How I Handmake a Whistle

I recently received an email inquiring about how I make whistles and do I make them one at a time? I suppose a movie of the process would be best, but here is how I make my handmade whistles.

First I make a prototype whistle that plays correctly and is in good tune. I take this prototype and all my notes made during the creation of the prototype to the art department where I measure all the pieces and draft a finished blueprint and write my notes into instructions before they get misplaced or worse still, I forget what they meant in the first place.

I set up machinery and jigs to precisely cut each piece to make a particular part of the whistle. For instance, I will set up and make a hundred mouthpiece blanks. Every third or fourth blank, I will carefully check that the blank is to size and measure diameters with the digital calipers. After the blanks are machined, they are hand washed, deburred, and put in a bin with a note and description of what whistle they go to. Each part in the whistle is made in the same manner and made as closely as possible to the blueprint.

When all the parts are complete, I assemble the whistles according to their key. The assembled whistle is completely cleaned and tuned for the first time at this point. All that remains is for the tone body to be painted when an order for that type and key whistle comes in.

When the whistle has been painted, striped and labeled for an order, I play the whistle, check the tuning and completely clean it inside and out. The bore is polished and the whistle gets a final wash. Fingering charts, thumb rings and instruction sheets are placed in the shipping box and the whistle is shipped to the customer.

That is what a handmade whistle is all about, lots of handwork and attention to details.

Playing in the Mirror

I have had several groups of children in to visit and discuss the possibility of starting a group to play the whistle. One of these children later came back to visit and told me that her playing had improved a lot by playing in front of her mirror at home. She puts her sheet music up beside the mirror for reference when she practices and can now see her fingers on the whistle in the same direction as the music chart that came with her whistle. She enlarges all her sheet music up to 11x17 inches on a photo copier so it is a very readable size to play from. This extra bit of effort has really improved her playing in a few weeks time. When you play in front of a mirror you gain confidence about your appearance when playing your instrument. You can practice the way you react to the music and show your moves with the whistle just like big time entertainers do. Tom Jones would be pretty dull if he sang and never moved! When learning a piece of music with someone else, it is really neat to stand side by side and be able to observe what the other player is doing from the same position. If you stand face to face everything is backward...no wonder I had so much trouble learning banjo chords from my Granddad. You will pick out your fingering mistakes much faster and learning some alternate fingering is improved. I find that everyone that tries playing in front of a mirror is able to learn the repetitious phrases in music and relate to them faster . Well, anyway give the mirror a try and you will be amazed at what a good looking performer you are and how interesting your whistle playing performance is!

My Neighbor Sam's Bear Story

The following story is by my neighbor Samuel Gray who is six years old. His Dad, Brian Gray is a Maine State Game Warden and he took Sam and his friends on a trip to find a mother bear and her cub that are part of the bear tracking program. Wednesday, March 23, 2005 I got up at 6:45. I met the Bear Crew at Ashland. The Biologist gave us a talk about bears and safety. We went 23 miles to Chandler Mountain. We climbed half a mile to get to the bear den. I got to hold the cub. It was a cute cub. The bear cub weighed five pounds. Lots of people held the bear cub. The bear cub was born the second week of January and its mother went into the den in October. Some people went to track down the mother bear. They came back with her about a half an hour later. The mother bear weighed 124 lbs. I took off my snowshoes at the top of the mountain. My feet got very cold up there. I saw the mother bear while the biologist assistants were examining her. My friend Amos got to hold the bear cub again. My Dad and I got to hold the bear cub. I have pictures of the baby bear and the mother bear. They put tags in the cubs ears and they changed the mother bears radio collar. I had some questions for Randy Cross; he is the head bear biologist. He is a nice man and I learned a lot about bears. We snowshoed back to the trucks and drove out to Ashland.