An "electronic whistle" does exist, and I have one

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:53 am

The purists among us will say that this is not an electronic whistle, and they are right. The realists among us, who want to be able to practice whistle fingering without *any* noise being heard by anyone other than the player, will want to read this.

Today I received a Technopipe by Anders Fagerstrom in Sweden. You may have seen his website: http://www.technopipes.com .

He offers several different models of pipes with different fingering methods programmed into them. One model, the Galician Open fingering, is also whistle fingering! I have just played several Irish jigs on this model and it does work.

The downsides?

*It doesn't sound like a whistle - it sounds like pipes (but you can turn off the chanters.)
*It's pricey - it cost me £210 including shipping to England, and the dollar is still much weaker than the pound. (You can also get a quote in Euros.)
*Because it does not sense air pressure (you don't use air at all) you have to use your left thumb to change octaves, which takes a bit of getting used to.

The upsides?

*It is silent. Not blue-tack silent, or Joanie-Madden silent, but I-can-play-this-on-the-train silent. Also, since you don't have anything in your mouth, it's safe to play in a moving vehicle.
*You can change the pitch through a wide variety of choices and also instantly jump to one of four pre-set common keys.
*It's MIDI compatible (so it *could* sound like a whistle).
*It has a built in metronome, a recording facility, and you can play along to something that it has previously recorded (I think it can only save one thing at a time).
*Anders can customise his standard model for you - mine is set to default to the key of D, and he was willing to programme in special fingerings for me if I needed them, for example an unusual Cnat fingering.

I've only played the thing for about 7 minutes but already I know it is what I have been waiting for for the last seven years. If only I'd had one during my thin-walled-student-housing days!

(edited because after a year and a half I realised I wrote Galician CLOSED instead of Galician Open. D'oh!)

Bothrops · Post by **Bothrops** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:01 am

LOL, wow!

larrym. · Post by **larrym.** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:19 am

That is so absolutely cool! Hooray for you !!!

__________________________

Larry

Azathoth · Post by **Azathoth** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:59 am

If you haven't got one - get one :=)

I have had mine a month or so now and its really an amazing instrument.

Anders Fagerström does a variety of pipes -- although the Galician version is the only one with whistle fingering AFAIK.

My own poor attempts at piping on this lovely invention can be found here: http://www.tunemason.org/technotunes.zip

(*Link corrected*)

Any fingering mistakes and wayward rhythms are entirely my own! (And I have only had it a few weeks

)

One point about this, is Anders' site says: your fingering has to be really good to avoid crossing noise. More practice - less noise!

The official sample from Anders' site is here: http://www.technopipes.com/sounds/galician%20open.mp3

Cheers,

Ed

iwanttotoot · Post by **iwanttotoot** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:20 pm

OOO I have to resist

That is so cool!!!

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:47 pm

Part of my commute home requires a 35-minute train journey. I am delighted to say that I played whistle for 25 minutes of my commute this evening.

The money is well spent.

Belgian_Waffle · Post by **Belgian_Waffle** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:05 pm

I had a look at the site a while ago but thought this was only for pipers and was wondering why they couldn't make this for whistleplayers.

A question though : what's with the seventh hole ? Is the fingering (except for the second octave) really absolutely the same as the whistle ? How's with Cnat ? How's with finger vibrato ?

On the upside : this is one whistle I don't have to convince the lady of the house about... She'll see the benefits of this in a second !!!!!!

Enclose · Post by **Enclose** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:05 pm

Is this really like a whistle (same fingering...) cause I see 7 fingerholes and all the sound samples sound like bagpipes

Belgian_Waffle · Post by **Belgian_Waffle** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:11 pm

Enclose, how's this for simultanious posting ?

As for the soundsamples, how easy could they be replaced with tin-whistle-like sounds ? I guess it would sound quite monotonous though since there's no pushing around a midi-sound file... But could it be done and how ???

irish69 · Post by **irish69** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:31 pm

the seventh hole is probably the bottom hole on a set of highland pipes. i never knew that they made other electronic pipes, i thought that highland and uilleann pipes were the only ones

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:23 am

Soundsamples: I contacted Anders in April of last year asking about this and he said it was an interesting idea and that he would look into it. I contacted him again in January and he said he hadn't forgotten about my email but he hadn't had the time to look into whistle sounds as he had so many other projects in progress.

Belgian_Waffle wrote:A question though : what's with the seventh hole ?

It's like a Silkstone D+ whistle - the seventh hole can give you a note below the tonic, and you can ignore it if you want to.

Belgian_Waffle wrote:Is the fingering (except for the second octave) really absolutely the same as the whistle ? How's with Cnat ?

Yes. What made me hesitate was wondering about Cnat. I can now confirm that (ignoring the seventh hole) Cnat works with OXOOOO, OXXOOO and OXXXOX (the last two are often used on a laughing whistle, which is my other main whistle). I am happy to check other fingerings for people.

Belgian_Waffle wrote:How's with finger vibrato ?

I don't really do this but I'm not sure if it would work or not. I have noticed that all of my whistle-tricks of slowly coming off of a hole to bend a note don't work, obviously - either you're touching the sensor or you're not, there's no halfway point. But I still go through the motion of bending because that's what I do on a regular whistle.

tuaz · Post by **tuaz** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:33 am

avanutria wrote:Soundsamples: I contacted Anders in April of last year asking about this and he said it was an interesting idea and that he would look into it. I contacted him again in January and he said he hadn't forgotten about my email but he hadn't had the time to look into whistle sounds as he had so many other projects in progress.

Belgian_Waffle wrote:A question though : what's with the seventh hole ?
It's like a Silkstone D+ whistle - the seventh hole can give you a note below the tonic, and you can ignore it if you want to.

Belgian_Waffle wrote:Is the fingering (except for the second octave) really absolutely the same as the whistle ? How's with Cnat ?
Yes. What made me hesitate was wondering about Cnat. I can now confirm that (ignoring the seventh hole) Cnat works with OXOOOO, OXXOOO and OXXXOX (the last two are often used on a laughing whistle, which is my other main whistle). I am happy to check other fingerings for people.

Belgian_Waffle wrote:How's with finger vibrato ?
I don't really do this but I'm not sure if it would work or not. I have noticed that all of my whistle-tricks of slowly coming off of a hole to bend a note don't work, obviously - either you're touching the sensor or you're not, there's no halfway point. But I still go through the motion of bending because that's what I do on a regular whistle.

Can you replicate the sound of cuts and other ornamentation on it?

Azathoth · Post by **Azathoth** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:39 am

Hi Folks,

Vibrato is available for some, not all notes. Other effects such as bending do not (cannot) work, as avanutria writes.

Check out the sample on Anders' site here: http://www.technopipes.com/sounds/Lamen ... venSP2.mp3

The vibrato is in the middle of the tune and is achieved AFAIK by simply having a slightly flat sound sample played for a certain key combination (these have to be learnt too).

Check out the fingering charts ("Details" on the Technopipes site) for more information!

Cheers,

Ed

Azathoth · Post by **Azathoth** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:42 am

As far as cuts and taps and other ornaments go - yes they do work, since they merely interrupt the stream of sound that is there anyway.

Check out my humble sound samples to see if you agree or not :=)

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:52 am

tuaz wrote:Can you replicate the sound of cuts and other ornamentation on it?

Yes, since cuts/taps/cranns are used in piping. You can't separate notes by tonguing or by stopping airflow so you have to use other methods.