Chiff and Fipple Forums

I’m a newcomer to this forum but have a long path as a musical instrument historian behind me. I can’t find any active discussion of the material covered in the blog post linked to below and am therefore starting a new one. There will be a Part 2 follow-up specifically about the origins of the penny whistle and tin whistle. I’ll also post a link here when it’s online.

https://loopholes.blog/fife-flageolet/

Early references to the term “penny whistle” suggest that it may initially have designated a flageolet. Robert Clarke is widely regarded as having invented a derivate “tin whistle” in 1843. However, contemporary sources both attest the label prior to that date and name makers who preceded Clarke in the production of such instruments. The term “penny tin whistle” also gained currency. This is discussed in an essay (Part 2 of the one noted in the preceding message) at:

https://loopholes.blog/penny-tin-whistle/

The full image of Stevenson is actually more interesting than the heavily cropped one included with the article:



You have to wonder what they were playing

stringbed wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 1:56 amRobert Clarke is widely regarded as having invented a derivate “tin whistle” in 1843. However, contemporary sources both attest the label prior to that date and name makers who preceded Clarke in the production of such instruments.

It's scant, but archaeological evidence suggests that the fipple flute concept is an old one that predates Clarke's time by far. Clarke's name is remembered not for inventing the whistle outright, as some suggest - he did not - but for bringing the whistle into mass production (or at least he was the first to succeed at it). This revolution in whistle production was of such a degree that it democratized the instrument in a way never before seen; just about anybody who couldn't craft a whistle could afford one, and the product was consistent. Were it not for his lead, this website might not even exist.

EDIT: I had forgotten that whistles were well known in Ben Franklin's time - it seems he was something of a fan - and apparently they were relatively inexpensive even then:

Whistles: A Letter from Benjamin Franklin

Mr.Gumby wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 7:22 am You have to wonder what they were playing

Err ... drones?

You have to wonder what they were playing

The two guys at the sides might as well be holding sticks and clearly didn’t take any cues from Stevenson about how a whistle is held. It’s also unclear whether the fiddlers both knew what they were doing.

Well, just a bit before Ben´s time we have Samuel Pepys playing Merrily Kiss the Quaker´s Wife for King Charles II and his mistress in chambers for dancing. I would imagine Ben was familiar with The Girl I Left Behind me. Since he was a man who enjoyed his tipple, he would have known To Anacreon in Heaven, which we Colonials know as the Melody of the Stars and Stripes Forever. Another popular air would have been Flow Gently, Sweet Afton.

Bob

an seanduine wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 1:47 pm ... To Anacreon in Heaven, which we Colonials know as the Melody of the Stars and Stripes Forever.

Oops, Bob: that should be The Star Spangled Banner.

Didn't know that Samuel Pepys was a documented whistleplayer too!

Bob

an seanduine wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 6:37 pm

Bob

Meh. We know what we mean; but I thought that a little accuracy was a good thing for the sake of our international readership's elucidation. I tried out TSSB, BTW, and it fits the Ionian mode (D scale on the D whistle) with only a couple of G#s to tackle. If you don't fear the shrillness, it works well in G, too. The Stars And Stripes Forever? Oy. You'd need a whole band full of whistles and a truckload of half-holing. I'll leave that to my more enterprising betters.

Didn't know that Samuel Pepys was a documented whistleplayer too!

Samuel Pepys’s diary includes many references to playing the French flageolet (two thumbholes and four fingerholes), making him the instrument’s most famous 17th-century exponent. There is a useful compilation of relevant snippets at https://flageolets.com/articles/pepys.php and a full list of terser references at https://www.pepysdiary.com/search/?q=flageolet&k=d&o=r. He varied the way he spelled flageolet but never referred to it as a whistle (a word that he used to designate birdsong and the human action with puckered lips, except for a single reference to a “boatswain’s whistle”).

It seems likely that the term penny whistle initially designated the French flageolet and followed to being a synonym for the English flageolet, before acquiring its current sense. However, the first use of the term flageolet designated a willow whistle and the adjective penny was often used to indicate a child’s toy. A reference to an unspecified whistle in an older text cannot simply be taken as evidence of the now familiar six-holes-on-top form.

stringbed wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 12:40 am However, the first use of the term flageolet designated a willow whistle ...

Not altogether surprising. Now this is utter conjecture on my part, but I've always considered the willow whistle - regardless of tonehole number or arrangement - to be the prototype from which all others arise, and the dearth of physical evidence due to more ancient fippled instruments being largely made from such easily-gotten yet ephemeral materials. The only defense I have for this assertion is the continuing folk tradition of making willow whistles to this day. I'm very comfortable with presuming that the tradition goes waaaaay back.

Nanohedron wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 6:48 pm I tried out TSSB, BTW, and it fits the Ionian mode (D scale on the D whistle) with only a couple of G#s to tackle.

Strange as it sounds to us today, these sharpened fourths weren't written (and don't seem to be expected) in The Anacreontic Song, aka To Anacreon in Heaven.

the dearth of physical evidence due to more ancient fippled instruments being largely made from such easily-gotten yet ephemeral materials.

The oldest known examples are mostly bone and they are very old indeed. In fact the oldest known musical instrument is a vulture bone flute (the Hohe Fels flute), estimated around 40000 years old

Mr.Gumby wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 12:24 pm

the dearth of physical evidence due to more ancient fippled instruments being largely made from such easily-gotten yet ephemeral materials.

The oldest known examples are mostly bone and they are very old indeed. In fact the oldest known musical instrument is a vulture bone flute (the Hohe Fels flute), estimated around 40000 years old

Not to deny them their considerable due, but aren't those notched flutes? I'm suspecting that for the longest time, the fipple (as we know and think of it) was more often readily and easily served by making it from wood-and-bark construction.

Peter Duggan wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 12:22 pm

Nanohedron wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 6:48 pm I tried out TSSB, BTW, and it fits the Ionian mode (D scale on the D whistle) with only a couple of G#s to tackle.

Strange as it sounds to us today, these sharpened fourths weren't written (and don't seem to be expected) in The Anacreontic Song, aka To Anacreon in Heaven.

Just tried it with the unsharpened fourth, and I must say it works quite well in its own way, too.

Nanohedron wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 12:35 pm Just tried it with the unsharpened fourth, and I must say it works quite well in its own way, too.

What I don't know is whether TSSB started, or was ever done, that way.

[Edit: but checking reminds me that its first published sheet form has the sharpened notes.]