got this in the mail yesterday…
Ooooh! Very pretty! What’s it made of?
–James
delrin and dymondwood.
Is that an O’Brien?
Looks like Mack’s work to me. God bless him and the whistle he made me!
James, I also have an 8 key blackwood flute of the same vintage. The marking on it is of an eagle with 13 stars above it. Since I don’t play flute, I’ll probably sell it. I bought it from an estate sale back East several years ago.
I’m pretty sure the maker has never been mentioned on C&F. I’ll give out more details in the full review, but I just couldn’t resist giving a sneak peek first…expect the full review in a couple of weeks 
It looks like really lovely work.
I look forward to hearing you play it! (I presume a recording will be forthcoming?..!)
–James
yup…recording, pics, full review. You know, just like the old days (grin)
I think I have played one of those whistles before. My friend had one just like that, and told my that the maker was not famous at all. If it is the same maker, then I would recommend it. I think he gave Joanie Madden one of those for her birthday.
hi, wanderer.
great to have our favorite reviewer back
cheers
berti
It’s been two days! Where’s that review?!? 
I spend 2-3 weeks with a whistle. I don’t like to give reviews on first impressions, for the simple fact that first impressions don’t always last. I’ve loved a whistle on the first day, only to find characteristics that I decide I can’t live with after extended playing. Likewise, I’ve disliked a whistle on the first day, only to have it grow on me later.
3 weeks isn’t a whole lot of time to get to know a whistle, but it’s about the best compromise between getting to know one and makers, who might be worried that their whistle has disappeared into the void, with nary a review to be seen.
Though, for what it’s worth, I took it to the pub yesterday, and sat down with a fiddler, a mandolin player, and a guitarist, and we jammed for about two hours. The fiddle player commented that she really liked the whistle about halfway through the jam.
That’s a good sign!
And i was just poking you, not really expecting anything this soon.
Why didn’t she like it during the first half?
When you jam like that for 2 hrs. do you have that many tunes in your head or do you just wing it??? Also, who made your whistle??? Thanks!!!
[quote=“starstutu”]When you jam like that for 2 hrs. do you have that many tunes in your head or do you just wing it???/quote]
2 hours ain’t a lot of tunes. You can get about a dozen sets of 3 tunes into an hour (if you don’t stop, and you don’t play them too many times through). So that’s only 72 tunes in 2 hours. Yer typical Irish session musician would have, I guess, 10 to 15 times that much, with a few more if someone else started them. Oh, except for those evenings when you just can’t remember any tunes at all …
I know..i saw the wink. I just thought it’d be a good opportunity to talk about my policy there, since i haven’t given a review in a while.
We spent as much time talking as jamming, as we were working on a setlist for a performance. We played probably 25-26 sets of tunes, which we all have in our heads. We have a much larger number than that under our belts, though, and can easily accommodate a 4 hour gig of playing without much pause between tunes. The longer you play, the more tunes you end up knowing.
The whistle was made by Gene Milligan, who’s evidently been a luthier for more than 35 years, and has recently gotten into whistle-building. I’ve never heard him mentioned here, so it’s a real treat to be able to bring something truly new to the forum for review.
So … you only played for an hour? And you fitted in 25-26 sets of tunes??? How on earth did you do that? I reckon that a set of three tunes is going to take at least 5 minutes. Three times through a reel, for instance, at 120 bpm (which is bloody fast) is going to take you just over a minute and a half. Put three of them together, and you’re playing that one set for … well, about 5 minutes. And that’s faster than I like to play, to be honest. I just can’t make the sums add up …
Oh, hang on … were you actually there for 4 hours? And you only played for two? I’m confused …
[Bear with me, btw, I’m not being mean - it’s just that I’m being audited at the moment. ]