And now here's Mr. Clarke's to go with Mr. Dixon's

Whistle
1

I’ve had my Dixon high D since Tuesday, and I was playing it today just before I took a look outside and found that my Clarke Original high D had arrived (along with the Waltons “Best 101” slow airs book and CDs). I had whipped out my knife and was opening the package before I even got back into the house. Then I fumbled for a minute or so trying to get the bling-blanged thing out of its little box without destroying it or the box.

I bought the Clarke just because I’d seen quite a few people saying how little they liked it, so I wanted a sort of lowest level to compare other whistles to.

So here are the opinions of a complete newbie.

Unfortunately, I kinda like it, even if it does seem to take two to three times as much air as the Dixon. I thought that it was going to be really hard to get a good tone out of it, or to play through both octaves, but it wasn’t really that bad, even right from the beginning.

Getting used to the taste of wood may take a while, though.

Their sounds are very different. The Dixon has a bit more complex sound–especially on the lower notes. At first, when going from the Dixon to the Clarke, the Clarke sounds kind of…plain? But part of that may be due to the need to increase the air flow. When I’ve played the Clarke for a few minutes, I seem to get a better tone out of it.

The Dixon takes much less air, but perhaps it takes a little too little air on the lowest couple of notes. I really have to be careful once I get rolling, because I have a tendency to blow pretty hard, which can lead to a lot of octave jumping.

At first, I thought that the air requirement was going to make the Clarke almost impossible to play, but I’ve adjusted to it pretty well. I like being able to push more on the lowest notes. On the other hand, the top several notes of the second octave were a bit tricky when I first tried some scales. However, I was able to adjust pretty well after working though “She Walked Through the Fair” a few times.

It does seem to be harder to get a strong vibrato on the Clarke, but maybe playing it will be the equivalent of weightlifting for my diaphragm.

The conical shape was strange at first, too, but I guess I can adjust to that, too. Oh well, at least it’s black. (I hope that in the long run that will make up for the taste of wood.)

It’s amazing how different two little black whistles can be. Still, I like both of them. I think I’m going to be able to wail on the Clarke a lot harder, so the Dixon may get more play when the family is around.

I guess the Feadog high D won’t get here till next week, but I’m very interested in seeing how it compares to the other two. Whatever it sounds like, at least its black.

At $6.00, I think I’ll get another Clarke to keep in the car, as soon as I order something else to justify the postage.

2

First of all, where did you get a Clarke original for 6 bucks?
Now then, you can spend all the hundreds of dollar bills you want on high end whistles but the lowly Clarke and Shaw and Gen will still be hard to beat. I happen to love my Clarke (its black too) and my Shaw (thank you Jerry) and I think when you have gone through a year or two of frenzied whistle buying you will still be playing that stupid Clarke. There is no doubt you will have to try out some high end whistles but if you get into the trad part of Irish trad, or the folk part of folk music you will be playing the real thing. That would be the Clarke or the Shaw. IN MY HUMBLE OPINION that is :slight_smile:

Tom

3

A few drops of cinnamon oil will make the wood more appealing in it’s taste until it is “blown in”.

I think the Clarke sounds best when “pushed” just a little, ie, you have to play it with confidence. The bottom octave should nearly break to get it to sound “rich and edgy”.

An easy adjustment I usually do to my Clarke whistles (my favorite, BTW) is to “squoosh” the arch above the wood plug down closer to the wood until you get your air requirement / breathyness tone balanced.

If the octave jumps are too hard or too easy, you can try adjusting the position of the “dimple” in the blade up or down with a thin knife/fingernail file until the jumps please you.

I adjust mine so that when looking down surface of the wood of the plug, it lines up with the center of the metal in the lip at the bottom of the little dimple.

That might make the breath requirememts easier to deal with, especially on the C whistles.

For your vibrato, try patting a finger or more 2 or more holes below your sounding note. Finger vibrato works much better than diaphram vibrato on almost all whistles, IMHO.

4

By the way Darwin my Shaw D is a Jerry tweaked Shaw, not a stock Shaw. To my ear the tweaked Shaw is exactly what an Irish whistle should sound like. Oh and I should have known you got the Clarke at the Whistle Shop. They, by the way, sell Jerrys tweaked Gens and I think Shaws and Sweatones. Pretty soon a mouse wont be allowed into the work shop without formal atire.

Tom