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How To Make Tutorial
'Low D Whistle' Plan

I now have the whistle body and mouth piece and fipple completed, I have tuned the bell note of the whistle "Low" and "High D' the whistle is close to complete I will update post with pictures and some tips as to what made the whistle easier to make for me. For now here is a recording of the whistle a simple looped piece using the low D E F and G notes. Some of the notes aren't quite right yet as I have all 8 mm holes and I'm waiting on 9, 10 and 12 mm drill bits to arrive. One thing I'll mention the playing of this Low D whistle is quite a shock, very different from my high d whistles (no surprises there) because of overall size and the hole spacings.

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Hi John,

The holes of Guido's measurement is a suggested mark only for non-tunable whistle. Your breathing capacity will determine the tone's accuracy. If you are breathy in giving air, it may tend to be sharp, if it is weak it may be flat.

What you need to do is to first drill the hole on the right area. But as a caution, drill smaller holes first and use the scissors to make it larger until the expected breath requirement meet with the the said note. Test the note from time to time as you slowly enlarge the holes.

For Equal Temperament, use a tuner to get accurate results, remember that equal temperament does not mean it hits the exact frequency.

Normally this is about cents, which i am not that good at. But I prefer mine close to the tunning of my keyboard.

The keyboard is digital thus therefore I "assumed" to be tuned to equal temperement (which is a preference of many instrumentalist over JUST TEMPERAMENT). So based on all the keys of keyboards I have tested using a tuner, it is flactuating to + 5 to10 cents sharp.

The sixth hole or the T1 hole when open and played (7th note) is expected around 10-15 cents flat, this is to give your flattened 7th note ( this is Cnatural assuming D) a good hit. Anyhow blowing it a little hard will make it achieve the note.

If you make the T1 hole or C# assuming D whistle, about 5 cents sharp on your tuning, your C natural will be mostlikely 20-30 cents sharp assuming the fingering of 0XX-000, which is not good.

I used Guido's measurement on my E and F body of Susato Dublin L-Series Head.

I followed the position of the hole but did not follow the actual millimilimeter of the hole. Some holes are 2 mm shorter than what Guido mentioned on my breath control.

Remember that, Guido's model is a non-tunable whistle.

If you drill out holes immediately, you may end up sharp or out of tune.

Your breath plays an important role in playing the keys.

You need to find the equilibrium of breath requirement and key requirement for you to enjoy the sound.

what kind of tuner do you guys use?
did one of you ever try flutini? its an "on pc tuner" i am not sure if it works well because it seems much affected by the microphone?