Using the "Parks Tone Ring"

Using the "Parks Tone Ring" is pretty straightforward, but I have received questions from potential customers while they were considering their purchase. So here's a quick overview of the use of my tone ring. 


In the photo below you see three whistles, and the tone ring goes from fully open but in place against the mouthpiece to nearly completely closed. 

The effect of the tone ring in these three positions is as follows:

Fully open: In this position the ends of the tone ring and the lower end of the mouthpiece form "walls" around the sound window of the whistle. This has the effect of organizing the air a little bit for the low notes. The whistle speaks it's loudest, and is pretty clear, with a hint of chiff, and a nice fruity finish. (No, wait, that last fruity bit is for wines.)

Partially closed: A little breathy sound is introduced, and the volume is slightly reduced. 

Mostly closed: The whistle is quite breathy, almost whispering it's notes. A little more open than this and it sounds somewhat like an original Clarke. 

Removed from the windway: This position is not shown, but the tone ring is simply slid down the body an inch or so from the mouthpiece. This takes the tone ring completely out of the sound producing process. When this is done, the upper notes of the second register are a little easier to sound, and the overall sound of the whistle is a little cleaner, or less chiffy than with the tone ring in place. The trade-off is a weaker low end, requiring a little more care to sound the bell note. 

Regardless of the position of the tone ring, my whistles play easily in both the first and second registers, and the octave jump is easy to control. No whistle plays itself however, and a complete beginner - that is one that has no experience with breath control - will still have to learn to make the whistle do what they want with respect to octave jumps and accurate tones for the various notes. 

A little more about this last point. If you can whistle with your lips, you will notice your mouth cavity changes shape and/or volume (size) when you whistle from low notes to high notes. A similar thing must be learned to play the whistle. Your head is actually playing a part in the production of the sound. You can't put it all on the whistle. But this is good news, as you have the ability to be expressive with your playing using this to your advantage. 

G, A and Bb in the works

It's been a long while since I posted a blog entry. Been busy making whistles for customers and working on some new whistles. I had a low A prototype whistle, but wasn't happy with the upper end of the second register. After showing in around locally for a while I scrapped that design and started over with a different size pipe. Much better, I have a prototype Bb at the moment that I really like. 


I used some new (for me) tricks to try to simulate the effects of a tapered bore, and they seem to have worked pretty good. I'm not sure if I will be able to make a whistle set this way however, as the head is pretty involved in the tuning of the whistle. I may just be offering individual whistles. We'll see how it comes out in the end. 


Well, I better get out to the shop before tropical storm Bonnie kicks up storms and makes me turn off the lathe for fear of a power outage while I'm making a cut. We're looking at sustained winds of 40 with higher gusts, thunderstorms and the possibility of tornadoes. At the moment it's raining lightly under a solid gray overcast. 

10:10

10:10 stands for reducing one's carbon emissions 10% in 2010. It has become an international movement since Sep 2009 when the movie "The Age of Stupid" was released. 10% - pretty easy really, and it will save you money too. What's not to like? Check out some info and how-to's at:

The 10:10 web site

Poke around in the web site and see what it's all about and how fast people, businesses etc are getting on board. 


Even the new UK government...

New UK coalition govt commits the country to 10:10

Best,


Carey

My Flute As A Tap

I don't remember what I was doing, but earlier today something made me think of playing my flute not as "making" music, but as letting it out. The music is in there, and it just needs to be let out. Much like a tap lets the beer out of a keg. It can be a flute, or a fiddle, a banjo or a bodhran, but it's still just letting the music out.

True, my fingers and other muscles need to know how to move to make the sounds that the music requires, so practice is important. Sometimes I am just teaching my body how to make the sounds that will become music.

I often hear people say that they are a "piano player" or a "guitar player" or something. I suppose that if someone were to hand you a sheet with music on it and you would play your piano or whatever and make the sounds on that paper you would be a piano player. Like a player piano, but without the roll mechanism.

It's not the paper that makes the difference either. Either from memory or from paper it is possible to make the sounds as they were put down by another and you will be playing the piano. But if the music has gotten in you, and you are letting it out again, then you are making music. Letting the music out.

Er..Hang On, New Sheriff In Town

Not a week after our first gig the pub changes hands and there's a new Sheriff in town. Lots of things are changing, not the least of which is the music. The session will move to Monday evening, out of town bands will be playing Wed-Sun during season. More Celtic rock than trad. So our first gig was also our last for the time being. Oh well, it was fun.

The Boys Of County Lee -> We're the house band!

This past Wednesday "The Boys Of County Lee" debuted as the Celtic Ray's house band. It was fun, but I thought it a little odd to be standing on stage with a mic and all in the same place we hold our weekly session. But that didn't last long. At the moment we're a four-piece with bouzuki, fiddle, guitar, banjo, vocals, whistles and flute. Who plays what varies some, so I didn't put names on it all.

The place was pretty empty when we started at 7 PM, but very soon people started showing up, and for most of the evening the tables were all full and there were a number of people at the bar. Everyone seemed to have a good time. The tip jar did fair business, and management behind the bar was pleased and told us so.

We recorded the whole thing on a Zoom 8-channel studio and it's taken a while to get the music out, never mind pick out some good sets. I'll work on that, and post something when I have it. Also, our friend Steve took some photos and when I get those I'll post some.

It's Never Good Enough, But It's As Good As It Can Be

Sometimes I think maybe I shouldn't post about when I make improvements to my process or my whistles, because I worry some people might feel bad about not having the latest and greatest. But then I remember what W. Edwards Deming said once when challenged about some changes he had made "I refuse to apologize for improvement." He was a crusty old sod when I met him as the 80's were turning into the 90's. But he was always dead on when he got in somebody's face about something.

I learned from Dr. Deming that if things appear to be all the same, you are not measuring closely enough. There's always variation at some level. It's foolish to pretend there isn't. Nothing is ever perfect. So don't set specs within which a product is considered "good" and outside of which it is considered "bad" because it just ain't so. Maybe a customer says they will only buy product within certain specs, but even that is foolish because they probably could be getting better, or at least more uniform product, if they just specified a target and took what you made, as long as both you and they know how much variation exists in the product and there's confidence you are working to get better and better.

Enough of the quality improvement theory for now, here's what's new in the shop...

In this case the intonation of the whistles was the subject of my scrutiny, and while my then-current whistles were better than those of the recent past due to the adoption of a solid whistle hole template (rather than a set of six stops sliding in a groove on my jig which were difficult to position accurately) I was frustrated by the effort involved in making a new template when I wanted to move a hole a little bit.

So, just before drilling the holes in the last batch of whistles it dawned on me that I could make an adjustable hole template that was very easy to adjust accurately and once the hole positions were known I could then make a new fixed template as easily as I could drill holes in a whistle.

Below you see the results of my work. The black rod with the six holes is one of the permanent hole templates. The screw on the end lets me adjust the collection of holes in case there is a need to. The new R&D template is in the foreground. With it, I set the holes to match the whistle I want to change, then budge the stops to the new hole positions and make trial whistles. Once I arrive at the new improved hole locations I simply put a piece of the black rod in my jig and drill the stop holes.

After using the jig to refine my C whistle template, the best whistles in a batch didn't get any better, but the variation in intonation from whistle to whistle has been reduced. Which is a good thing. Are they noticeably better? I wonder. Are they are more alike. No doubt.

I know, "Just send me the whistles, and don't tell me how the shop works!"  HA!

Stay "tuned!"

Carey

Mobile Phone Post

I'm trying out blogging from my new "phone." It probably has more computing power than the Apollo lander had. Pretty sweet what they are doing these days.
Anyway, I have been working on tooling for the shop. I'm not convinced I can put the drill press back in shape if I had to take it apart so I'm devising ways to ensure the drill ends up in the same position relative to the hole jig.
Oh, and I did a little work on the 1860's Meyer flute too.
Session tomorrow and Rob Gandara of The Pipe Makers Union is going to stop by the shop. He's in the area for a Celtic fest.
Yeah, this phone is sweet. I'm lying on a couch next to the pool in the Lanai.  The weather is turning nice.  We've finally got the A/C off and the doors open. Great. Time of year here.

Busy day

Friday an editor from the regional newspaper the News-Press called to see if she and a photographer could come by sometime early this week. Heck yeah! We set up for today. The editor was unable to come but the photographer spent over an hour taking shots of me making whistles, playing whistles, and whistles in racks and on tables etc. I wonder how good I was at modeling? 
Following his departure, I set about filling in my web presence by finally getting on Twitter, and trying to link all the various social networks together. In case you found you way to this post and are not a friend/follower/whatever on your favorite social net, here's where I can be found currently:


www.parkswhistles.com
http://www.facebook.com/carey.parks
www.linkedin.com/in/careyparks
www.reverbnation.com/careyparks
www.myspace.com/careyparks


and the band at
www.myspace.com/theboysofcountylee


For you news feed junkies:
http://feeds.artistdata.com/rss.newfeeds/artist/AR-9H1I9281A64I4QBJ/rss



So, stay in touch eh?

Blog to Blog

There's some interesting stuff going on in Boston these days, and my customer Susan Gedutis Lindsay seems to be in the middle of a lot of it. Check out her blog. This link will drop you in on her post where she comments on her new Walkabout Every Whistle.

http://sueandstevelindsay.blogspot.com/2009/11/100-days-of-practice-round-2-day-24.html

On that post is a link to the Boston College photo collection which is a lot of fun to browse.

Enjoy!