Clay Whistle

Here is my first successful working clay whistle. I tried a couple of years to make one of these. They turned out cute but were non-functional. I googled and googled to try to figure out the secret, and it turns out that the book I recently bought, "From Mud To Music" answered this for me. It could be that the directions said to do this all along and I just missed it ... but here is how it is done, in photos.


The first thing I had never done before was provide the whistle with a flat bottom. So after I hollowed it out, I tapped the bottom on the floor. Ideally I should have made the hole on the flat side. But I forgot and I made on the round side. It worked though. I have no idea if the 'flat' helped or not. This is the first time I did it though because I was determined to follow the directions exactly. So then you may ask, 'Then why did you not follow them and put the hole on the flat side?" I dunno. I just forgot I guess.


This trick worked nicely as well. When making the second hole, the one on top,the one that has to be the 45 degree angle, LEAVE the first stick in. This is a small whistle and I cut down an Emory board (nail file) for sizing. The other trick is to take the part you are going to make the 45 degree angle with and sand a 45 degree angle on it.



Here is the finished whistle. It needs sanding and decorating but it is such an accomplishment for me. Here is an mp3 file of two short whistle blows: Click Here to download.