; but not A. I bought a cheap little Yamaha descant recorder instead -- I had one, but can't find it. Probably lent out to somebody's kid. For $8.25 I can afford another one.
So all-in-all it's been a pretty good day. Happy Bear.
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