Home-made Flute and Whistles!

Finally got about to posting some home-made instruments by yours truly!

The first video here is me play testing some Irish whistles made from PVC pipe by a friend for an overseas community project.

The instructions were taken from this fantastic website of Guido Gonzato, who makes his own whistles out of PVC pipe: http://www.ggwhistles.com/howto/.

The article my friend wrote of the project can be found here: http://www.goducate.org/making-music-with-pvc-pipes.html

Photos of her process can be found here.



Way to go, Alina and her elves!

Pitching may not be perfect, but for a first attempt by most who are not musicians or artists, and some materials with different dimensions, I think it's pretty good!

Just in case anyone is interested in the tunes I played in the video, they were (1) Lamb of God, (2) the Butterfly (mistakes and all) and (3) Inisheer.

The second video is of a flute I made out of PVC pipe following the instructions of famed PVC pipe Irish flute maker, Doug Tipple. The instructions are on his website can be found here: http://sites.google.com/site/dougsflutes/makingasimpleirishflute

Doug sells the flutes he makes too, and the reviews have been very positive. Irish flutes can be rather expensive costing several hundreds just for a beginner's instrument and in the thousands for well-crafted wood ones. For starters who just want to try it out without committing too much resources, Doug's instruments are a great choice: http://sites.google.com/site/dougsflutes/

My flute is different from Doug's as it incorporates some design features from the Chinese dizi, namely the membrane hole and the end holes on the underside of the flute. I use a piece of paper to cover the membrane hole when I want to play the flute without the characteristic dizi's buzzy tone.



Doesn't sound great, but still quite in tune and serviceable!