OK Guys, some speculation was aired here recently that my conversion towards the hand crafted whistle would be imminent . Yesterday evening the postman delivered a package from John Sindt. About six weeks short of the 8 month waiting time and slightly early even for my birthday. I have given the whistle a bit of a spin since it arrival and I have some first impressions.
I will save you the history but out of all the available instruments I ended up ordering a Sindt
One of the reasons for ordering this particular make was the fact it is not trying to be a recorder or a foghorn or anything other than a tin whistle. It is just that, a tin whistle and a nicely made one at that.
Fine so here it is.
It looks nice and clean and new. I have the same feeling about it as Dale in his review: the shaft could be one taken from a generation type, except for the F hole(I’ll come back to that when discussing the tuning) the hole spacing is almost identical to Gens and Oaks, tube is the same too, I don’t actually think it’s the heavier gauge reported elsewhere, it even gives the impression of being a tiny bit thinner.
I like the head on it, simple lines and a nice curve in the plastic mouth piece, pleasing to look at, simple and harmonious looking. A sign of a craftman with an eye for nice lines. Full marks for workmanship.
But I didn’t buy this yoke to put on the mantle piece to look at, so how does it sound.
The whistle plays in concert pitch D when the shaft is almost fully inserted into the head, this leaves hardly, if any, room to tune it slightly above A=440. If you play with pipers at all you want to be able to go a bit sharp. I only checked the tuning after playing the instrument for a bit but the size of the f hole and my ears had told me already what to expect: the tuner indicated every note spot on throughout the range. Wow, you see finally a whistle in perfect tune you’d say. Well, is it? It’s a whistle perfectly tuned to equal temperament. I won’t fault anyone for making a whistle tuned to equal temperament, certainly your customers won’t come to hassle you about the whistle being out. However, I would personally prefer an instrument with a scale leaning more towards just intonation. Just intonation sounds that bit sweeter, every time I play an Fsharp or a B in equal temperament I notice them as being that bit harsher sounding than I would like them. But then, I have my ears used to my pipes which are tuned to just intonation, I play with concertinaplayers who have their instruments tuned to Mean tone comma scales and most fiddleplayers I like will have an intonation leaning towards those scales. I do think these scales suit the music better and I wish more makers of whistles would give the issue some consideration. [I realise that those of you, and probably most of you will want to play accompanied by keyboards and assorted stringed instruments and that you would probably prefer the equal temperament for that, equal temp is a bit of a compromise]
Well, if that was a bit of a subjective issue, try having a go at talking about the tone.
It would be interesting to run a few whistles through a sound analyser to see what the harmonic content of each looks like in a nice graph. I think the Sindt would come out as having less of the lower and higher end harmonics in it’s tone spectrum compared to Gen and Oak types. This makes for a more balanced range, would give you a first impression of well-behaved second octave but after playing it for a while when you go back to a cheaper type I find the cheaper ones have a bit more character.
And that’s all I am going to say about it for now, I have not played the new instrument enough to give a really fair assessment. When comparing with my four ‘reference whistles’ (a 20 year old brass Gen a Nickel Gen, A brass ‘Darra’ brand and an Oak) I find though they all have their pro’s and cons. Each has a few notes I like more than others within it’s range. None of the five Ds stand out as a better one overall.
So, am I a convert now.? Well, I like the new whistle, will play it a good bit (it’s the newest toy after all). I enjoy the fine workmanship that has gone into it, it plays nicely in every respect. But will I chuck the cheaper ones in the bottom drawer in favour of this one? Nah, don’t think so, they’ll co-exist for a long time yet.
I expect Brid Donohue (who if you’d ask me my favourite whistleplayers probably would top the list) to drop in tonight, I am sure she’ll want to give it a whirl. I’ll post any comments later.
[PS, please don’t read a negative slant into this, I was looking for nicer/hand made Gen type and that is exactly what I got, I am happy so]
