Wednesday, February 29, 2012

You Can Tune A Piano But You Can't Tune A ...

After writing a response to a session mate (is a singer/guitar player who is taking up the whistle) who asked what I use to tune my whistle I decided it would be good to share what I wrote with my customers and customers-to-be. So, here's more than you ever wanted to know about tuning your whistle(s):




Melissa, a chara,

The best tuner is your ears! This is because how you blow the whistle will change it's pitch. Softer = lower, harder = higher. Thus it is possible to blow any particular note into or out of tune, within limits. Those limits are maybe plus/minus ten cents or so. So a whistle player is constantly tuning, just like a singer or fiddle player. 

But it's good to have the whistle adjusted so it's wanting to play in tune to start with, so at sessions I use an acoustic tuner like this one I bought at Guitar Center. I actually have recently been using a tuner app in my Android phone, which I think works much better, but it should! The phone is a lot more sophisticated. 

I tune the low A to Ian's fiddle because he can't tweak the tuning on an open string, and it makes him nuts if we're out of  tune with each other. Most other notes he can slip his finger around to match whatever I'm blowing. 

But don't expect a whistle to be in tune all across it's range. It's not how a whistle works, and that's part of the character of a whistle.

As for tuning the whistles when I make them, there is a lot that goes into it. Since I can put each hole wherever I want I have to decide what conditions I am tuning the whistle for. What I mean by that is since the speed of sound changes with temperature, and to a lesser extent with humidity, a player will adjust the length of the whistle so it plays in tune under the conditions that exist when they are playing. I have decided that 78 degrees is a good mid-point to aim for. 

Then, when I'm setting the hole locations in the shop, I have to look at the temperature there, sometimes in the 90's sometimes in the 60's and tune the whistle so it plays 15 or 20 cents sharp or flat across the board at the amount of extension I want the player to use at 78. Then I know it will play best at 78 degrees, and higher and lower temps can be accommodated to some extent. 

The complication is that the holes would have to move proportionally as the temperature changes. But once the holes are drilled, they move in unison. So when you sharpen the whistle by say 2mm, the high notes move 2mm and so so the low ones. In a perfect world the high note hole would move less than 1mm while the bottom hole moved 2mm. 

Another "problem" is the straight bore of the typical whistle. This causes the notes of the second octave to tend flatter than the low octave. The solution as a player is to blow the second octave harder. You are already blowing harder to get the second octave to sound, so you have to blow harder-harder to get the high A and B in tune. But go right ahead, that's what a whistle sounds like. 

On top of that, if you change the size of the sound producing window, like of you were to close off the "Parks Tone Ring" a little bit to soften the sound, the whistle will play flatter. It is the same thing as making the holes at the other end of the whistle smaller. 

I'm telling you all this because by definition the whistle will be in and out of tune depending on what notes you are playing and the dynamics involved. That's part of the character of the whistle, and what makes a whistle sound different than a recorder for example.

Ha, I'm sure that's way more than you wanted to know. But hopefully you have some idea what the whistle will be doing and what you can do about it. 

Tóg go bog é,

Carey

Friday, February 17, 2012

Slowly Learning Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic)

I've been having fun learning Gaeilge and thought some readers might be thinking about it too, so I thought I'd mention how it's going. 


In a word "mall" meaning "slow." Not so much because it is hard, the language is very organized and un-ambiguous (unlike English.) It's just very different. Spoken Irish has different sounds from English, so that takes a little getting used to, and they use combinations of letters to make some sounds we have single letters for. For example "V" and "W" which do not exist in their alphabet. (The missing letters are: j k q v w x y z. )


Broad consonantPronouncedSlender consonantPronounced
bhEng. "w"bhEng. "v"
(thanks to standingstones.com)


How do you know if the "bh" you are looking at is a broad or slender consonant? That's straightforward - if the closest vowel is a slender vowel (i, e) the consonant is slender, and if the closest vowel is broad (a, o, u) then the consonant is broad too. 


They do have two ways to pronounce vowels - long and short. If it's long, it has a fada, or an accent mark like this: á or í. You have to look close at the "i" to see if it's a dot or a fada. 


But that's basically it. Once you learn the rules and how to pronounce the sounds the rest is just like learning any other language, adding vocabulary as you go along. 


And of course that goes better if you have people to speak it with or at least listen to. And there are Gaeilge programs on the web. A good one is http://tg4.ie/ie/index.html
As for learning, I think  http://www.bitesizeirishgaelic.com has a very good approach and you can start and stop as your schedule demands. It is operated by a husband and wife team who are very nice and helpful people. Check them out. 


So if you are at all interested in Gaeilge, do some wandering around the web and see what strikes your fancy. 


Slán go fóill. 


Is mise le mas,


Carey

Friday, February 10, 2012

Feedback Word Cloud

Looking thru some e-mails I saw a mention of this Wordly.net site that will create word clouds from straight text. What would anyone want to do with that?  Well, after a few moments I though about tossing in the 20 or so feedback e-mails that I've received from customers which are scrolling on my home page. And here's the result:

(Click image to enlarge)

I like it! I think it needs to go on my home page for a while.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Caloosahatchee Celtic Festival

Last Saturday the Caloosahatchee Celtic Festival was held in downtown Fort Myers. The usual Celtic goods and good food were present as was a mix of local and imported talent. Here is a long shot from the pavilion near he river:



The weather was perfect, the beer cold, and the entertainment very entertaining. Jaime, the instructor at a local Irish dance school took on one of the fiddlers in an impromptu speed contest. The applause-o-meter said Jaime won by a wide margin:



Jaime and her troop often dance for us (The Boys Of County Lee) at various events and when Wednesday is not a school day, the whole class will stop in at the pub where we have our Tuesday evening seisún and dance among the diners. Good fun! They do well in the national competitions too. 




All the acts were great, but I especially enjoyed the Celtic roots rockers Rathkeltair. They did a few covers and a lot of original stuff. 





So Saturday was consumed at the festival, Sunday played a brunch gig at The Bay House in North Naples from 11-2 with a group of friends (some of which were on stage at the festival but I didn't get a pic) then I beat it up US 41 to North Fort Myers to catch what I can of the seisún at T P Hoolihan's pub. Monday was a birding excursion to Circle-B-Bar Reserve. Tuesday was catch up on e-mails and play the Tuesday seisún at Ballyourney, followed by a Wednesday seisún at The Dublin Ale House


Whew. I hope you are having as much fun as I am.