Chieftains and Overtons: A Field Report

By William M. Porter

Dale -

You probably remember that I sent you some preliminary notes on the high D

and E Chieftains I got a while ago. I just got back from traveling in

England and, while in London, got a chance to play around with a whole

display rack of Chieftain and Overton whistles at the Hobgoblin Music store

on Rathbone Place. Practically ran into the place by accident as I hadn't

thought to bring the address. I thought you might be interested in what I

thought about these quirky aluminum demons.

By the way, the whistles were prominently displayed and they encouraged me

to try them - none of this hygienic disinfectant nonsense either! The

principal structural difference between equivalent models is this:

The mouthpiece of the Chieftain is made by flattening the top only (to form

a windway) and inserting a round aluminum fipple with a flat top. (The

fipple is the plug in the end whose top forms the bottom of the windway.)

The resulting windway is only a little less wide than the diameter of the

tube.

The mouthpiece of the Overton is formed by flattening and probably drawing

more labor intensive and tricky. The resulting windway is appreciably

narrower than the tube diameter.

How do they sound? In the case of the high D, the Overton has smaller tone

holes, requires less air, the tone is sweeter and better balanced between

registers than the Chieftain, but is substantially less loud and powerful

and complex. I liked the Chieftain better in this pitch - it is really

strong and more different from other whistles than the Overton.

But lower pitches were a different story. They didn't have a Bb to try,

but they did have A and G and low D's in both makes. First off, both the

Chieftains and the Overtons showed a surprising degree of variability from

one individual whistle to another. The size of the tone holes and spacing

is not the same! I don't know whether this represents gradual model

changes or the whims of the individuals making them. But they were

apparently careful to individually tune all of them; they all seemed to be

quite well in tune with themselves and some showed signs of scraping or

filing around the holes.

The sound of the A's were a tossup - each make different but not

necessarily better. I think (not really sure at this point) that

Chieftain A was weaker sounding than the Overton. There was a pretty big

diameter jump from the A to the G in both makes, and the latter were more

interesting whistles - the Overton in particular was very dark and

complex-sounding on the low end and had loads of low overtones throughout.

Really cool. Fell in love with it and bought it at L.115 (around $190

currently). Yes, it's a lot for a whistle, but cheap for a flute. They

didn't have any tunable G's in either make. The low D's were difficult for

me to play as I was way out of practice for the stretch and so I can't give

you much in the way of comparisons here, but they sounded generally like

the G's, only deeper.

The tunable models (Eb's, D's and C's) were all Chieftains, and they had

the same problems I mentioned before. Actually, the wimpy greased thread

wrapping had been removed from most of these and so they could not be

tested - they were two loose pieces.

I have been playing the Overton G for a while now and I like it even better

than when I bought it. This whistle requires much wind but is quite loud

and powerful; it is a whopping 19 mm inside diameter (like wide end of a

wooden flute) and has Pratten flute-sized tone holes! I think it was made

in an unheated workroom in winter. It is very well in tune with itself

over both registers, but consistently 20 cents sharp throughout when warmed

up. Got it in pitch by rubbing an ice cube over it. Discovered that it is

only slightly smaller in outside diameter than a long 3/4 inch copper

tubing coupler, which will fit very snugly over it when wrapped with Glide

floss (a kind of super-Teflon ribbon I discussed previously for use on the

tunable models). So you can guess what I am (gulp) contemplating doing

with a miter box and hack saw. I will let you know whether I got up the

nerve.

IN SUMMARY:

Both Overtons and the less-expensive Chieftains are really super whistles,

but pretty variable, so I'd recommend trying them before selecting if at

all possible. That is unfortunately very difficult verging on nearly

impossible at present for us in the US.

The Overtons require less wind, especially in the upper register where the

Chieftains have to be blown quite hard and are consequently loud (sometimes

harsh at extreme end).

Tube diameters are equivalent (I think) across makes but tonehole sizes are

not necessarily the same; combined with systematically different windway

widths, this makes for sound differences that have to be heard to be

appreciated - in other words, you might like the Overton better in one

pitch and the Chieftain in another. Neither display anything remotely like

the tonal uniformity across pitch of the Copelands.

Neither make shows uniformly high workmanship - again, not remotely like

Copelands. As trivial example, some Overtons I saw had rough unfinished

tone holes with raw edges (easily fixed by purchaser), others were nicely

beveled, and one had weird shallow, wide but poorly finished bevels. And

the Overtons were slightly better made than the Chieftains on average. My

high D Chieftain had imperfect alignment between windway and blade; I fixed

this by hammering on a well-padded bolt placed on the flat portion above

the blade, and then gently prying the blade upward in the center, and

smoothing/sanding the blade. All made possible by malleability of the

thick, soft aluminum. These operations made the upper register less shrill

and easier to play than when I last described it. But this shows what you

may be facing when buying by mail order.

SO WHY BOTHER?

Because they are worth it. Some of these whistles are completely unlike

anything else I've heard. Especially those with a large diameter. The

high D Chieftain is a little cannon. Its inside diameter is 15.5 mm; other

cylindrical whistles are like 11.5 mm (Susato, Generation) or 13.5 mm

(mello-D Soodlum), and the holes are enormous. This makes for a demanding

but controllable upper register, a more complex tone, and a whole lot of

loudness. The latter not always a good thing - you can't fade into the mix

easily with this. Also would avoid playing something with a sustained high

C, C# or D. But the sound is entirely different from a Copeland, which

becomes slightly nasal or reedy in the low range - Chieftain very open

sounding. Both good, but completely different approaches to whistle tone.

And, all these whistles cross-finger and half-hole better than any others

I've seen, especially the very useful cross-fingered low G# (or equivalent)

which is dead-on.

That's all for now - hope all y'all (I think that's the correct plural) are

doing right good.

- Bill

Lord,

Help us see

How near is

The Kingdom