Ok, I’ve been listening to a lot of recordings of Burke high d’s recently, and I can’t figure out what the deal is. In some recordings there is basically no “breathiness” in the tone, and in some recordings there is tons of it. It seems to not be very dependent on whether it’s a brass or aluminum or session or narrow bore. So can someone tell me, is a Burke’s tone breathy or not? How much does it change depending on bore size? Is it under the control of the player?
In general, you get more volume, as well as a bit more breathiness and chiff, as you move to a larger bore.
My wide bore brass doesn’t have what I’d call a “breathy” tone but it’s more so than my other Burkes.
That said, it’s actually the last of your questions that’s the most important: is it under the control of the player?
Absolutely. The whistle only has your air for about an inch before it hits the blade. You have it for more than a foot–plenty of time for you to do lots of things with it, using abdomenal muscles, mouth, throat, facial muscles, and lips.
Burkes have a reputation for being very easy to play…but they don’t play their best with the “put in a quarter and it plays itself” approach. To make any whistle sound its best, you need some air control and embouchure technique.
–James
The placement of the microphone during recording will change the perceived breathiness of the whistle. The mic’s frequency response will also have an effect.
The whistle will even sound different to you as a player and as a listener. There’s no substitute for sitting and listening to someone play a whistle.
As for your questions:
Burkes are toward the low end of breathiness in my experience.
I don’t recall bore size on my Burkes (sold all but one) making much of a difference on breathiness - anyone else?
Unless it is a huge contributor to the voice characteristics I don’t really notice breathiness that much, so I never tried to control it - maybe someone else has.
After reading the post, I was going to reply. No need to. Daniel has covered it.
Best.
Byll
I have a burke session D in aluminum (black tipped) and I think that there is almost no breathiness to this whistle. But if the whistle is being overblown then yes there is breathiness to it, but it’s also out of tune and overall just doesn’t sound good. My burke plays pretty effortlessly (spelling?) and with a little bit of breath control can sound absolutely amazing, and I’m one of those people that don’t like breathy whistles (except for a couple 
). Hope this helps some.
Some players could have asked Michael to make them differently.
All of my Burkes (6, 5 brass and 1 aluminum) all fall towards the bottom end of any “breathiness” scale. I do not however have any of the composites; were you perhaps listening to those; although, from what I hear those could be reedier and not breathier.
Philo
Keep in mind, before he changed his design, the earlier Burkes were a lot more Breathy and complex in tone. I have a WBB from 2000. It has a good bit of breathiness. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, I think it’s great for Airs and if I need to, I can make the tone get a lot more pure.
To be honest, I’ve never decided if I like that sound better or the sound of his new whistles.
I have a pre-black tip brass Burke D, and it has a little bit of that chiffy quality to it. I also purchased a black tip aluminum one, to have as one to pass on to a student (who ended up buying it). The brass one has just a mite more chiff, and to my ear, a better sound. It’s capable of a little more range of expression than the newer one.
I assumed that because they were Burkes, they’d sound or feel around the same. From now on I’m checking them before I buy another!
Jennie
To resurrect an old topics…
My new Burke is breathy and somewhat shriller with my usual lack of embouchure. When I purse my lips together or do some other things, the sound becomes very ‘round’ and less shrill. I guess it’s the expected ‘normal’ Burke sound, but the question is, what’s a normal way to do it? Opening the throat, pursing the lips, doing something else with that invisible throat appratus?
there ya go! if yer gonna raise the dead then warn people!!
ah, kinda depends on what sound you want at that moment for that tune, eh!
I would think that even the early Burkes would still have a far more clean/pure tone than an Overton for example. If you want the breathy/complex/musty tone I would think you might want to check out an Overton (or Overton style) rather than a Burke.
Exactly. Or any whistle which has a straight wind way and blade, rather than curved. If the window is relatively long (bigger distance from end of wind way to blade) it may also feel breathier to play.
Another thing is that breathiness/white noise increases if you push the tone (play with more force). Some whistles will be purer when playing with less force, but lets you add tone colour by pushing the tone. So it depends a lot also on how you play, and what notes.