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.

Great Tip! Playing in Front of 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!

Tips, Comments and Things to try

One of the features I incorporate into the whistles I make is that they can be easily taken apart and cleaned. I believe this feature is especially important because children share their toys and whistles when they play together. A whistle that is easily cleaned allows another person to try the instrument without having to try the owners germs along with the music. If you think other people are not afraid of catching something from a borrowed whistle, just pass it over and the first reaction is for that person to wipe the whistle off on their sleeve to try and clean it.

I have a lot of folks drop by and look at whistles in the shop. If a particular whistle catches their eye or they are interested in a different key it is natural that they ask to try the whistle out for a test drive (especially to play in the Acoustically Perfect Barn outback!) I keep several clean mouthpieces in a zip lock bag to hand out to individuals and when they are through playing I always give a little demonstration of how easy it is to clean the whistle and disinfect the mouthpiece from germs.

I use a water pick to blast the mouthpiece clean and then drop it into a container with Listerine. The water pick removes all the particles from the mouthpiece and is quick and efficient.

If you have whistles in your collection and would like to make them like new, you probably need to give them a good cleaning. A tiny particle, thinner than a human hair can knock the tune right out of your whistle and make it sound dull or thin in tone. Remember when that Acorn or Clark sounded great, but now you have tossed it aside and never play it because the whistle sounds funny? The water pick seldom fails to bring those old whistles back to life.

Many people clean their new whistle when they first purchase it and find particles of plastic in the mouthpiece. Generally , this is caused when static electricity in the plastic mouthpiece pulls a particle in and hides it from the inspector. If you think this is a bad thing, how much stuff do you think you blow into the end of your whistle when you play after eating a pizza? Cleaning your whistle is important if you want it to sound good when you play.

The tone body of the whistle also catches saliva and particles inside(a good combination to produce plaque, just like the stuff the dentist takes off your teeth!) that deaden the sound. A shotgun cleaning sock in your cordless drill will polish the inside of the tone body and is absolutely harmless to your whistle. You will be amazed when you buff the inside of the bore how much dust comes out of the finger holes. That dust is dried plaque which has collected on the inside of your whistle. Take those old whistles out of the drawer and make them your friends again!

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.