Helpful! Their labels didn’t make sense to me so I just had to purchase one and see what this meant. Then ask this group… I knew I’d get good feedback and advice. Thanks for these clarifications. Much appreciated.
Are you aware of Jon Swayne wood whistles? https://www.jonswayne.com/whistles
Jon plays with the band Blowzabella https://blowzabella.co.uk/.
Also Chris Abell wood whistles. I seem to remember him saying, years ago, that his whistles were designed to accommodate sax players (like me
). I have a couple and they’re excellent.
Hope this helps.
High D and low D whistles are one octave apart. There isn’t a D “between” the two. Am I misunderstanding something here
Same for me. I am not sure what this will sound like. I’m awaiting delivery and I’ll have to play a bit and check it out. The description was intriguing yet, like you, I figured I must be missing something for this to play between a low D and a high D, as indicated in the info from the company. Made no sense. AI description? Or perhaps someone who didn’t know about these things made the reply to me. I’m quite curious. As other contributors here have said it is likely a wide bore, loud Busker-type whistle and that’s all it is. Can’t wait to find out.
The Mezzo D just arrived. As suspected, this is a wide bore and loud high D.
It’s fine and I’ll keep it. It will be my play-at-home on the deck whistle. Thanks for all the suggestions and advice from the C&F family. You never let me down. Happy weekend to all. LA
I myself would just call it a “wide-bore High D whistle” then.
Seems to me that for most whistle sizes there’s a consensus as to which range of bore sizes works best for each key, arrived at by trial-and-error by many makers over many years. The outliers with unusually wide bores or unusually narrow bores just don’t work as well as the ones in the middle zone of the bell-shaped curve.
It’s because most makers and players want a usable range, for Irish trad, from Bottom D in the low octave to High B in the second octave.
The wider the bore the more difficult the 2nd octave is to sound, and the narrower the bore the weaker the low octave becomes.
The “classic” D whistles have around 11.5mm bore, while the Burke “narrow bore” at 12mm still works well, but the Burke “session” at 12.5mm is about as wide as you can go and still have the thing work right, as far as ease and nimbleness of the high notes in the 2nd octave.
As it happens I currently have on loan a range of Goldie Low D’s, that combined with one of my own gives this range of windway heights
1mm
.97mm
.90mm
.87mm
.85mm
.80mm
The 1mm is a freeblowing whistle with quite easy high notes yet full low notes, very nimble jumping between octaves.
As the windway narrows the 2nd octave becomes gradually stiffer, and High B becomes gradually more difficult to sound. Additionally, for those wanting to do uilleann ornaments, Bottom D becomes less stable when doing an “A” cut as the windway narrows.
I just now went back and forth between the “soft” .97 and the “hard” .80 and while both play well I much prefer the more freeblowing “soft” version.
Personally I’m playing my 1mm “very soft” which is even more freeblowing and easy, which I really like.
I was referring to his high D whistles, not his low Ds. I have a 1mm Goldie high D, and it has some of the highest back pressure of any whistle I’ve ever played (which I personally like).
That’s extremely cool that you got such a fantastic collection on your hands, though! I’m jealous. ![]()