Ralph Sweet: The Chiff & Fipple
Interview
with Dale Wisely
I bought my first tinwhistle (a Clarke Original in D) at Bob Tedrow’s
shop in Homewood, Alabama. I
continue to pop into Bob’s shop to chat and listen to Bob explain to me how
much I really want a concertina. On
several of my visits to Bob’s shop, I kept spying this very attractive fife,
which I was to learn was a replica of the famous Cloos fife. This instrument had a heart engraved on
it. About this time, I was getting
started with Chiff
& Fipple and didn’t take me long to learn that this was a Ralph
Sweet instrument. I bought it and it
became the first member of the transverse flute family I had tried to
play. (I now have added a few other
transverse flutes which I have tried to play).
Recently, Ralph Sweet gifted me with one of his wooden whistles which
rounds out my collection nicely. It
looks great and sounds great and, as an added sensory bonus, it smells
great. I’ve wanted to interview Ralph
for a while and only recently did Ralph and I have an opportunity to finally
sit down for an interview in the lounge of a world-class hotel in Sydney, Australia. Oh, sorry, I was drifting there for a
moment. Actually, this interview
occurred via a horrifying blend of Internet- and U.S. Mail-based technologies.
Typically, the grueling Chiff &
Fipple interview process begins with a little biographical sketch the
interviewee sends me. This allows me to
have a starting point for the interview.
But, in Ralph’s case, the bio was so interesting that I want to present
it here in Ralph’s own words. Ralph
mailed it to me, by the way, because, in Ralph’s own words, “there is less
chance of the Crystal People intercepting this highly privileged information so
essential to our civilization.” Smart
move, Mr. Sweet.
As a high school senior in
1946, in southeastern Connecticut, I took up two hobbies which would turn into
lifelong pursuits: square dancing and
fifing. Both have led to a love of
Celtic music and flute making.
As soon as I
learned to drive the family car, I attended nearby square dances, and later
learned contra dancing, which are done to tunes of English, Scottish, and Irish
origin, or American tunes in similar style.
Within two years, I learned to teach and call both, sometimes
accompanying myself on the piano.
The same year,
1946, I also joined an “ancient” fife & drum corps—meaning, of course, a
traditional Colonial or Civil War group performing music (again of Celtic
origin) of the era in the correct uniforms.
At first I was a drummer, then learned the fife. Eventually, I taught fife; all five of my
children have played fife or drum, or both.
While in college, I
attempted to avoid the draft by joining the National Guard, but my unit was
called up! I made use of my assignment
to Georgia, Texas and several other states by square dancing wherever I could, and
writing down the dances and calls. While our anti-aircraft unit protected Boston, MA from the North
Korean bombers, I found I had lots of free time to study Irish Ceili dancing,
English Country dance, Scottish, International Folk, and plenty of square and
contra dancing—lots of Celtic music!
Returning to
Connecticut, I used my engineering training in the aircraft industry, and
bought a large historic barn, which I converted for square dancing—and I left a
perfectly good engineering job to have loads of fun making a living calling
dances in my own hall!
After two years, I
had to find a job which would better support a wife and four kids, and took
courses toward a science teaching career, which I followed for 29 years until I
took early retirement.
Around 1973, with
several other interested dancers, we formed a costumed colonial dance group to
prepare for celebrating the upcoming Bicentennial (1976), and became interested
once more in returning from Western dancing to the traditional squares and
contras. My son was a crackerjack
fifer, and I learned to accompany him on the accordion and call at the same
time while playing the melody.
I discovered that
this needed some adjustment, since drum corps fifes play in Bb, and most of the
tunes were in “fiddle keys” of D, G, and A!
So, I tinkered a bit and produced a fife in D from plastic tubing. After I made the second, the Arab nations
cut off the oil supply, and since plastic is a petroleum product, I decided to
turn to wood.
So I bought a
factory-second Toolkraft lathe, a drill press, a belt sander, and tried turning
wood. After finding that several of
these attempts played pretty well, I found a fiddler, taught my daughter’s
boyfriend to play piano chords, and the “Fifer’s Delight Band” was born! We played at contra dances for several years.
At the New England
Folk Festival, our band performed. Walt
played at all the jam sessions. People
kept asking, “What is that funny instrument your son is playing? Can I buy one?” This took place in 1974, and I got the idea of really producing
instruments. Thus was established the
Sweetheart Flute Company.
Along about this
time, my first wife probably decided she had enough of all these years of
nonsense. Eventually I met a flutist
who loved contra dancing, who became part of the company and became the mother
of my fifth child. She contributed her
knowledge of the classical flutes and Baroque period, and we researched
together several historical flutes.
Thus began the
processing of making fifes and flutes and later whistles, in many different
keys and styles! For several years we
produced a rather good rolled-and-soldered tin whistle in huge quantities, but
the need for more shop time to be given to the more serious wood instruments
resulted in the sale of that department to a man who thought (mistakenly) he
could produce tin whistles really well.
Realizing that my very first flute or
whistle wouldn’t likely be perfect, I’ve tried to follow a motto: I would make each instrument a little better
than the one before. Now it’s come to
be each batch of instruments—we’re always trying to improve the
performance. The instruments now range
from the one-piece $35 Renaissance fife to our beautiful six-key flute for
$1295. Most of our business is by mail,
and much is at wholesale to folk-oriented music stores.
We now have a
fulltime shop foreman, Jerry Briere, and three part-timers in the shop. My wife Carol Greenfield is Office Manager
and we are trying to set up a website.
These days it is all we can do to keep up with the orders!
Dale
Wisely of Chiff & Fipple: Ralph Sweet, that is
a great story. That a story of a life
that really has embraced music.
Ralph Sweet: Yes: It's a good thing
I didn't try to make a living at music - I think I have a short attention span,
because I never seem to stick with any one instrument long enough to get
really good at it. Except for the Square and Contra dance calling, I
suppose!
Since you
covered your background so well, let’s talk about whistles. Now, I’ve learned something exciting: “Out there” there appear to be many metal
whistles made by Ralph Sweet! I had no
idea. During what years would those have been made? What keys were they in?
My metal whistles were a sort of close copy of the Clarke, in
D. At that time, Clarke was only interested in making them in C.
This was in 1977-1985, I think. They were plain tin plated steel - tin
can material! They are now being more or less mass-produced by
Cooperman Fife & Drum Co, and you will see them at most historical
outlets (like Williamsburg VA) in the country.
So they
were tapered and not cylindrical? And
while we are on that subject, where do you come down on that classic debate?
Yes, they had a tapered body, like the Clarke. This
helps boost the pitch of the 2nd register to bring it in tune. Now I
don't think this is necessary when you have such a thin-walled body, as do most
metal whistles today. However, with thick wood bodies, like
recorders, I think it is required. I know that the thicker
the wall of the body, the flatter the 2nd octave will be, unless the bore
is tapered.
It’s hard
not to notice the influence of recorders on your whistles. In addition to the use of wood, this is
probably the most distinctive feature of your whistles. You’ve traveled a good bit. Have you had a chance to visit many
instrument makers’ shops?
Yes - I started doing windways like those cheap bamboo
whistles made in England, like the early O'Riordan whistles, but found I
couldn’t get consistency. Then in 1981, my wife and I and
our 1-year-old daughter visited Germany (my son was stationed
there) and the Mollenhauer and Moeck
factories, the Koolsma factory in Holland and the Dolmetsch
factory in England. I got a lot of ideas for doing windways
there! Here, I’ve visited the Von Huene workshop,
Brookline, Mass (the most respected recorder maker in the US, if not
the world), the Prescott Shop in Hanover NH, the Abell workshop when
He was in Concord, Mass., and I would like to say that they were all very
welcoming and answered any questions and showed me anything I wanted to
see! Chris Abell even says "there are no secrets in the flute
industry!!"
Do you
have a favorite wood for whistles? I
note you have been making African Blackwood whistles for awhile now.
Favorite Wood? Of the North American
Hardwoods, Maple. For some reason, everyone seems to want
cherry- it is pretty, but nowhere near as strong as maple for cutting the
windway - it tends to chip out. Not Good. And of course
Maple is porous, the other North American woods are worse, but this is
solved by soaking in diluted tung oil twice. Moeck does it
with paraffin wax. Of the rosewoods, I waver between Bolivian
Rosewood (Morado) and Honduras Rosewood. The honduras is harder, the
Morado is easier to work with, neither is considered an endangered
species. The honduras is almost as hard as blackwood - Blackwood is
certainly my favorite for fifes, flutes, and may become my favorite
for whistles as I get used to working with it!
Tell us
about John Killourhy.
About 10 years ago, (I don't know how he got my
name) John sent me a whistle he had bought in London in the
1930's. He loved the way it played, but it appeared that the body had
gotten slammed in a car door. I made a replacement for the
crushed part and was amazed at how well it played!! I measured everything
I could on it (it had a tapered bore, the head was some
composition, I think bakelite) and sent it back to him. He was
delighted. Later, it came back for additional repair and I returned it
again. Eventually he sent it to me to keep. It was about 30
cents sharp in the 2nd register, but VERY sweet-toned, and amazingly
strong in the low notes. I just had to make one like that!! In
fact for all that time I have been trying to duplicate it without success.
Of course, I wanted to correct the sharpness of the 2nd octave, so I
tried a less severe taper, and every time I made another set of
samples there was something I didn't like about the way they
played, so I now only do cylindrical bores. But I haven't given
up! I've never met Mr. Killourhy but we have corresponded over
the years, and several flutists and whistlers I know have been to Ireland
and met him. I hope to do that myself some day!
You
collect true flageolets. Can you
describe these instruments to our readers?
This was the result of the evolution of whistle
design, popular in the late 1700's, and were made into the 1920's, I
think. They are easily recognized as having a body like a whistle
with none to 6 keys, a sort of empty air chamber above the
body, and a "beak" or mouthpiece much like a pipe-stem of
bone or ivory. The idea of the air chamber was that you would put
in a piece of sponge which was supposed to filter out condensation and modify
the tone from being too strident. I have two of them now
- one with 4, one with 6 keys. (any buyers?) All the ones I
have ever seen are in Eb, and have such a weak tone that they are
just not exciting at all! As to the keys, I do have two whistles
which look like my blackwood whistles, one with 4, one with 6 keys,
which play a lot more like real whistles. I suspect they date from
the 1930's, and one at least was made in Germany. I love them - they
are my inspiration for
the idea of keys on whistles!
What
portion of your business is devoted to whistles, as opposed to your other
instruments?
What portion of my business is whistles? They are
our best selling
item, that's for sure! And there are an incredible amount of
different operations involved for such a small instrument! I know
that in 1998 we made about 1300 instruments total, of which I
think about 490 were D whistles, and maybe 100 were C whistles.
Have you
been tempted to develop low whistles?
Low whistles: Yes, I've been tempted, many times over
the years! And my inspiration for this is a flute with 8 keys made by
Firth Pond with a normal flute body (for the 1840's or so) with a recorder-type
head, with a pipe-stem sort of mouthpiece which comes out of the side of
the top, so as you played it, it would look like you were maybe playing it
as a normal flute. I haven't really got it playing right yet; I’ve
tried some recorder head joints on my flute bodies; but I just don't have
the time to develop it. We're already straight out all day
every day just keeping up with the stuff we already make. But I keep thinking
of the tapered-body whistles, whistles in different keys, Bb,
A, G, etc, of wood. And eventually a low D
one!
Ralph Sweet’s contact information:
email: ralphsweet@aol.com
Phone: 860-749-4494
U.S. Mail: 32 South
Maple St; Enfield, CT USA 06082
Dale Wisely is the founder and former CEO of Chiff & Fipple: The Poststructural Tinwhistle Internet
Experience, where he now serves as Pastry Chef.