A friend of mine has decided to learn the Low D (lord knows why, ghastly instrument) after messing with a few in Hobgoblin she went for the Dixon, her reasons:
It’s cheap so if she doesn’t pursue her playing she’s only £55.00 down rather than £100.00 plus.
It’s light.
The holes are small and close together.
It doesn’t need much ‘puff’
Fair points.
Her intention is to learn on this instrument, then if she gets on okay she intends ‘getting a better one’ (she did this with the High D, starting on a Feadog Pro then after a few years made an effortless shift to an Impempe which she adores)
But is the Dixon (nice as it is) ideal preparation for a more conventional Low D?
The Dixon is tapered, has a pretty narrow diameter, apart from Copeland’s (rare) and Shaw’s (horrible) any ‘better’ Low D she moves to will be cylindrical, with a much larger diameter, be significantly heavier, have much bigger holes, and need a good deal more ‘puff’
So to me (who isn’t really a Low player) when she does move to the ‘better’ Low D she is going to find it a pretty steep learning curve (unlike her High D shift?)
Would she be perhaps better off just going straight to the ‘better’ instrument?
I think I should add I have no issue at all with Dixon whistles, the tapered Low D is a VERY nice instrument (if I was forced to play Low D, this would be the one I’d go for) and I myself own a Trad High C and an alloy body/plastic head Low G, which are both excellent.
No, she’ll do just fine with the Dixon. The Dixon is a rather decent instrument. There’s nothing wrong with it at all. Not as loud as some low D’s but it’s a good value. Could be a long while before she’d need another low D whistle.
Not necessarily.
There are a lot of lightweight whistles out there. Ever play a Burke composite low D? They are scary light. You can forget there is a whistle in your hands at times.
Finger holes do not have to be large on a low D - relative to the bore of course. That may sound counter-intuitive but it is the case.
Air requiremnts are a matter of head design for the most part. Judicious design choices for the windway dimensions can make the big whistles pretty stingy on air - might have to blow harder though to get the high notes - velocity versus volume of air. It’s a matter of efficiency. Low whistles with a miserly windway height, like many Goldies or Overtons, use remarkably little air. And when you think about it a good D flute will require less air than a lot of high D whistles.
Of course. Whistles are more similar to each other than different. The biggest learning steps are common to all whistles. Moving to another whistle (if and when) will be far simpler than the initial learning. (IMHO)
I wish that I had started on the Dixon tapered bore low d. It would have been a better introduction than the whistle I picked randomly. Not that there was anything wrong with the whistle that I picked, just that the Dixon is easier to play.
I still have it, after trying several low ds and settling on Bleazey and Copeland. It is my ‘car’ whistle, and occasionally more. I prefer the others but can still enjoy playing the Dixon.
Just on that specific post I played one of those Dixons and found it needed about the same amount of breath pressure as my medium-blow Goldie low D.
I’d not swap the Goldie for the Dixon (or any other whistle I’ve played for that matter), but the Dixon is a very nice instrument which will make your friend very happy. Coincidentally I’ve just yesterday taken delivery of a Dixon Bb to live in my whistle bag for the odd occasions that we really want to wind up the D/G melodeon players …
Yes these very things are why I think the Dixon all-plastic conical-bore might be ideal for somebody’s “first Low D”.
It’s the most ergonomic whistle I’ve played due to the narrow tube, close-set small holes, and amazingly light weight.
The air requirements are modest, and the tone and volume are decent.
A Susato is going to give you a much bigger sound, but the holes are far-flung and Hole 5 is a huge oval (on the two or three Susato Low D’s I’ve had).
But, a Susato fitted with keys would be right up there with a Dixon for most ergonomic inexpensive Low D.
My gripe with the Dixon all-plastic conical-bore Low D (I’ve owned two) is the extremely flat 2nd octave. To play the octaves in tune you have to blow very hard in the 2nd octave and blow very softly in the low octave. If the octaves were balanced better you could blow the low octave more strongly and get a bigger sound out of the thing.
Susatos have the octaves pretty much in the middle, and you can blow the low octave strongly without being too sharp as to be at a pitch unattainable in the 2nd octave.
About trying out Low D’s, if you buy used ones you can try them for free, because a two-year-and-a-month-old whistle is going to go for the same price as a two-year-old whistle. Buy it used, play if for a month or a year or whatever, and if you don’t like it, sell it for the same price you bought it for. Sometimes you come out a tiny bit behind, sometimes you come out a bit ahead. In the long run it’s even, and you can try as many whistles as you want, and be out only the expense of the ones you keep.
About the “amount of air” whistles require, people use this term to refer to two entirely different aspects of a whistle
the backpressure/resistance
the volume/quantity of air which passes through the whistle, or air-efficiency
So, one person might complain about a whistle taking a lot of air because of its high backpressure, while another person will rejoice in the same whistle because of how little air it takes because so little air is passing through the instrument.
To me, all whistles have negligible backpressure/resistance so #1 above isn’t a consideration for me. What’s very important to me is #2 because the more efficient a whistle is the longer unbroken phrases you can play.
As I recall when I compared the Dixon to several other Low D’s it was more efficient than the Burke or the Reyburn but not as efficient as the MK.
There is also another, alternative, quality tapered bore Low D whistle available: the Sweet Onyx. I’ve been quite satisfied with mine, though I still wouldn’t bring it to anything but a very small session and expect to be heard in the same way I do on my flute. I think it is a great whistle and very good value.
Another reason might be that the Dixon may be less susceptible than some other whistles to the effects of salt air and moisture in the seaside climate of Llandudno.
The Bleazey Low D DrPhill mentioned is also conical bore, they have tiny tone holes as well (smaller than the holes on some high D whistles).
As the owner of a Dixon tapered bore low D, (TB012D, the tunable version), if you are looking for similar weight and blowing characteristics the closest to it in my stable is a Burke if you are looking at higher end low Ds.
People often bring up these Sweet Low Ds, and I really should try them, because my only experiences have been briefly trying a couple different Sweet wooden Low D’s years ago, and both of them were feeble on the lowest notes, low E barely sounding. Obviously Sweet must have corrected this with his more recent whistles.
I’m a Burke fan (I have several). My only knock on Burkes is their efficiency, any Burke taking more quantity of air than most whistles of the given key. (Bigger whistles in general taking more quantity or air than smaller whistles.)
Also Burkes have a fat tube, fatter than most Low D’s, and this combined with the typical cylindrical-bore Low D fingerhole layout means a far less ergonomic whistle than the tapered Dixon.
Here’s a lineup of the usual suspects
Low D’s:
-older Susato, with angled neck
-Dixon conical bore
-older Reyburn with maple head
-newer Reyburn
-Burke
-Kerry Optima
-MK
I started and ended with my Dixon low D. It fulfills my needs. 99.9% of my playing remains in high D.. If you got a low D itch to scratch the Dixon will do… Bob.
It’s been mentioned but I feel like I should emphasize that the Dixon is a lot quieter than other whistles I’ve tried. Whether that’s a bonus, a negative, or irrelevant depends on the player and the setting.
About which Dixon Low D are we talking about here exactly?
I might be interested in one as well, but at the moment I am aware of four possibilities
Dixon Tuneable Low D Tapered Bore Whistle 77,-
Dixon One Piece Low D Tapered Bore Whistle 55,-
Dixon Low D Duo with Alu’ Body 126,-
Dixon Trad Low D 99,-
At the moment I am leaning towards the One Piece (because it’s cheap) or towards the Trad Low D (because I love my Dixon Soprano Trad D) (But the Low Trad is approaching the MK Kelpie price…)
And in my case it is allowed to be a bit quiet, have to take the neighbours into consideration
I was talking about the TB012D. It has the tapered bore. I would usually suggest a tunable model.
I am not familiar with the Trad low D personally. I do not see it listed on the Dixon website any longer. Although I do see it is still listed on the Harp and Dragon website. It has a cylindrical body as I believe does the Aluminum bodied model.
My suggestion would still be to go with the tapered bore body which helps narrow the differences in pitch between the octaves.
