Michael Burke: The Chiff & Fipple Interview
By Dale Wisely
Dale Wisely is the Undisputed King
of Internet Tinwhistle Journalism. He is the founder and webmaster of Chiff
& Fipple: The Neo-Structuralist Tinwhistle Internet Experience.
Several months ago, I got an
email from Michael Burke, who I did not know. He told me he was making
whistles. Over the years, I've heard from quite a few people who have entered
the whistle-making world. Some make good instruments, but none could claim to
have yet made their way into the top rank of whistle makers. Anyway, Mike told
me he wanted me to test his whistles--but then he got busy and I didn't have
the chance to try his instruments until recently. Now I'm playing, on a daily
basis, four Burke whistles: A Bb, a B-natural, and two versions of his Low D. I
am absolutely astounded by these whistles. They are pure of tone, have great
volume, are exceptionally smooth in play, and are lightweight beyond belief.
Bluntly, they are as good as they get. Mike Burke will almost certainly join
that mythical top rank of whistle craftsmen. He may be there already. All of
this is particularly stunning when one considers, as we are about to learn, how
short a time Michael has been at it.
Dale: Michael. After playing your whistles, I've
recently urged you to quit your day job. Do you have one?
Michael: Oh yes, I am the Chief Design Engineer for a
company that builds Wildlife Radio Telemetry Equipment and nursing home patient
monitoring equipment. I have designed most of the equipment that my company
sells and have seen my receivers used on Wild America, Nature, and other
Wildlife programs. Our Care Trak equipment protects Alzheimer patients in many
nursing homes all across the country.
Dale: Where do you live?
Michael: I live in a small town of about 10,000 in
the deep south of Illinois called Murphysboro. Like my own ancestors, many
Irish Immigrants settled in this part of Southern Illinois.
Michael Burke
(photo from his
website: http://www.burkewhistles.com )
Dale: Tell us about your interest in Irish music
before you starting making instruments.
Michael: I had a casual interest in the Trad for two or three years, but
didn't
really get into it until I went to Ireland in 1996 and met my good friend Mick
O'Brien in Dublin. Susan and I went to a session in a small pub in Dublin
called the Ferryman and the music was absolutely marvelous. Mick who told me he
was a Geography teacher in High School, was the nicest, most patient and
informative person I was to meet in Ireland. The whole O'Brien family are very
well known as excellent musician, and he is a master of the whistle, flute and
one of the best in the world in the Uilleann Pipes. He took time to talk to us
and explain his instuments and the music. His kindness and his magic with
whistle, flute and pipes was spellbinding and compelling. I was hooked!
Dale: So, how did you get into
tinwhistle-making?
Michael: On that same trip to Ireland, I bought an
Irish made D whistle with one of those tutors with the little dots to help you
learn the tunes. The whistle was squeaky, breathy, and clogged constantly. I
was used to designing things and figured I could probably make a whistle better
than that one. I started making whistles for myself and then I decided to ask
musicians to try my whistles and give their opinions and suggestions. I
listened to them and made improvements until, they began to ask me if I was
willing to make them to sell. It was then that I began to consider the idea of
becoming a maker.
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Dale: Alright, so you have been making
whistles for....
Michael: In February of 1998, almost two years after
I had made my first whistle, I contracted with my brother John to have heads
made on his CNC machines from Delrin, and sold my first whistle in March of
1998. I had made and given away 15 or 20 whistles before that, but didn't
consider them worthy of anyone paying money for.
Dale: I'm always interested in the design
process. Can you describe a little of how your instruments have evolved?
Michael: The first good sounding whistles I saw in
concerts were Copeland D whistles and later Copeland low G and low D whistles.
I at first thought that a whistle had to be conical to be any good, so I
started trying to make whistles from brass by using a step tapered design that
David Daye published on his bagpipe page. I tried umpteen variations with as
many as 7 steps in the bore and made some monster whistles that weighed half a
pound. During this time, I developed a method of making a curved windway like
the Copelands, since I had become convinced that this method had advantages in
tone and for dissipation of spittle to prevent clogging of the windway. I then
began to experiment with cylindrical designs, since making a thin walled
conical bore seemed beyond my home workshop. My first cylindrical whistles
were, like many, flat in the second octave above the G' note, and I tried a
number of things to fix this problem, and reading Theobald Boehm's book on
flute design, I tried to apply his principles to the tin whistle. I used a
constriction at the top of the whistle and it brought the A',B' and C#' notes
into tune, but then the Second D note went about 5-10 cents sharp. I then
discovered a way to put an expansion in the bore at a place that flattened the
second D and also sharpened the C# a bit more in the bargain. By juggling the
constriction and expansion, I was able to get the first D whistle to play in
tune in both octaves. Then I tackled low whistles starting with the A and
working down the scale. My first low D was a step tapered conical brass model
that left me dizzy and gasping for breath from it's air requirements, and
fingers cramped from its weight. I then discovered the composite that I use for
the bores and it was just lovely in tonal quality and weight. My first low
whistles had fat bores for the keys, 
but I found that the second octaves didn't
overblow very easy. Smaller bores had weak low end notes. I began a campaign to
design a really good low D last Summer in July. My good friend and mentor,
Craig Fischer from Australia made suggestions on using more perturbations in
the bores to make certain notes easier to overblow and others more
Mike Burke sports
his really gigantic low D subwhistle.
Here with Bob Tedrow at the
Dublin Festival 1999.
difficult. Craig is a instrument
maker and one of the foremost authorities on the workings of the Uilleann Pipes
in the World. My low D evolved into the present model as a process of discovering
how the bore might be tuned with expansions and contractions to achieve a
balanced sound with lower end notes becoming stronger and upper hand notes
being made easire to overblow. The process goes on today and will for the
foreseeable future. I am presently looking at my smaller whistles again and
beginning to market a line of little brass whistles in the keys of Eb,D,C#,C,
and Bn in the next few months. These whistles are not loud, but sweet and play
with almost no air, so they can be played very fast. I love them. I will still
be making composite whistles in these keys for a somewhat more robust session
output level too, and all my low whistles will continue to be made from
composite with Delrin heads for the foreseeable future.
Dale. Where in the world did you come up with this composite material? It
is strange and wonderful.
Michael: Actually, I came across it while helping Craig Fischer look for
synthetic materials to make reeds for Uilleann Pipe Chanters and for the
chanter bodies themselves. The material is probably in every home in some form.
It is most commonly sold in the form of Bakelite. Bakelite was invented in 1908
and has been used to make jewelry, teacups, electrical insulators, telephones,
toys,and anything else you can imagine. If you have a saucepan or stew pot with
handles, it is probably made of Bakelite. Bakelite jewelry made in the 30s is
very collectible today and therefore valuable. It is unique in that it is one
of two common plastics, the other being melamine, that is known as a thermoset
plastic. Most plastics used today are thermoplastics and can be melted down and
molded. Thermosets are cooked and set up like concrete and won't ever melt.
This makes them thermally very stable and hard, both characteristics make it a
very good material for flute bodies. The resin itself is very brittle, so the
tubes I use contain a rolled up mat of ground wood fiber impregnated with the
resin and then baked in an oven for several hours. The material is custom made
for me to tolerances of ±0.003".
Dale: Early on, you got your whistles
into the hands of some important
players.
Michael: Yes, I sent my whistles to Mick O'Brien who is very well known
and
respected in Ireland. I also sent some to Bill Ochs, the writer of the
Clarke Tin Tinwhistle Tutor for his comments. Then I started showing
them at Irish Fests. I met Mike Katz and John McCusker from the
Battlefield Band early last August in Nova Scotia, and then I met Paddy
Keenan and Joanie Madden in Milwaukee in mid August 1998. Paddy Keenan
has become a good friend, and has referred many customers to me for low
whistles, and he plays them himself and is recording with them now.
Joanie Madden and Mary Rafferty have also become very good friends and
have recorded with my whistles. Linda Hickman from Celtic Thunder called
me last November and said she wanted to buy a whistle after playing one
that I gave Billy McComisky the fabulous box accordian player from New
York and Baltimore. Linda recorded with the D I sold her and it appears
on her new solo CD just out.
Dale: And you're still building support
among top players....
Michael: It is a tight community in Irish music.
Everyone knows every one else.
I had a customer buy a low G and
said that he was referred by Jerry
O'Sullivan. Jerry doesn't even own one of my whistles, so I wrote and
ask him how he knew about them. "Oh, I was at a recording session with
Joanie
Madden, and she showed your low G to me", he
said. "I will be
ordering some for myself when I get the money set aside." Joanie is one
of the kindest and best people I have ever met, and very generous with
her time and influence. Just last weekend, I showed my whistles to Larry
Nugent, one of the finest whistle players I have ever seen. He is
ordering some whistles now. He has been touring with Paddy Keenan. If
you make good instruments, the good musicians will tell each other.
Dale: What plans to you have for the
future of your whistle-making?
I just want to continue to strive to make better instruments and enjoy
the music and the fine people that are in the Tradition. That's what you
find out when you get to know them. The best musicians are usually the
very finest people too. It is really fun to do this. I love these
tooters and the folk that play them. What else could I do to have so
much fun?
Dale: Hey Mike, What the heck is that
perturbed thing?
Michael: I think we talked about this a little before, but all it means
is that
the bore is not the same diameter everywhere from top to bottom. Most
whistles have at least a constriction at the top, but that is about it.
My low D has 5 bore tuning perturbations to pull octaves into alignment,
adjust for individual notes ease of overblowing and tuning, and to
strengthen the low end notes for that nice booming low end players like.
No instruments are pure cones or pure cylinders. In the case of my
whistles, I have used constrictions and expansions of the bore diameter
to tailor the responses of the bore to produce good tuning and output
volume.
One more thing, Dale.
No one ever achieves anything without help. If my whistles are any good,
I must acknowledge the people that have helped me gain the understanding
I need to try to figure out how to make good whistles.
From the beginning and to this day, Bryan Crow, my friend and local
tester has been very helpful in offering evaluation and suggestions.
Early on, Eric Reiswig wrote me reams of letters with suggestions and
encouragement. Others like Bill Ochs, Craig Markley of Stark Raven, and
Brian McCoy of Gabriel Hounds have made very helpful suggestions. Mick
O'Brien has been invaluable with his insights into what a whistle should
be and an amazing ability to put his finger on the problem area and
offer very intelligent advice. Craig Fischer is a brilliant engineer and
instrument maker. His suggestions have been essential to my
whistle designs. Suggestions and encouragement from Paddy Keenan and
Joanie Madden have further helped me to know what how to define what a
whistle is and should be. In the final analysis, it is these marvelous
musicians that know instinctively what is needed in an instrument. If we
who call ourselves makers will but listen to them, they will tell us
what is the essence of our trade. I am grateful to them all.
Michael Burke's whistles are available by direct order. Reach him via his website at http://www.burkewhistles.com