Hello fellow musicians.
I was wondering if anyone is still having a “C” natural tuning problem with John Sindt’s whistles. I have tried one before that I suppose is quite old, and I was wondering if an adjustment has been made to how the whistles are made to remedy the problem. If anyone has purchased one recently and is having this problem, please let me know, as I have one on order.
John Sindt has resisted any request for changes to his design.
There isn’t really a problem with the tuning of the c natural. You just need to use the appropriate finger.
Umm. Well that’s fair enough, because apart from that the instruments are perfect. When you say proper fingering do you mean with the standard two fingers down, or four fingers down that I found worked on the last Sindt I played?
Well, there’s more than one way to skin a horse. Whatever works for you.
Some C-natural fingerings to try:
OXX OOO
OXX XOX
OXO OOO
OXO XXX
OXX XOO
DOO OOO
<< top of whistle
O = open hole
X = closed hole
D = half hole
A friend of mine and the Prof’s fixed his Sindt D by retrofitting a Feadog barrel to the Sindt head. Because the diameter of the tubing JS uses is smaller, you have to sand the top of the Feadog tube - a royal pain in the bum, takes forever - to get it to fit. Or get someone to machine the Sindt head to make it accept the Feadog tube.
Incidentally, other whistles by John Sindt (e.g. Bb, C) don’t have this problem.
CreadurMawnOrganig lol. I tried 0XX XX0 when I last played a Sindt, and you didn’t list it!
Feel free to add to the list.
OXX OXX
The game is put the middle finger down on the top hand and then add whatever is needed below that to push things down to the right note. I’ve not tried a Sindt so I haven’t a clue which (if any) oof these fingerings might work.
BTW
OXX XXO
will overblow to E really easily on many whistles….
Have you tried half-holing?
From a similar discussion at C&F forum;
“…. I own both a D and Bb. Someone accurately described a Sindt as what a Generation would be if it were handmade. You will need to become proficient at half-holing since, as Doc suggested, standard cross fingerings for some common notes don’t work well. It was John’s decision that in order to maintain perfect tuning and a traditional sound quality some sacrifice had to be made……”~Ecohawk 8th post down
One more thought, in my searchs I found that someone had fitted a Feadog brass tube to the Sindt head. It required a fair amount of metal removal by sanding, but it could be machined as well. If you like to cross finger C natural this could be cheap option.
Good luck.
Umm. Half holing a C playing a really quick reel sounds great fun! … :\
I play a Sindt whistle, and when first started playing it, I had the same problem. I find the best finger to use is:
OXX XXO
I find that part of it is just adjusted your air pressure, which comes naturally more quickly than you’d think.
I think it’s a beautiful instrument. I’d highly recommend Mr. Sindt’s whistles.
When I got my Sindt D long ago (2006) I had the same issue and was shocked to say the least. But I called him up and he said he spaces the holes to give a perfect C sharp, but that means the typical cross fingered C nat is out of tune 0xx000. He said he made his whistles with Mary Bergin in mind who half holes virtually all her C nat.s (so she said in class at Irish Arts Week). Benedict Kohler recommended to me a combination of cross fingering with what he called “shading” the top hole, leaving the top forfinger just over the hole or just covering one edge. I find that works fine, but takes some practice.
I put a feadog tube on mine. Works perfectly. It really isn’t a big job to do a bit of sanding - certainly a lot easier than learning to play with different fingerings than i’m used to.