Long before recently finding and playing my first Harper whistle, I was intrigued by what I’d read about Steve Harper and his craftsmanship as a gunsmith and whistle maker. I still have much to learn about the craftsman himself but can testify to the very high quality of his fine whistles.
After posting a review of the first Harper I got my hands on, a Harper Classic nontunable D, I was pleasantly surprised by the interest it generated and I’ve enjoyed hearing from other Harper players. I particularly enjoyed Infernaltootler’s story about meeting Steve at a session and ending up with a D/C set. Sweet.
With names like Overton, Chieftain, Alba, etc, Harper has pretty much always flown under the radar, so the purpose of this post is to hopefully generate response from other Harper owners/players, get their input, and compile an owner/player list. Who knows, the list may be helpful to Steve and his new web site.
So far, here are some owners/players I’m aware of. If you’d like to be added, just post a reply or send a PM. Forum names are fine if you wish to remain anonymous. Please include your country of residence and which Harper(s) you have.
Steve Harper, UK (whatever Harper he wants) Tony Hinnigan, UK (D/C set) Ballyshannon, AL/USA (Classic D; Classic C) Philip, Israel (Engraved nontunable D) Violinmyster, MA/USA (Classic D) breqwas, Russia (Classic D) Infernaltootler (D/C set) Clara Carroll, IL/USA (D/C set) John Waegter (D/C set) Steve Bliven, MA/USA (A/G set) Anders, Sweden (Classic D) Makar, Scotland (Classic D)
Recently I was able to purchase a Harper Classic high D from Hobgoblin UK. It takes sometime getting used to the Harper but it behaves well though a little bit different compared to my Overton high D.
Well, I’m sad to say I can’t call myself an owner yet, but I have played a Harper. What a whistle. (Sigh…) I was at Lark in the Morning in Seattle, browsing through the store, and this gorgeous silver tube caught my eye. I had seen pictures of Harpers here and there, but none of them came close to doing it justice. So, I asked I if I could give it a whirl. The clerk took it out of the case, handed it to me, and, well, lets say it was love at first note. I tried both the D and C body, and both preformed equally well. The whistle was tunable and engraved, and while the engraving was nicely done, I think I would prefer the plain model. Unfortunalty, I didn’t have the money to buy the set, but at least I know about them. (Ironically, I hadn’t brought my whistle with me, so when I found a session in a pub down the street I had to borrow someones Clark.) So, is there a perspective owners list? Three questions. Does anyone know if I could get an unengraved, tunable D/C set, and if so, where would I look? Second, could we have a review of the A/G set? If its anything like the D, I want one. And lastly, ahogrelius said that it plays a little different than an Overton. Could you elaborate?
Well, I’m the one who purchased the A/G set from Buckeye67 from here on the list. Being relatively new to whistles, and particularly to “lower-than-C” whistles, I’m still sorting things out.
What I can say is that the A/G set looks great and sounds great when I get things right. It has considerably greater backpressure than the Mellow Dog and Reyburn D/C whistles I’ve played. The head is made out of a significant chunk of metal and it takes me quite a while to warm it up so that it plays with manageable clogging. The windway on the Harper is somewhat lower (less tall?) than on the Reyburn and Mellow Dog which probably accounts for the backpressure and some of the clogging.
As I mentioned the sound is great—strong and clean—and the intonation is right on.
I suspect that the difficulties I’m having are all on me; lack of technique and experience.
And I’d be embarrassed to post any clip of my playing. Of course, if you’re in the neighborhood and would like to stop by and record…
I’m just learning about Harpers and am certainly no authority but as far as I know, Steve has only made the D/C set in the engraved version. But who knows, he might make a non-engraved version by special request.
I think he told me that he was not going to be making many engraved sets because of all the extra work involved. It just so happened that he had an engraved mouth piece on the shelf when I asked him to make me a whistle. I like the engraving - it makes it look like a magic whistle!
It’s possible he would make an engraved one on request. He can make them louder or quieter on request too. I went with quieter. I didn’t realise how lucky I was. I do now, though.
As John McEnroe would most likely respond… “YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!!!” You passed up an opportunity like that?
Parkwood, as soon as I find out why the edit function has disappeared from my original post and hopefully get it operating again, I’ll add you to the list. Right now I can’t add anyone else.
I just received word from the powers that be that edits are only valid for 72 hrs. So since I can no longer add names to the original post, I’ll simply update as we go with new lists.
Here’s the current list:
Steve Harper, UK (whatever Harper he wants) Tony Hinnigan, UK (D/C set) Ballyshannon, AL/USA (Classic D; Classic C) Philip, Israel (Engraved nontunable D) Violinmyster, MA/USA (Classic D) Breqwas, Russia (Classic D) Infernaltootler (D/C set) Clara Carroll, IL/USA (D/C set) John Waegter (D/C set) Steve Bliven, MA/USA (A/G set) Anders, Sweden (Classic D) Makar, Scotland (Classic D) Parkwood, UK (A/G set) Ian, Scotland (D/C set)
I became a Harper owner by accident when a client of my wooden whistles offered to pay me in kind so to speak and swapped his Engraved, tunable Classic in SopD for a wooden SopD.
I never really got to grips with it as it really needs a dedicated player to extract the full potential of this wonderful piece of craftmanship so when my sister decided to start playing, I gave it to her. The theory being that as a beginner, she and the whistle would grow together. So far the experiment is working!
I found that the very low air requirement of this whistle (and the slight tendency to clog) did not really suit me as I like to drive a whistle hard. But the tone, balance and volume of the Harper was quite sublime.
I’m sorry to say I just got into whistling (sorry I didn’t find it sooner)! A harper was recommended to me, but I can’t find a tunable high D. Does anyone know where I can find one?