Has anyone tried one? I have had one of his flutes for a few years and was looking at his site when I noticed he now makes Low Whistles in Blackwood, boxwood and Mopane. Not sure if links are OK here but his site is at http://website.lineone.net/~pgbleazey/WhistlePage.html
Well, I’ve heard bad things about them from someone I trust: Poor quality to be exact.
I have never seen a Bleazey Low whistle, just a high one, and the bore was not centered. It was at the Roundstone bodhran factory store, and they wouldn’t let me play it, but after seeing it, that didn’t seem like any great loss.
Jessie
Loren that worries me, quality of sound or manufacture?
Jessie I have been to the Roundstone bodhran factory store and wasn’t impressed by the place at all. Stayed in Roundstone for a week, lovely village with great backdrop of the twelve bens, Connemara is really beautiful
I noticed that I linked to just one page so here is the homepage Bleazey
I really like wood as a material so I think I will arrange a visit to see one of Bleazeys and give it a go. So far I have bought three of his flutes and never once been disappointed by the way they sound or how they look
If I do buy one I will let the whistle players at the local session rate it and post the response
Thought you might be interested to learn that:
I’ve just (in the last 3 minutes) had an e-mail from Phil Bleazy who tells me that he ‘has a policy of only selling directly to whistle players’ (and not to retailers like me.) I must presume that the whistle Jessie saw at Malachy Kearns’ place was left there by a player or was sold to them before the policy was formed!
Steve
[ This Message was edited by: StevePower on 2001-11-29 17:20 ]
I contacted Roundstone Music and Neil McKay replied on behalf of Malachy Kearns. He said they do not stock Bleazey Whistles and included a list of those they do stock
The list includes this
Wooden Whistle ‘D’ with 6 holes…..£25.00 ($30.00)
no makers name given for these even though the other ‘tin’ whistles on the list include makers names.
I think I will wait until January and go have a look (and play) and make up my own mind
Can’t comment on the Low D, but Phil contacted me a few days ago to say my high D Blackwood is ready to deliver. I’ll post a review once it arrives and I’ve had a chance to get to know it a little.
Phil’s a genuine maker and a good bloke.
I struggled with his low D though. It’s basically a conical flute bore with a scaled-up fipple attached. This means that it takes a lot of mouth to cover the fipple (which has a large windway), and that greatly reduces breath control. The fipple is huge.
You may want to check Jon Swayne’s whistles - I’ve not played them, but reports are positive. Anyone?
I tried a Jon Swayne whistle a couple of years ago and liked it very much. I ordered a few in different keys and he said they’d be ready in a few months. Well…every few months, I write to him and he says he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.
Jessie
Hi Jessie
Don’t know if it’s the same for whistles, but I recently enquired about a set of half-long bagpipes - Jon said the wait would be about 2 1/2 years!
Parkwood
I have lately been given some thought to wooden low whistles (who hasn’t?!), and in my search stumbled across this old thread.
Bleazey low whistles look completely cool: I’ve often been wondering why low whistle makers didn’t base their design on the simple system flute (ie. conical bore), and it seems this is exactly what Bleazey is doing.
Now, nickt writes:
I struggled with his low D though. It’s basically a conical flute bore with a scaled-up fipple attached. This means that it takes a lot of mouth to cover the fipple (which has a large windway), and that greatly reduces breath control. The fipple is huge.
Nick, could you be even more explicit in your description? Basically, do you think the huge mouthpiece on the Bleazey low D is so big it basically makes the whistle unplayable, or is it something that can be overcome? Apart from the fipple issue, how does the whistle sound? Volume, chiffiness, air requirements, tuning…?
Another whistle mentioned is that made by Jonathan Swayne. Does anyone have any photos of 'em? Jessie, did you receive the ones you ordered, or is the waiting list a joke?
Jens
The website provided in the hotlink does not appear to be working.
edit:
Found a site for Phil Bleazey. Those intruments sure look nice!
http://mysite.freeserve.com/bleazey
[ This Message was edited by: Paul Reid on 2002-10-31 09:51 ]
On 2002-10-31 05:10, Jens_Hoppe wrote:
I have lately been given some thought to wooden low whistles (who hasn’t?!), and in my search stumbled across this old thread.Bleazey low whistles look completely cool: I’ve often been wondering why low whistle makers didn’t base their design on the simple system flute (ie. conical bore), and it seems this is exactly what Bleazey is doing.
Now, nickt writes:
I struggled with his low D though. It’s basically a conical flute bore with a scaled-up fipple attached. This means that it takes a lot of mouth to cover the fipple (which has a large windway), and that greatly reduces breath control. The fipple is huge.
Nick, could you be even more explicit in your description? Basically, do you think the huge mouthpiece on the Bleazey low D is so big it basically makes the whistle unplayable, or is it something that can be overcome? Apart from the fipple issue, how does the whistle sound? Volume, chiffiness, air requirements, tuning…?
Another whistle mentioned is that made by Jonathan Swayne. Does anyone have any photos of 'em? Jessie, did you receive the ones you ordered, or is the waiting list a joke?
Jens
Well, here’s an old thread given new life!
Hej Jens. Basically, nothing wrong with the conical bore, but PB has simply added a fipple head in place of the flute transverse head. On top of that, he’s scaled up the fipple shape of his high D to low D size - and it doesn’t work. The fipple is HUGE, you have to open up your mouth a lot to get your lips around the thing, with the result that you run out of breath halfway through a phrase.
On top of that, I really struggled to get clean notes, and it weighs a ton - it’s really really heavy; my arms were aching after just one or two tunes.
I was however impressed with a boxwood low G he had and came within a whisker of paying the £150 asking price for it. I played six of his high Ds (in various woods) and liked only one regarding tone, volume, accuracy. However, the high Ds are cheap comparatively.
It’s well known I’m a Rose fan, but taking my Rose hat off for a few secs, there is really NO comparison: if the Rose was 10x the price, I’d still favour it. Regarding low Ds (wood), I’ve now gone for Grinter and it is much better; but when Fred Rose makes his first low D even the Grinter will be up for sale!
Nick, I’ve been very curious about the sound of a Grinter low D. Would you mind posting an mpg of yours??? If you send it to me, I’ll put it on the Clips site and everyone can hear it. Also, do you have any remarks regarding the sound and playability?
Thanks,
Tony
Tin](http://tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/newspage.htm%22%3ETin) Whistle Tunes formerly Clips&Snips
Don’t believe everything you think.
[ This Message was edited by: TonyHiggins on 2002-10-31 14:51 ]
On 2002-10-31 14:50, TonyHiggins wrote:
Nick, I’ve been very curious about the sound of a Grinter low D. Would you mind posting an mpg of yours??? If you send it to me, I’ll put it on the Clips site and everyone can hear it. Also, do you have any remarks regarding the sound and playability?
Thanks,
Tony
Tin](http://tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/newspage.htm%22%3ETin) > Whistle Tunes formerly Clips&Snips
Don’t believe everything you think.[ This Message was edited by: TonyHiggins on 2002-10-31 14:51 ]
Tony, quite simply, the Grinter low D is the best sounding low D I’ve yet heard in any material (never played a Copeland which also gets rave reviews). It’s aesthetically stunning, superbly made and tonally magnificent (and I also own an especially good BO Overton low D).
Regarding the MP3 soundbite, I’m quite happy to oblige but I’ll need some guidance on how to do it - if you want to mail me offsite to explain how that’s fine.
Nick,
Thanks for your comments. Sounds like that fipple is something you don’t want to choke on. 
After I wrote the post above, I noticed that Dale actually had a Bleazey low D review in one of the newsletters (silly me for not having checked those). He mentions the same things you do; the (heavy) weight of the whistle and the huge fipple. However, his conclusion is somewhat more positive, since he doesn’t seem to find the fipple unplayably large.
Thanks Jens. I should’ve added that the one I played was early in 2001 and one of two prototypes, and I kindly and truthfully offered my comments to Phil. He may have taken them up and revised the design, so it’s very much worth bearing that in mind.
Just re-visited Phil’s website. The low D definitely looks slimmer than the one I played last year, so I’ll withdraw my previous comments; I’d like to try it again to check any improvements.
On 2002-11-04 10:39, nickt wrote:
Just re-visited Phil’s website. The low D definitely looks slimmer than the one I played last year, so I’ll withdraw my previous comments; I’d like to try it again to check any improvements.
While on Bleazey’s website, did you take a look at his recorder page ? The two “session recorders” at the bottom of the page look superb–and just like whistles, not your usual german pepper-box.
They’re just slightly and very progressively flared at the end, à la Swayne.
All in all, if you want a chromatic, or “minor” D whistle, you have the choice between a Sweet 3-keyed whistle, looking like a classroom recoder, or Bleazey’s “recorder” which looks like a wooden whistle.
Just say it’s a ten-hole whistle if you’re afraid being lynched by your session pals. 
On 2002-11-05 06:01, Zubivka wrote:
While on Bleazey’s website, did you take a look at his recorder page ? The two “session recorders” at the bottom of the page look superb–and just like whistles, not your usual german pepper-box.
They’re just slightly and very progressively flared at the end, à la Swayne.
That is the usual shape of renaissance/mideval recorders. All this nonsense about ugly recorders should from now be specified to baroque recorders.
Andreas