Junkyard Jam Band

4   The CPVC Slide Whistle

Woodwinds are generally broken into two groups: those that produce sound when a physical reed vibrates a column of air (as is the case for harmonicas, saxophones, clarinets, party horns, the Chinese sheng, and so on) and those that accomplish the same task without the physical reed (think flutes, pipe organs, beer bottles, referee whistles, and so on). In this second group, the instrument splits a stream of air, and that split stream acts as a reed. Such reedless woodwinds are among the oldest known human-crafted instruments, dating back at least 30,000 years, and were once crafted from cave bear femurs or swan bones and mammoth ivory.

Reedless end-blown flutes—like the recorder, penny whistle, Native American flutes, ...