cane low F whistle

Whistle
1

I wanted a low F whistle after hearing all about everybody’s Copelands and Overtons and Grinters and stuff but I couldn’t even afford a Susato or Dixon, so I ordered a cane whistle for $8 off the internet and got it a couple days ago. This isn’t a review, because I suck at them, but just a lot of thoughts on the whistle.

I understand that these whistles vary quite a lot, being cane, so what applies to mine may not apply to yours. It has low breath requirements, but high pressure, if that makes sense to you. The windway is narrow, but curved, and the blade is very even and sharp, I wouldn’t think that of an $8 cane whistle made in India. The tone is (as always) hard to describe, it’s not remarkably chiffy, the lower octave is more so than the upper octave, the upper octave gets purer as you go up. It smells very good.

It’s in tune with itself but sharp to my tuner. C natural is very slightly sharp OXX OOO but it sounds best half holed, but that doesn’t matter to me, especially on an $8 whistle. And I always use OXX OOO, no matter how it sounds.

The bell note isn’t very strong, but it’s comparable to my Dixon low D. What I find most surprising is that the volume between the first and second octaves, is almost the same. The second “B” is just slightly louder than the bottom “D” (considering they’re not really B and D on an F whistle, of course).

It does taper toward the end very slightly, and it’s much more solid than I thought it would be. I had suspected it’d fall apart as soon as I got it out of the box, and the bamboo would be easy to break but -it’s not-. No more fragile than a brass whistle, in my opinion. The holes have been burned in and are different sizes and placed well. Fingerstretch isn’t an issue. It has pretty magenta string wrapped around at 3 places, which can be removed, but I like it. It also has a “FF” symbol stamped onto the front and a little ‘Made In India’ sticker, which I’m also keeping on there. There were some tiny pieces of leftover cane around the holes where they’d been burned, but I cleaned that away easily.

Was it worth $8 and $3 dollars and some odd cents to ship it? I think so.

2

Thanks for posting your impressions. I’ve been thinking of picking up one of those.

I bought a $1 C cane whistle in Chinatown last week after hearing Michael Eskin’s sample (http://www.granitehillsdesign.com/michael/flute/flute_comparison.html). Like your whistle, it takes little air but has high back pressure, mine especially in the second octave. It’s very, very chiffy which I like, but the back pressure makes it hard to play. Tuning isn’t great but I’m surprised that it was even playable for a $1!

Sounds like the extra $7 are worth it :laughing: :laughing: !

Does your whistle have big holes? The ones on mine are huge for a high whistle.

3

Thanks for the good review. :slight_smile:

Could you tell me exactly where on the net you got it? I’d like to have a look at them.

4

I got it from www.mid-east.com. The only way I was able to find them on there was to do a search for ‘whistle’. I’ve heard some people not like their cane whistle at all, and I wouldn’t doubt there’s a consistency problem. If I’d had enough money I’d gotten a high D, too.

The holes are what I suppose is average size for a low whistle. About on par with my Dixon low D.

I suspect the reason they tend to be overall sharp is that they’re cut to be an intune F, D, C, whatever, but when they put the holes in, it sharpens them. Somebody needs to tell them that.

5

I played many, many of these in India.
they’re made in large quantities, they vary,
and they can be quite beautiful.
I guess they sound better for
Indian than celtic music.
I’ve had a couple of A flutes
I bought in Delhi for over thirty years, and they’re
intact and still playing.

Maybe…maybe ornamentation is a bit
less crisp on these.
There are also metal flutes and whistles
made in India, some of these are at
least playable, but they seem not to
be marketed here. When asked what
they’re made of the reply seems to
be ‘white metal.’

There’s lots of music on the streets
in India, lots of chanting with drums
and harmonium, and I had a ‘white metal’
G whistle which I could play OK, and spent
many hours playing with people with whom
I had no language in common but music.