I recently listened to some recordings of a Scottish session I was playing in. I was playing recorders for the most part. Some other folks were playing whistles (good ones, they must have cost many times what my recorders did).
For a lot of the tracks I can’t tell which sounds are mine and which from the whistle players. I doubt you could either.
Not something I’d do when I’m new here and you present a reasoned response! But I’ve just been reading a discussion (to which Jack contributed) elsewhere with some participants so determined to hammer home their opinion that the recorder is ‘crappy’ for any sort of music that I’d consider them both blinkered and rude…
The way I see it, whistles and recorders are all fipple flutes and there’s a continuum of sound there with some whistles trending towards ‘recorder’ tone (by no means any more narrowly definable than ‘whistle’ tone) and some recorders (believe it or not!) trending the other way. So perhaps the real difference with respect to traditional repertoire lies in how they’re fingered, with the recorder’s cross-fingered chromatic capabilities no substitute for the stack of whistles necessary for comfort in the same range of keys when idiomatic ornamentation like cuts, rolls and slides depends to a large extent on simplicity of fingering. Which makes the whistle my choice over the recorder for most traditional repertoire, but doesn’t stop the recorder being a valid, effective and maybe even better choice for some. And that could be with any sound from the reedier tone of the boxwood Yamaha baroque model I played (along with my Sweetheart flute) on a 1995 album by harpist/singer Fiona Davidson to the metal-headed/rosewood-bodied Hopf treble I’d defy anyone who’s never heard (of) one to identify from sound alone when its tone’s comparable to that of a fine wood flute. On which note, how I wish I’d kept the matching metal descant I sold years ago because the tiny thumb hole left the standard middle C# fingering so flat (a fault partially shared by the equivalent treble F#) I had to use the coarser thumb-only or more cumbersome forked alternatives!
That’s the problem with how people write responses on the Intertubes: I can’t tell if the word “you”, here, is collective or directed at me. Anyway, let me counter-argue: What you have conveniently ignored in your argument is the fact that it was from a field recording of what is of usually dubious fidelity in such cases, and you yourself wrote “a lot of the tracks”, not “all of the tracks”. And the recording could be that bad that no one could tell if they were listening to whistle, recorder, or trained parrot.
But putting that aside, while even you must grudgingly admit that it IS entirely possible that some people do just have that kind of ear, it appears that you cannot believe that it would be possible in the case of any person you’re actually talking to. No, those people must ever be off over there, writing books and giving lectures and teaching the children of privilege, or being mad geniuses shivering in their garrets; never here, but always around the corner.
If you can’t tell the difference by ear between a recorder and a whistle, fine. I’m sure it happens. And you have a bit of my sympathies for it. But please don’t be so rash as to charge the rest of the world of musicians with your own condition so. While we all have much in common, we also have much that makes each of us utterly unique. I’m sure you have abilities that I lack, too.
Just to let you know that I personally don’t care what you doubt. You can post doubts that I’m a darned good driver, but it doesn’t change the reality that, actually, I am totally that. This is not bragging. It’s simply a fact. Take it or leave it, it doesn’t matter to me.
One more thing, Jack:
You really should think hard before posting things like this. Any experienced whistleplayer will now know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have betrayed yourself as not knowing any of the criteria that constitute a good whistle. Above all, cost has never been one of them, or have you never read the posts from the genuinely knowledgable in this forum?
Sometimes I feel like replying, especially to such curmudgeonliness (I don’t care if I made this word up, it’s good) as was displayed above, but then I wait, and usually someone writes it with much better aplomb, wit, and, well… ability, that I’m glad I waited. At that point, I can honestly say, you said exactly what I wanted to say. So thank you Nano.
More succinctly:
Ditto.
That’s the problem with how people write responses on the Intertubes: I can’t tell if the word “you”, here, is collective or directed at me.
Collective, but you in particular.
Anyway, let me counter-argue: What you have conveniently ignored in your argument is the fact that it was from a field recording of what is of usually dubious fidelity in such cases,
Comparable to what you get with a Zoom H2 (the recorder was actually an oldish Olympus, operated by someone who knew what he was doing). Way better than anything you’ll hear on YouTube.
and you yourself wrote “a lot of the tracks”, not “all of the tracks”.
The exceptions were pieces where I or someone else was doing a solo or near-solo that nobody else in the session did. E.g. nobody in that session but me ever starts “Roslin Castle” (which also happens to be a tune where a recorder can do things easily that a whistle has more trouble with).
And the recording could be that bad that no one could tell if they were listening to whistle, recorder, or trained parrot.
I’ve got the recording, you haven’t, and that kind of argumentation is not going to convince anybody.
Some other folks were playing whistles (good ones, they must have cost many times what my recorders did).
You really should think hard before posting things like this.
You might try thinking a bit before coming across like a hostile condescending pillock.
Any experienced whistleplayer[
Like me, you mean? I’ve probably been playing whistles since before you were born and I do know the market, though I’ve swapped or given away all my more expensive ones.
Almost all recorder players also play the whistle. The converse is not true. Think about the implications.
will now know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have betrayed yourself as not knowing any of the criteria that constitute a good whistle.
“Betrayed” - give me strength. What are you on?
Above all, cost has never been one of them, or have you never read the posts from the genuinely knowledgable in this forum?
I know what the major brands cost. If you think Overton/Goldies, Albas, MKs, Howards, Chieftains and Copelands are all a ripoff and you can get much better quality for much less money I’m sure there are people here who are all agog to hear it.
Having just read that reply again, I’m curious enough to ask (nicely) in the same way that you’re quizzing Jack if you’re referring to my assertion (in which case I wasn’t aware of asserting that) or a generic one?
Really, it’s a tone thing. Like flugelhorn or marimba. What you would have is at best a guest, but not family.
Perhaps, and (given that I’ve already stated the whistle to be ‘my choice over the recorder for most traditional repertoire’) I’m actually quite comfortable with that. On which note, why not flugelhorn or marimba if the context seems right? Granted they’re never going to be any more of a ‘universal’ fit than the rauschpfeife Marc Duff played on Capercaillie’s 1984 debut Cascade album but, for a wee splash of potentially effective ‘guest’ colour, why not? And I’d still see the recorder as a more logical guest (visiting relative rather than stranger if you like the ‘family’ analogy?) than any of these…
Anyway, apologies to all concerned if digging up this (not terribly old) thread is rekindling some intra-forum flames of which I’ve been unaware and have no wish to fan when all I wanted to do was contest the notion that recorders just ‘don’t [as in ever?] sound good for irish music’! 
Teehee:
Black pot calling a silver kettle black… This is why I read C&F! Needed a good laugh at the end of the day!
At Peter:
Don’t as in generally. I’ve never heard one that sounded as good as a whistle (tonewise). If someone wanted to post a clip of a recorder playing in good irish style, I’d be happy to be proven wrong. But at any rate, I don’t often like most of the “better” (ie, expensive, and in my opinion, worse) whistles, either. Oh, and there’re no flame wars that I know of. I just see one generally grumpy person posting, really.
If I understand you correctly, in Jack’s case I was speaking in general terms, not having anything to do with your own musings (which I took as that, fodder for thought and discussion). To my mind those interchanges were different things altogether. Does it sound as if I might have properly understood your question?
I’m in total agreement from a performance standpoint. For example, I still want to invest in a toy piano - a good one - just for the purpose some day. And why not? One of the slow tunes in my Scottish project starts with a solo funk-slappy electric bass groove thang. It works great, but no one is ever going to call it “traditional”. And we sure won’t be doing it very often beyond that, if ever again. That would be overkill.
Well - both recorders and whistles vary so enormously in tone, with so many overlaps, that it’s pointless dividing them into two camps, imo. Take a Phil Bleazey session recorder and a Fred Rose whistle and tell me which is more recorder/whistle like just by listening to them.
The only significant differences between the two families are fingering and technique. For technical reasons, whistles are more suited to the Irish music played in a traditional style with piper’s ornaments than recorders - that’s undeniable. But as for tone, they’re both duct flutes with pretty much the same voicing options.
Funnily enough, while some whistle players have quite an animus against recorders, I think recorder players in general find whistles and their music enchanting - they just wouldn’t use them for Vivaldi.
Anything else is ideology.
The only significant differences between the two families are fingering and technique. For technical reasons, whistles are more suited to the Irish music played in a traditional style with piper’s ornaments than recorders - that’s undeniable. But as for tone, they’re both duct flutes with pretty much the same voicing options.
.
If you send your whistle to college it will graduate as a recorder… I love playing both. But I find the recorder a bit too restrained and unemotional for traditional music..
Think of Little Richard singing tuti fruti as a whistle… Then think of Pat Boone singing tuti fruti as a recorder.
I like playing in C because I sing best in C… Most of us folks who play banjo choose C tunings whenever the fiddle player is not around… Bob.
Depends how you play it, really.