How to Put a Pitch in Bone Whistles
- 1). Boil the meat off the raw bone you've chosen and scrape the outside clean with a paring knife. Baked bones can be crumbly, so remove the bone before baking the turkey or deer.
- 2). Saw off the ends of the bone with the coping saw below the joints at the ends, just where the bone begins to widen to create the joint.
- 3). Make a half-inch straight cut across the top of the bone, about an inch from the end. Cut a slanted cut another half-inch from the first cut with the sharp carving knife. Slant the cut back toward the bottom of the first straight cut you made. The side of the cut away from the mouthpiece end will be slanted and sharp.
- 4). Trim the cork to fit inside the hole of the mouthpiece end. Trim a slanting trough to form an airway along the top edge of the cork between the top of the mouth hole and the whistle hole and through into the hollow of the bone. Drive the cork plug tightly into the hole. Test it by blowing gently through the blow hole. If you need a stronger sound, make the air passage larger. Keep adjusting the blow hole until you get the sound you want and then glue the cork into place.
- 5). Cut a bevel underneath the top of the mouthpiece and sand it smooth.
- 6). Drill a series of finger holes on top of the bone below the whistle hole. Compare the distances between holes on a small penny whistle, tonette, ocarina or other whistle-type flute to plan your bone-whistle holes. Drill holes into the hollow tube the same width as the whistle you used for the spacing measurements.
- 7). Adjust the pitch on each hole starting from the first hole below the whistle hole. Raise the pitch of each hole where needed by enlarging the hole slightly on the mouthpiece side. Lower the pitch of the hole by drilling it larger on the side away from the mouthpiece. Continue to adjust the holes and compare the sounds from each until all of the holes sound in pitch with each other.