Since I started with a clarke and a shaw I’ve been really attracted to the breathy, chiffy sound, so right now I’m playing mostly a whistle-shop tweaked clarke. However, I’m interested in trying for a different sound. I got a regular generation and it was scratchy and I hated it, and I’m sure some of that is just my subpar playing, but I’ve been thinking about trying a bluebird or a blackbird from Jerry Freeman.
The whistle itself looks a lot like a blackbird but I’m assuming they weren’t around 20+ years ago. So, does anyone know what sort of whistle that is, or just what kind of whistle around today would have a similar sound? Thanks.
Micho played Generations and during his final years he sometimes played and Oak he had brought back from the US. They would be the whistles that sound like that, forget about the ‘tweaking’ if you think it will somehow magically make you sound like that. It won’t.
The most pure, sweet, birdlike sounding whistle I have is a “Hoover Whitecap” head mounted on a Generation D barrel. The Whitecap replaces the original Generation head. It’s made by Mack Hoover in Colorado. Here’s is website:
Thanks for the info! I’m aware that no whistle will make one sound as good as a top professional player with decades of experience. I was asking only about the tonal qualities of the whistle itself, which seem to differ quite a bit from a shaw or clarke even if you take into account the player’s skill. I assumed it wasn’t a generation because of the fipple color. Maybe it’s an oak, then?
IIRC, the Shaw and the Clarke are both tapered bore whistles, with a more breathy sound than the plastic fipple + even-diametered metal tube style in the video (like Generations, Oaks, Feadogs, etc.)
I’m into the bird-like thing too, and the most bird-like of my whistles is Jerry Freeman’s Blackbird. But be prepared to push a lot less air through it than you would have to with a Shaw or Clarke. I also find Oaks more bird-like then Generations, or Feadogs, plus they don’t want quite so much breath control as a Blackbird. Oaks are my favorite off-the-shelf, untweaked whistle.
Hoover Whitecaps definitely fall into the category of clean, sweet sounds. I have not tried a Blackbird, but the descriptions here make me think these two whistles have much in common.
But remember that some of the more complex sounds (scratchy, if you will) just don’t make it to the audience or even a microphone.
Most whistles that are similar to the old (non-Clarke/non-shaw) standards are what could be considered birdlike, or actually what I consider to be a “whistly” sounding whistle. Generation, Feadog, Freeman Bluebird/Blackbird/Gen, Dixon Trad, Sindt, Killarney, and your various cheapies of the generation sort , are all in that same category of sound, in my opinion, depending on how broad your definition of “bird-like” is. Most of the generation-esque cheapies are most closely in the same vein as what you are asking about. Something like a Clarke, Shaw, session bore burke, etc. isn’t going to give you that. So, you’ve got a lot of options if you like that sort of sound, as it’s really, at least in my opinion, the standard type of whistle sound that there is.
I should add, although you already mentioned it in a way, that until you can play them well it might appear that you and the people you enjoy listening to are playing completely different whistles for quite a long time, even if it’s the same whistle, until you learn to get it to sound the way you like. With practice it will happen, though. You are hearing the player much more than you are hearing the whistle.
I was thinking along those same lines, it’s more in the playing than the whistle. That type of whistle allows you to get that particular sound rather than handing it to you on a plate.
It has at one point also occurred to me that the tweaks for for example the Blackbird are trying to cut out a part of the natural sound-spectrum to make the whistle sound like how a whistle would sound when recorded with a good bit of the equaliser applied rather than how the type of whistle it tries to be sounds like. I never quite developed the thought though. There is the initial sense of them being nice a clean where after a while you start pining for things that aren’t there, that have been killed in the process.
Yeah, I thought the same thing a few weeks ago when I was a bit obsessed with my Bb generation, and I decided I’d try a tweaked Bb generation, only to find that it was missing something and I actually found my regular factory generation to be much better. The tweaked one was nice and clean in tone in the high upper octave but seemed like it had the soul sucked out of it. In some cases it can be overdone. Despite being marketed as being like a “Good generation”, it wasn’t near as good as the generation I bought 4 years ago, and was not really even sounding like a generation.
Not the case with all tweaked whistles I’ve played, some of which I actually do find to be preferable to what they are a modification of (Though often an entirely different thing altogether, so it’s comparing apples to oranges).
My Freeman-tweaked Gen Bb is dirtier/breathier in the low register than the stock model I bought simultaneously for comparison, but cleaner at the top of the regular two-octave range and curiously won’t go quite as high into the third. So overall (even allowing for the improved intonation of the Freeman bell note) at best a draw when I might still prefer the regular one, but effectively a moot point to me when I’d never choose either over my Bracker (no, not even for a single tune)!
I quite like my Mellow Dog, mind you, but again just don’t play it when I’ve got alternatives I prefer.
I think these are excellent points made by experienced whistlers, but to flip things around to the very beginning whistler’s POV, it’s clear from the start that it will take time and practice before a beginner will be able to mold and shape their whistle’s tone the way an experienced musician can.
In the meantime, finding a whistle that enables the beginner to make sounds that they like hearing will help to ensure that the beginner keeps on playing, helping them gain the experience necessary to make sounds they enjoy with any old whistle.
On sunday afternoon I was doing a few jobs outside when a pair of noisy ravens passed overhead and made me think about the nature of a ‘bird-like’ whistle.
The same thought process recurred this morning when, like previous mornings, a cuckoo landed in the tree across from my bedroom window and started calling. They have a foghorn like volume.
Anyhow, as the man said, it reminded me of a tune.I am afraid, pre-coffee, maybe it sounds as if I hadn’t completely waken up yet.
Thanks, that greatly improved a low-energy morning, and got me out on the porch and whistling.
Since the weather has gotten (intermittently) so nice this spring, I’ve been playing on our front porch, and in the morning, before my brain fully kicks in, I can trance out into a hypnotically rewarding session of simply practicing ornaments, making up inconveniently jumping approaches to ornamented notes, etc.
It’s pretty random sounding, but still I’m amazed by the number of passing pedestrians who appear to think I’m a bird. The more alert ones involuntarily scan around to locate the source of the sound, but a surprising number don’t seem to distinguish it at all. (Our street ends at a massive pedestrian bridge to a waterfront medical center… so we see lots of people walking for their health! )
Lovely hornpipe.
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