The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #107147 Message #2220073
Posted By: Bob Bolton
20-Dec-07 - 10:02 PM
Thread Name: Unusual Penny Whistle
Subject: RE: Unusual Penny Whistle
G'day Mr Happy,
I think the 'thumb hole' is also commonly found on (... old, traditional ...) flageolets. I know that it turned up on early tin whistles ... as I have a couple of small tin whistles that really live up to that name ... being entirely made of tin(-plated iron sheet!
They have been made by folding together the edges of two separate tin-plate stampings, forming:
the 'upper half', with the 6 finger holes and the shaped labium / wind-cutter / whistle edge - and
the lower half, the other side of the 'tube' ... with the bottom of the windway and the right-angle turn defining the length of the open whistle ... and a single 'thumb-hole' roughly opposite the top finger-hole.
They aren't great whistles ... and are a trifle high of high 'G' ('G' in "old high pitch" ... ?) but they do illustrate a late 19th century predilection for including thumbholes. (And that doesn't come from the design ideas of recorders, as they were not revived by Dolmetsch, as a school instrument, until a bit later on!)
Regards,
Bob