Wood whistles

[Terry McGee]

That's fair. But I'm curious: Why does density make any difference to the sound?

I think it's fair to say it makes a difference by subtraction through losses. I mentioned that a good container for the vibrating air column should be smooth, airtight and strong. Smooth and airtight, so that we don't suffer friction and pressure losses, and strong so we don't suffer loss of energy through wall movement. If you can visualise the cell structure of cheap construction grade pine (or think balsa wood!), you'd agree that the pine won't finish well, and that thin walls of it will leak air and be prone to vibration. All those things rob precious energy. Whereas african blackwood finishes like plastic, is airtight and strong. We can see that difference in their densities - the blackwood is 3.5 times heavier, so density becomes a good starting point when comparing timbers. It's not the final word, as you do come across some timbers that are very dense, but still have a relatively coarse grain structure. "Dense and fine" might be a better descriptor of what we're looking for.

I mentioned further up that I regard boxwood as marginal. Make the same flute in boxwood and blackwood, and the blackwood one will be louder. But the boxwood one will still be very nice. Probably because it is so fine compared to other timbers in that weight group. But go much lighter than that (below about the 1.0gms/cm3 mark) and you start to notice weaknesses sneaking in. The usual "furniture timbers" like walnut, mahogany, maple, beech etc are far too coarse and light (around the 0.6/0.7 mark), although some makers have had success by bulking them up with resins and other goups. That increases their density as well as improving airtightness and maybe smoothness. A good example is the cheaper range of recorders which are maple bulked up with ethylene glycol.

Exactly what the differences in sound are between adequate timbers and inadequate timbers I haven't looked into. Just picking up my Pine Prattens, it just seems weak, and I can feel the walls vibrating, particularly on Low D. The lower notes seem worse, I guess because they are exposed to more losses in their longer journey down and back. It feels happier in the second octave.

[RoberTunes]

The material a musical instrument is made of, can affect tonal response of the instrument. I learned this in both wind instrument playing, comparing and research, as well as in the research and experience of designing and building electric guitars. With a whistle or flute, the vibrating air column is contained by a structure made of a certain material, that does and always will, have it's own response to the energies going on within the vibrating air column. That means that the vibrations in the air column, being it's energy patterns for the main frequency and all the harmonics, are getting a feedback process going on from their enclosure, which will tend to be more neutral for some frequencies/harmonics and to dampen some others, which could also then make some of those energies seem enhanced. So the end result of the material's influence on tone can vary quite a bit between major shifts in material such as the difference between pine wood, ebony, maple or brass, titanium, silver, gold, aluminum or glass, plastics of various kinds or even ice or water or rock types like granite or marble. Within one group like "wood", the various types of wood, thickness of the material's wall, density, weight, openness of grain, water absorbency, can all affect tone as they vary their response to energies put through them.

So it's a reciprocal process going on that affects tone. Putting a vibrational energy through a material will cause that material to absorb the energies and respond with its unique level of transmission and absorption of those energies, resulting in some variation of dampening and tonal coloration.

With electric (and certainly acoustic too) guitars, the various wood types and construction designs have various responses to the vibrational energies of strings. There is a big difference in total response between mahogany, rosewood, alder, ebony, ash, pine and maple. With electric guitars you also have great variation in the materials and construction involved in bridge and nut designs, neck designs, and then of course a vast variety in the designs and responses of the electric pickups. But no matter what pickups you put in any electric guitar, if you swap in/out the same pickups across 15 guitars, you'll see consistent evidence that the guitar materials and construction designs affect tone. The pickups affect tone too, because their electrical responses vary so much. The vibrating string sends that energy directly into the guitar at the bridge and the nut, as well as to any fret it touches. The guitar's physical response to that energy, feeds back to the string by transmitting that energy/frequency/harmonic fully or with some dampening. So the vibrating string will be affected by the energy sent back to it by the body of the guitar. The balance of this, the string's original vibrational tendencies mixed with the influence of the physical feedback from the body of the guitar, create a tonal character that the pickups sense. Hence, the vast diversity in guitar materials, designs, components and pickup designs, as guitarists all want to be unique. Democracy of tone.

Happy camping in the music section.

[Tunborough]

With electric (and certainly acoustic too) guitars, the various wood types and construction designs have various responses to the vibrational energies of strings.

I don't think it is reasonable to compare guitar fabrication to woodwind fabrication. With guitars, the strings are physically vibrating, and transferring energy to the pickups and the body. The material of the body will inevitably affect the transfer of energy. (See "impedance matching".) With woodwinds, only the air column needs to vibrate. Any transfer of energy from the air column to the body is incidental. and at least in the case of Terry's pine Prattens, that transfer of energy is detrimental.

[Tunborough]

The lower notes seem worse, I guess because they are exposed to more losses in their longer journey down and back. It feels happier in the second octave.

The longer journey is probably a big part of it. In the second octave, there is also more energy to go around, so subtracting some may not make as much of a relative difference to the total.

[glacier]

In terms of materials, including questions of weight and density- imo it's a mistake to discount purely subjective factors. Assuming all instruments in question are indeed well-made, a heavier or thicker instrument may make the player feel like they need to blow or support differently, which may in turn affect the manner that they finger as well. So the material itself may not be what affects the sound, but the brain's feedback loops may introduce secondary factors which do.

I take blind tests with a grain of salt. Even if instruments may objectively sound identical... my own experiences on clarinet are that I've subjectively got ingrained (snobby?) enough opinions- valid or not- of wood vs plastic that I don't play as well even on well-made plastic instruments. Maybe that's foolish dismissal on my own part- but I'm finally old enough to respect that my unfounded biases are worth taking into account before splurging on new instruments.

My experience with wooden whistles is extremely limited- I bought a midrange one a couple years ago but didn't like its resistance. I'd love the chance to try more but so far haven't had the opportunity. With how narrow a high D whistle bore is, I'd be reluctant to buy a less dense wood than blackwood or possibly rosewood, due to the risk of cracking.

[Cyberknight]

In terms of materials, including questions of weight and density- imo it's a mistake to discount purely subjective factors. Assuming all instruments in question are indeed well-made, a heavier or thicker instrument may make the player feel like they need to blow or support differently, which may in turn affect the manner that they finger as well. So the material itself may not be what affects the sound, but the brain's feedback loops may introduce secondary factors which do.

I take blind tests with a grain of salt. Even if instruments may objectively sound identical... my own experiences on clarinet are that I've subjectively got ingrained (snobby?) enough opinions- valid or not- of wood vs plastic that I don't play as well even on well-made plastic instruments. Maybe that's foolish dismissal on my own part- but I'm finally old enough to respect that my unfounded biases are worth taking into account before splurging on new instruments.

My experience with wooden whistles is extremely limited- I bought a midrange one a couple years ago but didn't like its resistance. I'd love the chance to try more but so far haven't had the opportunity. With how narrow a high D whistle bore is, I'd be reluctant to buy a less dense wood than blackwood or possibly rosewood, due to the risk of cracking.

That's fair. My favorite whistle is made of rosewood, and I love the way it *feels* in my hands. I feel like I'm playing a beautiful work of art, not just another whistle. The weight/texture/etc. puts me in a good mood and probably makes me play better.

But also, it's just an extraordinarily well-made whistle.

[glacier]

My favorite whistle is made of rosewood, and I love the way it *feels* in my hands. I feel like I'm playing a beautiful work of art, not just another whistle. The weight/texture/etc. puts me in a good mood and probably makes me play better.

My favorite clarinet (I own and regularly play 5) is also rosewood, and is also a beautiful work of art... as well as being an impeccably made instrument.

[Terry McGee]

I don't think it is reasonable to compare guitar fabrication to woodwind fabrication. With guitars, the strings are physically vibrating, and transferring energy to the pickups and the body. The material of the body will inevitably affect the transfer of energy. (See "impedance matching".) With woodwinds, only the air column needs to vibrate. Any transfer of energy from the air column to the body is incidental. and at least in the case of Terry's pine Prattens, that transfer of energy is detrimental.

Interesting though to identify the three types of timbers used in stringed instruments, and consider how their properties match their purposes. And how our purposes relate:
#1. The fingerboard, really dense hardwood chosen to be strong and durable. No acoustic demands. The nearest the luthier gets to flute woods.
#2. The casewoods, more like "furniture hardwood'. Their task to provide a sturdy platform for the belly, and reflect rather than absorb pressure waves.
#3. The belly, the thinly sliced softwood used to take the energy from the thin strings and cause it to move enough air for the instrument to be heard. Literally "to provide a sounding board", as the popular expression goes.

In making the Pine Prattens, I used a rough grade of #3 timber instead of the finest #1 timber. Naughty!

Comparing the weights of the Pine Prattens with my normal blackwood Prattens, we get 93 gms vs 320gms. Admittedly, some of that is tied up in cap, silver rings and tuning slide which the Pine Prattens doesn't boast.

And I suspect that a good proportion of that weight might be dried oil! If you read the article, you'll see how when first made, I couldn't play below A and I could breath through the walls of the instrument. Unlike say Blackwood, it absorbed a lot of oil - I soaked it and let it dry, then re-oiled it and let it dry. After which I could play to the bottom. And not breath through it, although it still won't pull a really good vacuum. So it might be fairer to call it a Dried Oil Flute Set In A Pine Cellular Lattice!

[rhulsey]

I think there's been a lot of effort over the years to say that it doesn't matter what a wind instrument is made of, but it is, as someone said here, as much a part of the player's experience as the listener's.

Organ pipes have been made of all manner of materials for a very long time, and it is still a debated subject. That said, pipes made of lead do not sound the same as identical pipes made of tin. I don't know anyone has made a whistle of tin, although I have an O'Riordan with a sterling body (by Sindt, I think) that's awfully sweet - to me at least.

[Cyberknight]

I think there's been a lot of effort over the years to say that it doesn't matter what a wind instrument is made of, but it is, as someone said here, as much a part of the player's experience as the listener's.

Organ pipes have been made of all manner of materials for a very long time, and it is still a debated subject. That said, pipes made of lead do not sound the same as identical pipes made of tin. I don't know anyone has made a whistle of tin, although I have an O'Riordan with a sterling body (by Sindt, I think) that's awfully sweet - to me at least.

I'd be interested to see a study on the organ pipe matter. If this perceived difference is just based on personal observation, I wonder how truly "identical" the pipes being compared are.

But at any rate, I'd imagine that there's more potential for material to affect sound in an organ than in a whistle. I'm not totally familiar with how organs work, but it's possible that pipes themselves actually vibrate enough to affect the sound of the organ, in which case material might make a difference. The same is not true of a whistle or flute, where the body barely vibrates at all.

I know that lead is also porous, which could affect the shape of a tube, especially something that is very large.

[RoberTunes]

With electric (and certainly acoustic too) guitars, the various wood types and construction designs have various responses to the vibrational energies of strings.

I don't think it is reasonable to compare guitar fabrication to woodwind fabrication. With guitars, the strings are physically vibrating, and transferring energy to the pickups and the body. The material of the body will inevitably affect the transfer of energy. (See "impedance matching".) With woodwinds, only the air column needs to vibrate. Any transfer of energy from the air column to the body is incidental. and at least in the case of Terry's pine Prattens, that transfer of energy is detrimental.

The topics of guitar and whistle design/fabrication are directly related for the issue of understanding how materials of the instrument affect tone. It's a simple physical process in action of a certain energy pattern being put into a physical body which responds in its own way to those vibrational energies, and feeding back that response as an ongoing active physical behavioral influence into the ongoing energies within the instrument, whether that energy is within the vibrating air column in a whistle/flute, or the strings vibrating on a guitar. It's the same active feedback process going on. As long as the sound source is being created, the wind across the blade or the string still vibrating, the material hosting this process has a presence affecting the resulting tone. For this topic, there's no difference between any instruments of any kind, actually, it's present in all instruments; drums, keyboards, flutes, all brass instruments, all violins/cellos, all bass guitars, even the human voice has tonal character effects associated with variations in the structure of the upper chest, mouth, nasal cavities.

As an interesting diversion, there is an old topic of discussion amongst electric guitar manufacturers about what material(s) would produce closest to 100% pure translation of the original string vibration to the pickups. The idea of making a guitar body out of 100% 5-inch thick solid steel came up, bolted to a thick concrete floor, as well as ideas such as 6-inch thick solid marble, but the general idea is that there's no way to do it, and the real joy of musical design is to go the other direction; working with the options for tonal response you get when blending that source energy with the response you get from the materials and designs used to make the instrument. This has produced some wonderful results amongst all classes of instruments (think "Stradivarius"). For electric guitars, the semi-hollow guitars have an amazingly rich tonal response (the best in my opinion, for tonal response). Hollow bodies are resonant but can tend to be nasally. Solid bodies have their own issues, and adjusting the materials, designs, string thickness, scale length, electronic control specs, etc., all have their role to play. Paul McCartney's famous Hofner bass design (the Violin bass Hofners typically have a hollow body) has a different tonal response than a solid body Fender Jazz bass does, their bodies and neck have very different materials and designs, and subsequently in tonal response. The Gibson SG and Gibson Les Paul are both mahogany bodies, but of quite different body thickness and dimensions, and the tonal response is VERY different between those two mahogany guitars. To me, the thick-body Les Paul is rather muddy and bassy when playing chords, whereas the SG is a tonal Tyrannasaurus Rex, I love the range of very rich sounds I can get out of SGs, they're clear and powerful, the guitar is famous for being resonant and it's body is quite thin. So ultimately, the aim in guitar design is to get materials and designs that work well in harmony WITH the range of musical frequencies in play, rather than trying to create a tonally transparent instrument, which is impossible. Once an electric guitar is constructed, the remaining ways to change the tonal response typically rely on using different pickups, using different components for volume/tone controls, improving the bridge or buying very good EQ and "signal boost" pedals which affect tone after it's left the guitar pickups.

With whistles, the size, weight, materials and design of the body come into play to affect tone. The heavier, thicker body (and maybe wall thickness too) of a low F or low D whistle will be responding in a different way to the vibrational energies of the air, than the high D whistles would in the same model, because the material response has changed, even if it's the same brass used in all. This is why a buyer can't expect a low D of one model to sound exactly like the high D of that same model, for tonal response. It will seem close, but there is a variation in play. Changing the wall thickness, weight, hole sizes, etc., all changes tonal response. Changing length of the tube changes tonal response. These things are inescapable physical processes in play.

The only instrument class that could escape this feature of body feedback affecting tone would be electronic instruments such as electronic synthesizers or keyboards with electronically produced tones, but the physical object/energy feedback process would show up again as soon as you start using physical amplifiers with wooden enclosures, different materials for speaker cones, speaker size, etc. Anyone who has shopped around for amplifiers for guitars, keyboards, vocals, bass, etc., would have realized that design and materials (case wood thickness, speaker size and materials, case resonance characteristics) would have been immediately exposed to this topic by default, even if they weren't quite aware of it yet, the more professional-focused amplifier manufacturers talk about it all the time. A lot of precise technical analysis of amp speakers and enclosures is available online. Manufacturers always promote the ability of their speakers and amps to generate purity, richness and accuracy of tone, and options in design and materials help, hinder or customize that, such as how varying the diameter of the speaker with the same materials and design will affect tonal response, regardless of volume. Sometimes an amp is a legend or popular for having a certain way to slightly colour the sound, and there are a few major classes of such amps. Those would be popular picks amongst players seeking to stay within certain areas of musical style, such as small combo jazz, classical, big band arena hard rock, folk performers in small cafes on Saturday afternoon, clear vocals, violins, etc.

This topic is an endless garden of variety.

[Cyberknight]

With whistles, the size, weight, materials and design of the body come into play to affect tone. The heavier, thicker body (and maybe wall thickness too) of a low F or low D whistle will be responding in a different way to the vibrational energies of the air, than the high D whistles would in the same model, because the material response has changed, even if it's the same brass used in all. This is why a buyer can't expect a low D of one model to sound exactly like the high D of that same model, for tonal response. It will seem close, but there is a variation in play. Changing the wall thickness, weight, hole sizes, etc., all changes tonal response. Changing length of the tube changes tonal response. These things are inescapable physical processes in play.

This is the only part of your post I'm not sure I'd agree with. How would thickness of the body affect the sound? Remember that 100% of the sound comes from a vibrating air column. So for wall thickness to make a difference, it would have to somehow change the shape of the air column.

The only possible way I can think of that thickness would make any difference is that it might affect the size of the holes. This could maybe change the tone slightly for higher notes, but with all the holes closed, I wouldn't think it would make any difference.

[trill]

. . . How would thickness of the body affect the sound? Remember that 100% of the sound comes from a vibrating air column. So for wall thickness to make a difference, it would have to somehow change the shape of the air column . . .

An alternate perspective: the tube is an elastic body with it's own resonant modes + mode-shapes. Altering the thickness will alter those modes.

"100%" ? Academically, I don't agree. Some small bit of energy will couple to the tube, which will excite it's modes, and yield its own acoustic trace. Imagine a tube of jell-o with pressure-waves running up+down it's length.

Also, metal tubes will have very low "internal friction" compared to wood.

My "intuitive" guess is that the amount of energy coupled from the air-column to the tube will be small.

Another tidbit: I tried to replicate the sound of a particular whistle once using spectral reconstruction. I was stunned at how high up the spectrum I had to go in order to "get the sound".

Finally, there are experienced players who's firm conviction is that the material influences the sound.

If I've learned one lesson, its: "don't dismiss someone with experience".

[trill]

(oopsie - accidental posting . . . )

[Cyberknight]

. . . How would thickness of the body affect the sound? Remember that 100% of the sound comes from a vibrating air column. So for wall thickness to make a difference, it would have to somehow change the shape of the air column . . .

An alternate perspective: the tube is an elastic body with it's own resonant modes + mode-shapes. Altering the thickness will alter those modes.

"100%" ? Academically, I don't agree. Some small bit of energy will couple to the tube, which will excite it's modes, and yield its own acoustic trace. Imagine a tube of jell-o with pressure-waves running up+down it's length.

Also, metal tubes will have very low "internal friction" compared to wood.

My "intuitive" guess is that the amount of energy coupled from the air-column to the tube will be small.

Another tidbit: I tried to replicate the sound of a particular whistle once using spectral reconstruction. I was stunned at how high up the spectrum I had to go in order to "get the sound".

Finally, there are experienced players who's firm conviction is that the material influences the sound.

If I've learned one lesson, its: "don't dismiss someone with experience".

The problem is that there are scientific studies that seem to completely debunk the idea that the vibration of the tube itself makes any difference, at least for flutes and clarinets (see my earlier post about this). It seems that there is absolutely no way the vibration of the instrument itself would make any difference to the overall sound, because they don't vibrate nearly enough to affect it. (Mind you, this by itself doesn't prove that material doesn't affect the sound at all; but it DOES prove, in my mind, that the vibration of the instrument itself doesn't affect the sound.)

The problem with the "firm conviction" of experienced players is that it is going to be heavily influenced by subjectivity and bias. There are many reasons for this. They include 1) the fact that instruments made out of "better" materials tend to look and feel nicer, so people subjectively want them to sound better; 2) the fact that people are likely to play with more care if they really like the instrument, and they're more likely to like the instrument if it's "nice" and made out of "better" materials; 3) the fact that flutes made with more expensive materials are more likely, on average, to be better made, so people are rarely actually comparing likes with likes (i.e. they're not comparing a NICE plastic instrument with a NICE wooden one; they're comparing a crappy plastic instrument with a nice wooden one); 4) the fact that people want to justify expenses they've made, so they subjectively want their $3,000 instrument to sound better than someone else's $600 instrument.

To me, these biases inherently limit the reliability of any take "experienced players" may have on this issue.

An excellent illustration of how biased and incorrect "experienced players" can be about the very instruments they play is the studies done on Boehm flute headjoint material. Many, many experienced Boehm players continue to insist that silver or gold headjoints produce a different sound than nickel headjoints. But if there's anything that blind studies have proven beyond any reasonable doubt, it's that the kind of metal a headjoint is made of makes ZERO difference to the flute's sound.

We can see the same phenomenon with respect to violins. There's a pervasive (and somewhat elitist) tradition that Stradivarius violins are superior in sound quality and projection to modern instruments, even though science seems to dispute that on an objective level (https://www.science.org/content/article ... ound-check). Ultimately, we have to trust objectivity above subjectivity. Even great players are human, and they're subject to the same biases as everyone else. Scientists are flawed too, but with blind studies, at least we remove the element of subjective bias from the equation.

That said, several people have made convincing arguments on here for why certain materials might indirectly affect sound, because they might indirectly affect the shape or weight/playability of the instrument for various reasons. That, I think, is true (though I think these points apply more to flutes than to whistles).

Additionally, none of this is an attempt to disparage those who craft instruments out of expensive materials. I'm happy that people keep tradition alive by continuing to make flutes and flageolets out of beautiful, traditional materials like rosewood and blackwood. It's part of what makes the instrument special, even if it has no effect on the sound quality.