Dixon A

Whistle
1

Hi,
I’ve been playing whistle for several years now off and on. In the last four mouths I have been playing more intensely and with that I got a couple of Burke whistles is C and D, and recently a Dixon in A. I love the C and D whistles, but am having issues with the Dixon. Its tone from low G down is fine, but as I go up to A and on up through the next octive, it gets somewhat weak and breathy and the tone seems to contain more and more high frequence harmonics. This give it a shrill quality which suprised me in that the A is a pretty large instrument. I have examined the mouth piece and it is very clean and well made. In fact the whole whistle seem very well made. I know whistle vary a lot in tone, but does anyone else have a Dixon A and have an opinion as to its tone.
Thanks
John

2

I own a Dixon A with aluminium body (I think it’s the one your talking about - the body’s pretty wide considering it’s only a half tone lower than a Bb whistle). I think I know what you mean - it’s pretty tough to get a good high C# using ooo|ooo (it sounds thin, and there’s an additional ringing that’s hard to bear) - I use ooo|xxo instead, which works, though it tends to be a little flat. For high B, xoo|ooo needs a lot of attention, too, and xoo|xxx works a lot better. oxx|ooo for third D doesn’t work at all (it’s much too sharp, almost by a half tone) - you need to get a grip on oxx|xxx. It needs some trying out, but is more stable than the two notes below. I didn’t figure out a reasonable fingering for high C nat yet… (except for halfholing on (x)oo|xxx, but that’s too much for me).

M.

3

Deleted - sorry, made a mistake.

M.

4

Yes, there seem to be some isssues up high also, but I was talking about much lower. Low D up to Low G sound good, but then the low A sound breathy and has quite a bit of high harmonics which give it a shrill sound. And it gets worse the higher I go. Up to B` it is pretty well in tune, but sounds shrill.
John

5

FWIW, I now record a tune then play it back if it sounds strange to me while playing. I just learned a tune (non-ITM) on a Gen Bb with an Enat (G#on a D whistle) that sounded in tune but thin and airy when I half-holed it. On the recording, it sounded fine. Some of our more experienced members can perhaps explain why notes sometimes sound different to the player and audience/recorder.

6

Not that I fit the “more experienced” tag, but isn’t it because the audience has ears in different places to the whistler’s ears?

7

I guess my comment is about the Dixon whistle compared to the higher Burkes and I suspect that is my problem. The two Burkes are very even in sound. They just sing up high and are lovely down low. A tough act to follow.
Its funny though. I am still drawn to the Dixon even though it frustrates me.
John

8

Probably. I was actually hoping for a detailed discussion of the acoustics involved with an attached PowerPoint file explaining the differential equations.