Cyberknight wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:48 am
First, I wonder if the fact that this is a quenilla rather than a whistle affects its playability as a chromatic instrument. I know nothing about playing quenillas, but my understanding is that they are very thick, have a large bore, and have very large holes compared to a high D whistle. So I can understand how it might be more difficult to seal all the holes on them. Moreover, with a whistle you get extra stability when you hold them, because the fipple is firmly within your lips, and that restricts the whistle a tiny bit and helps hold it up/in place. Since this isn't the case with the quenilla (as I understand it), I can imagine it being harder to use the chromatic holes without losing your grip or the instrument sliding.
If you cut off the fipple end of a whistle at the top of the window, the lower part is essentially a quena/quenilla/quenacho (the difference between the three being the size). I'm making adaptors which are like the cut-off part from the top of the window upwards (which is essentially just the windway and endplate to seal the top of the tube), so I'm making quenas that are also whistles, and I call this type of instrument a kenny whistle. With the whistle adaptor fitted, it becomes more stable to hold, just like a normal whistle.
(The inner "bisel" (bezel) of the wedge is normally parallel to the windway in a whistle, while the external bisel (ramp of the wedge) slopes outwards, but my quenillas are slightly different from that as the internal bisel slopes inwards a little while the external bisel still slopes outwards, so I have the windway pointing slightly down to be closer to parallel to the internal bisel, but this makes no significant difference beyond making it more playable in quena mode - it's just about providing comfortable directions for blowing the jet of air for low vs. high octaves.)
I've continued to modify the external hole shaping to make it easier to seal them all without needing excessive pressure and it's working fine now - it's become a really comfortable instrument to play. Again though, this suggests that the buyer and maker may need to work together to tune the shapes to the individual player, which pushes the cost up a bit, unless the buyer learns how to do their own shaping - it's mostly about feeling where a finger is having to press too hard at one edge of a hole and removing material from there to let it settle further in without so much discomfort, thereby enabling a better seal at the opposite side. With a thin-walled whistle, you can't make such alterations, so you need to get the hole placement absolutely right for the player first go, and that's precisely why I made this prototype with thick walls to guarantee that I'd end up with a playable instrument.
Second, the more I think about it, the more I see the rationale for a left-hand G sharp thumb hole instead of the pinky hole.
I'm puzzled by that, because I have both of them, and I like them both too: the pinky gives you a good F# (on the C whistle) and the thumb provides a good G# with superior quality to the cross-fingered alternative, so it isn't a question of having one or other.
Obviously, you've decided on your design and I'm sure it works great. But there are a couple of things that made me think that the left-hand G sharp thumb hole idea might make more sense than I originally thought. For one thing, I've leant my Morneaux to many people and none of them seem to have any trouble covering this hole while playing; this makes me question my assumption that many people might find it impractical/non-ergonomic.
I find having the thumb directly under hole #2 is perfectly comfortable. By rotating the hand a bit it could potentially be moved even further down the tube and made bigger too and still be comfortable, so it might be worth doing that for an instrument with smaller holes to prevent the thumb hole being excessively small. I'm sure it wouldn't be to everyone's taste though to make that twist, and perhaps it's unnecessary; what I think of as excessively small might actually work well enough on an instrument with smaller holes - I just like them big.
For another, a whistle could (theoretically) be designed with an angled hole and/or an inner channel (like on the Carbony low D) that could move this G sharp hole up the tube and make it more playable and more ergonomic.
This kind of thing would again suit 3D printing best where there's a lot of potential for improving the ergonomics of low whistles without pushing the prices up. On these high whistles though where there are no stretch issues there isn't the same need to have channels or angle the holes unless you're trying to design something for someone with a missing or disabled finger.
Finally, I'm not sure there's really any point in having a thumb hole for B flat, because B flat can always simply be cross-fingered. I initially was thinking that a B flat key would be useful on low whistles, and since the design should be scalable, it would make sense to make a high D whistle with a B flat hole instead of a key. But since then, I've tried cross-fingered B flat on multiple low whistles, and it seems to be relatively in-tune and has a decent timbre. And it works fine on high whistle too. So don't you think maybe it's needless complexity to have a B flat thumb hole? Maybe a G sharp thumb hole, like what I have, makes more sense after all.
Do you mean Bb on a D whistle or C whistle? There seem to be two ways to go with this and different players may diverge in their preferences. You can either have (on a C whistle) a thumb hole for Bb or G#, and my personal preference is for G#, but that's not based on experience, and the designer(s) of the Sopilka clearly had the opposite preference. It's no great trouble to offer both though and drill the buyer's chosen hole on demand without adding to the cost.