Hi---- a newbie here. I’m thinking that Santa will be coming soon… 
I have 2 children, ages 7 & 9 and am considering getting them each a whistle for Christmas.
Though my primary interest is flute, I currently have a Susato G, which is too big for them. I also have a couple of Walton Soprano D’s which would fit their fingers, but the drawbacks to them are the less definitive sound and the small diameter of the body which makes it harder to hold.
Considerations for a child’s playing would be a larger diameter body to get a better grip on, and relative durability. (these requirements sound an awful lot like a r******r but I don’t think I want to go there 
)
I was considering perhaps a Susato Soprano C and D. Even if they don’t take to the whistles, then I could use them. (I know, that’s selfish of me 
but one has to make the budget all-purpose). The Susato is about the most expensive that I would want to pay for right now.
Thanks in advance for recommendations and tips 
Sweetone. Good intonation, cheap, colorful. I usually buy mine in kids’ toy stores.
I second the Sweetone, or the cheaper version, the Meg, but they only come in black and silver.
Sweetones are great. They come in neat colors, they actually play pretty well and they are cheap so they can be replaced when they have been squooshed under a car tire.
Mike
Sweetone, if you feel like a big spender you could get Jerry tweaked Sweetones.
Yup, hands down, Sweetone. NOT Meg!
I took all my megs and sweetones and put them in a round tin and blindfolded myself, shook the tin and tried each one in turn.
I could tell very little difference between whistles, but when I picked out what I thought sounded the best, it was the meg.
As in everything, YMMV.
I don’t know what YMMV is, but I speak only from my my own experience. I ordered 4 dozen whistles from Clarke (36 Megs and 12 Sweetones) to give away. Every Sweetone was fine. EVERY Meg was raspy.
Without getting too far into Megs-vs-Sweetones (I only have one Meg, a C that’s noticably out of tune withself) it seems from what I’m hearing that the Megs tend to vary more than the Sweetones.
Given minimal cost difference (a dollar, more or less) between them, and the multitude of colors available (so the kids can identify theirs at a glance) just go with the Sweetones.
My 10 year old daughter started out with a Feadog and didn’t much like it - almost never played it. Then she annexed one of my Sweetones - still not an obsessed whistler, but she does play fairly often (and occasionally tries a duet with me). I like Feadogs, but they require much more precise breath control to avoid unwanted squawks and chirps - Sweetones are incredibly forgiving by comparison.
If I was restricted to one, and only one, cheap D whistle I’d be torn between one of my Sweetones, my well-tweeked Gen Nickel D, or my Oak - but the Sweetone’s the only one I’d hand to a beginner.
Your Mileage May Vary
I don’t understand “raspy”. I consider both Sweetones and Megs as too “sweet” or “pure sine wave” for my taste. They don’t have that “tinwhistle” sound to me.
Give me the Clarke original, anyday.
I gave away my blue sweetone. I kept my meg. I think the meg was a better instrument. Maybe I just had a bad sweetone or an exceptional meg. shrugs
It’s up to you. I think the kids would like the colored ones better though. They probably aren’t as picky about the tone itself.
I’ve never played a Meg, but I do have a Sweetone C in my truck for playing at traffic lights.
It has another great characteristic for kids. It’s not too loud. Also a good characteristic in my little truck.
My impression is, Megs and Sweetone are the same whistle, made on two different continents. Sweetones do vary somewhat (I’ve tweaked over 300), but they’re still the most consistently good right out of the box cheap whistle I know of.
My impression is, a good Meg’s the same as a good Sweetone, but Megs vary a lot more than Sweetones. So there’s no contradiction if someone has a Meg that’s better than their Sweetones. It’s just a roll of the dice, but the Sweetones give you better odds than the Megs.
Best wishes,
Jerry
P.S. For kids, unless you’ve got a child who’s already well along as a musician or you expect to play the whistle a lot yourself, there’s no point in paying extra for a tweaked one. I’ve also noticed variations every few months in the batches of Sweetones I get. None I would call “bad” Sweetones, but some batches seem to sound a little better than others. Some I got recently were among the best I’ve encountered so far.
My six year old son loves his Sweetone. My 12 yo daughter plays one too. The nine year old plays whatever she picks up from their whistle jug - brass Feadog mostly. The 14yo is more into clarinet right now.
Sweetone gets my vote too - we have four in the house and they are all a little different.
Trisha
My tall 7 year old’s fingers fit perfectly on a Generation F.
For what it’s worth…
Robin
Personally, I would go with a Dixon. When I first started playing (two months ago.. how times flies) I had a Sweetone, a Clarke original, and a (pretty bad) Generation. For some reason they all sounded sort of bad to me, mostly because I couldn’t play at all (though I know I hate the Generation even now. Or at least its upper register). This was really frustrating, because in addition to not being able to get notes right even when they were fingered right they still sounded bad.
Luckily I decided to stick with it, decided it was probably the whistles (it’s always they’re fault) and ordered a Dixon. The thing is really beautiful, it just always sounds good. When I first played it I distinctly remember thinking “Wow, this is really a nice whistle!” Having played it for a while and learned the basic technique I’m starting to get a little annoyed that I can’t make it do anything really interesting, but that’s the price that has to be paid. For a kid just starting I’d really recommend one, as from my experience younger people have a harder time getting into things. Dixon’s also look like real instruments, which probably lessens the “forget it and lose it in the couch” possibility (that’s what happened to the Clarke I got when I was about 7. Poor whistle )
Anyways, the plain high D non tunable ones go for something incredibly cheap like $15, and they’re pretty darn durable (they’re PVC whistles). Having one sitting in front of me, I highly recommend them to anyone picking up (or being coerced into picking up) a whistle for the first time.
Edit: Oh yeah, they’re quiet. From all I’ve heard about Susato whistles, they’re pretty loud instruments. For anyone learning, this is a bad thing (especially for anyone near them), for kids it’s probably even more important. Unless you’re a vengeful grandparent. In that case get a Susato =).
-Gabe
If you’re considering as much as a $15 whistle, why not give a Serpent Brass Polly? They’re fun, colorful, kid friendly whistles, but they’re also excellent instruments, from the reviews I’ve seen and listening to the sound clip. Seems to me, they’d make a perfect gift whistle for a child.
http://www.serpentmusic.com/brassypolly.html
Best wishes,
Jerry
Many thanks everyone— there does seem to be general consensus towards the Sweetones, which, given the low cost, we could do more than one key, too. Since it wouldn’t break the bank, it might leave enough left over for Mom to get something from Santa too 
.
For those of you with children that have taken to the whistle, do you pretty much give it to them and let them explore it on their own for a while, or do some informal lessons? Any parental/teacher approaches you’ve found by experience that kids respond with enthusiasm to?
For many reasons, I’d rather tape a wooden recorder extra holes, than give my son a plastic/tin whistle. I believe in something magic in the contact of wood, esp. for children.
There’s a source for cheap, cute wood whistles: they don’t play that bad (a member of this board just yesterday commented how pleasantly surprised he was with his Adler-Heinrich), and they look cute at http://www.adler-heinrich.de/index_eng.html :
Best alternative: consider a 5-hole* pentatonic NA flute in a high key like B or C. They can’t go wrong with harmony (even if both kids start “concerting”), they just can’t reach upper second octave, and never get shrill.
Finally, they just look so nice to kids, esp. with a nice “bird” (totem).
This is my choice for my 7 1/2 years Sasha for Christmas.
- Or 6-hole taped to five.
For instance http://www.highspirits.com/mcart/index.cgi?code=3&cat=12 :
Also, just contact Vaporlock here on this board, ask him what he can do on time for Christmas…
Serpent’s polly whistles are excellent whistles, but I’d start them off on the sweetones, personally. The Pollies require much more specific breath control to play decently. If you don’t mind putting up with a lot of squawking for a week or two until they get the hang of it, go with the polly, otherwise I’d stick with the sweetone.