Chiff and Fipple Forums

Pros and cons of wood whistles? Looking at High D Penny Whistles. Thanks

There really is not much you can say as a broad, catch-all "pro vs con" when it comes to wood whistles, besides the obvious physical differences between wood and metal or plastic. Wood is more susceptible to temperature and humidity changes than those materials, and can crack or warp if you're not careful. Even this isn't necessarily true if you're getting a composite wood whistle rather than a solid wood one.

Broadly speaking, a lot of wooden whistles tend to be louder and require more air than some popular metal whistles like Sindts, Dixons, and Killarneys. They also tend to be more expensive than many metal or plastic whistles. Now that I've said these two things someone will come along to refute me with examples where they aren't true, but that's the thing: you can't really make any single statement, however broad or qualified, that applies to "wood whistles" as a whole.

Wood Whistle Pros:

Appearance - If you like the look and variety of different wood’s as opposed to metal, then this is a real thing for you. I love woods, though many seem to strongly dislike me, much like any number of forum members

Feel - Wood whistles don’t get cold or (generally) as slippery as many metal whistles, which can be an advantage.

Pitch Stability - Wood whistles don’t conduct heat as readily as metal whistles so they MAY be somewhat more pitch stable with regards to starting cold and the starts and stops that can accompany session playing. That said, I’ve no scientific studies to back this up. YMMV, etc. etc.

Tone - Wood sounds different from metal. Some can hear this, some can’t (get hearing aids), some like the tone of wood whistles, some don’t.


Wood Whistle Cons:

Appearance - Some folks don’t care for the “untrad” look of wood whistles.

Feel - I’ve never heard anyone complain about the feel of a wood whistle……until they become allergic. In fairness allergic reactions to whistles seem FAR more rare than reactions to flute. This would be due to the greater contact area flutes occupy plus the difference in sensitivity to allergens the facial skin has compared with the fingers, but make no mistake, one can react allergically to wood whistles. Talking dermatitis here, not anaphylaxis.

Tone - If the trad sound is your thing, you may not like the tone of wood whistles.

Cost - Wood whistles are often much more expensive, 10x, 15x, even 20x the cost of a similarly performing metal whistle. This isn’t always the case, but I have certainly played $200-$300 wood whistles that played worse than some sub $20 whistles.

Durability - This one is pretty much a given, a wood whistle is going to be much more susceptible to damage by misadventure, weather, and the ravages of time. Each one of those factors can be mitigated, more or less, through proper care storage and handling.

That said, the owner has no control over how the whistle was made, and unfortunately many wood whistles are produced in a fashion that more or less ensures cracking under all but the most ideal conditions. Whistle makers often choose woods for their looks rather than suitability for woodwind making, as if they were simply turning pens A great many woods simply will not tolerate repeated cycles blowing warm air into them and then drying. There’s a reason you see a great many different woods used for guitar making, but only a few for woodwinds. At least by makers who have been around and successful for many decades.

And then there is the issue of seasoning the woods properly. Most makers of wood whistles are in a rush, they buy wood from a supplier and it’s turned into an instrument a week, a month, or a year later. And even if the original billet has dried long enough prior to the initial turning, the rest of the process is finished too quickly to ensure long term stability.

There a few exceptions to what I’ve said above. When I visited Chris Abell’s shop about 20 years ago my memory is that he had a wall of organized dated wood billets that was pretty old, and which he worked from.

There may also be some pipe and/or flute makers who work with well seasoned wood and also take enough time when progressing through the phases of production to allow for the movement that occurs after wood removal at each stage, which then needs to be corrected for at the next stage.

There are other methods of stabilizing the wood via resin infusion or the sealing of all internal/external wood surfaces with something like epoxy, but few go to the trouble.

Bottom line, be prepared for the potential for cracks to form, and exercise to care.


I’m not going to generalize with regards to volume, I don’t necessarily disagree with bigsciota, I’ve just run across enough examples that hit both ends of the spectrum with metal and wood that I can’t really formulate a strong disposition either way regarding whether wood or metal whistles tend to be louder. I do think however that a loud metal whistle tends to be significantly more uncomfortable to hear than a loud wood whistle.

That mostly covers the pros and cons that come to mind, though I’m sure I must be forgetting a thing or three.

Good luck in your search.

I like the possible rich tone in a wood whistle, but there are dangers to avoid. I've only had one, a Sweetheart D whistle, all rosewood. It had a great tone, played clear, medium loud and through both octaves very well.
However, the drawback of using rosewood showed up within a couple weeks. Just having the whistle in my mouth wore off the finish and I started to see the grain of the wood open up as is saliva
was dissolving it. Honest, I'm sure the dog wasn't playing it and I didn't use it to scrub pots and pans, so I was witness that only light playing was involved, with no teeth abrasion.

So if you want a wood whistle, you could be in for a real treat, but beware the vulnerability of the mouthpiece area, and either get one with a synthetic mouthpiece and blade area, or
a whistle made of the hardest, non-absorbent, tiny-grain, most high density woods available, such as maple and a few others like African blackwood, maybe walnut, Aussie gidgee, or other regionals or exotics that will be durable enough (for who and for what price, is the question). The wood has to endure saliva, water, being cleaned 5000 times, temperature changes, humidity changes, etc., so it should be internally as strong as possible.

I've noticed that quality bamboo flutes from India regularly wrap nylon cord around several areas of the flute, to strengthen it against cracking, a great idea, since they don't know what climate each flute is going to be sold to. A whistle with a metal ring added to the bottom would be that much more resistant to damage and cracking if you're using it often or traveling with it.

I have a sweetheart and haven't seen the dissolving mouthpiece issue. But then I've hardly touched it since I got my NSPs.

Traditional European woodwinds were appently made of fruit woods (other than apple) or Box.

There's a whole range of tropical hardwoods, but many of these are endangered so I'd be careful.

Ivory belongs on Walruses. Unless it's elephant ivory.

Mine turns out not to be a Sweetheart after all, but a prototype cnc'd for David Ledsam of Contrasaurus.

It's actually a myth that wood produces a different tone from other materials. Time and again, scientific studies and blind tests have demonstrated that material makes absolutely no intrinsic difference to sound when it comes to woodwind instruments like flute/recorder/whistle (and there's no scientific reason why it would). Any perceived difference in the sound of a material is due either to 1) the player's imagination, or 2) the different shapes of particular whistles.

Since there is no standardization for the shape of whistle heads or bodies, and since it's all dependent on who makes the whistle, every whistle from every manufacturer is going to sound slightly different, and they're all going to have unique tonal qualities. So no wooden whistle is going to sound exactly like any plastic or metal whistle made by a different maker. But two plastic whistles made by two different manufactures are likely to sound *just as different* as a wooden whistle and a plastic whistle made by two different manufacturers. And it's impossible to identify the material of a whistle just by listening to it.

All this to say, if you think you're automatically going to improve your tonal quality by switching from plastic/metal to wood, or even that you're going to significantly change your tonal quality in any predictable way (by making it "sweeter," "more trad," "less trad," etc.), you're mistaken. Material simply does not matter for tone. Manufacturing/shape is what matters.

That said, one factor to consider is that wooden whistles are often made with much more care than your average non-wooden whistles, because they tend not to be mass-produced (this is likely because high-quality woods are more expensive, and also wooden fipples are difficult to mass-produce). Because of this, wooden whistles are going to TEND to be higher quality in general. Not BECAUSE they're made out of wood per se, but because they're usually more carefully made. (But of course, you can easily buy a high quality, hand-made plastic or metal whistle that is just as carefully made as a nice wooden one - usually for a lot cheaper.)

Other than the statements about tone, I think Loren's post is entirely on point.

My favorite whistle is my rosewood Morneaux. It's sublimely in pitch, it reaches the second octave easily, it has amazing dynamic range, and I love the tonal quality. But I think that's because Morneaux is an excellent manufacturer, not because of the material it's made out of. The wood simply adds to the instrument's physical beauty (which, for me, is a 100% valid reason to prefer a particular material).

Oh, also, I've played my Morneaux whistle for years and it has zero cracking. If you oil well-made rosewood whistles like Morneauxs or Sweethearts, they won't crack.

Cyberknight wrote: ↑ Time and again, scientific studies and blind tests have demonstrated that material makes absolutely no intrinsic difference to sound when it comes to woodwind instruments like flute/recorder/whistle (and there's no scientific reason why it would).

Could you please provide explicit references to one or two of those studies. If nothing else, viscous and thermal losses at the surface of a bore might be expected to be material dependent to an audible extent. Thanks!

Material simply does not matter for tone. Manufacturing/shape is what matters.

Are we really going back to the old concrete flute argument?

FWIW, I have yet to come across a wooden whistle I would like to play. For some reason they seem to be, more often than not, obnoxiously loud, with an unpleasant edge.

My McManus is very loud. The tone is pure lovely to me. But, I find I do not play it as often as it needs to be due to the volume.

stringbed wrote: ↑Mon May 01, 2023 8:56 am

Cyberknight wrote: ↑ Time and again, scientific studies and blind tests have demonstrated that material makes absolutely no intrinsic difference to sound when it comes to woodwind instruments like flute/recorder/whistle (and there's no scientific reason why it would).

Could you please provide explicit references to one or two of those studies. If nothing else, viscous and thermal losses at the surface of a bore might be expected to be material dependent to an audible extent. Thanks!

Not sure what you mean by viscous and thermal losses. But it IS true that metal instruments can take a longer time to sharpen up their pitch. That IS a legit difference in the materials that has been scientifically documented. But that has to do with pitch, not with tonal quality.

As for the studies, here are a few (and also an article explaining why it makes no logical difference what material you use):

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/marl/Coltman ... n-1.06.pdf
http://bulldog2.redlands.edu/fac/julie_ ... s/brad.pdf
https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article/3 ... State-Tone
https://bretpimentel.com/does-material- ... -to-agree/

The studies on this topic focus mainly on the flute. As far as I know, there's never been a study on this specific to whistles. The logic, however, applies to whistles. Material fundamentally *shouldn't* affect the sound of woodwinds, because vibrations of the instrument's body are not what's creating the sound. The sound is formed solely by the movement of air, so the shape is all that ultimately matters.

Cyberknight wrote: ↑Mon May 01, 2023 12:58 pm

stringbed wrote: ↑Mon May 01, 2023 8:56 am

Cyberknight wrote: ↑ Time and again, scientific studies and blind tests have demonstrated that material makes absolutely no intrinsic difference to sound when it comes to woodwind instruments like flute/recorder/whistle (and there's no scientific reason why it would).

Could you please provide explicit references to one or two of those studies. If nothing else, viscous and thermal losses at the surface of a bore might be expected to be material dependent to an audible extent. Thanks!

Not sure what you mean by viscous and thermal losses. But it IS true that metal instruments can take a longer time to sharpen up their pitch. That IS a legit difference in the materials that has been scientifically documented. But that has to do with pitch, not with tonal quality.

As for the studies, here are a few (and also an article explaining why it makes no logical difference what material you use):

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/marl/Coltman ... n-1.06.pdf
http://bulldog2.redlands.edu/fac/julie_ ... s/brad.pdf
https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article/3 ... State-Tone
https://bretpimentel.com/does-material- ... -to-agree/

The studies on this topic focus mainly on the flute. As far as I know, there's never been a study on this specific to whistles. The logic, however, applies to whistles. Material fundamentally *shouldn't* affect the sound of woodwinds, because vibrations of the instrument's body are not what's creating the sound. The sound is formed solely by the movement of air, so the shape is all that ultimately matters.

I agree, with the caveat that certain materials do sometimes have a bearing on the dimensions used, as well as surface texture of various components of the whistle, both of which do affect the column of air within. So, while I believe there is no such thing as a clearly defined “brass sound”, “plastic sound”, or “wood sound”, I think there are certainly certain qualities that are far more likely to coincide with the usage of certain materials.

Sirchronique wrote: ↑Mon May 01, 2023 2:44 pm I agree, with the caveat that certain materials do sometimes have a bearing on the dimensions used, as well as surface texture of various components of the whistle, both of which do affect the column of air within. So, while I believe there is no such thing as a clearly defined “brass sound”, “plastic sound”, or “wood sound”, I think there are certainly certain qualities that are far more likely to coincide with the usage of certain materials.

That's very possible, although one would think that an extremely well-made wooden instrument would have few enough imperfections that the texture wouldn't affect the sound an audible way when compared to a well-made plastic instrument. Maybe it would, though.

As a long-time flute maker, I was never happy with the studies that claim materials make no difference. So I did a reductio-ad-absurdum experiment making a Prattens keyless from our local plantation timber, pinus radiata. It was predictably awful! No surprises when we remember its density is around 0.4 whereas boxwood is about 1, blackwood around 1.2 and Delrin around 1.4gms/cm3. Brass comes in around 8.4 and Silver at 10.5gms/cm3.

My interpretation is that materials won't make much difference providing they make an adequate container for the vibrating air column. IE, smooth, airtight and strong. I'd describe boxwood as marginally dense enough, and the others fine. Pinus Radiata doesn't come near!

The article about the Pine Flute is at: http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/pine_prattens.htm

Terry McGee wrote: ↑Mon May 01, 2023 6:35 pm As a long-time flute maker, I was never happy with the studies that claim materials make no difference. So I did a reductio-ad-absurdum experiment making a Prattens keyless from our local plantation timber, pinus radiata. It was predictably awful! No surprises when we remember its density is around 0.4 whereas boxwood is about 1, blackwood around 1.2 and Delrin around 1.4gms/cm3. Brass comes in around 8.4 and Silver at 10.5gms/cm3.

My interpretation is that materials won't make much difference providing they make an adequate container for the vibrating air column. IE, smooth, airtight and strong. I'd describe boxwood as marginally dense enough, and the others fine. Pinus Radiata doesn't come near!

The article about the Pine Flute is at: http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/pine_prattens.htm

That's fair. But I'm curious: Why does density make any difference to the sound (I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm just curious because I don't know a lot about flute-making)?