I just received my order from Erik the Flutemaker, and I got a double whistle he makes, which is two Susatos whistles bound together and the top three holes permanently covered on one, so that you are playing in thirds. He’s decorated the whistles nicely, using bits of darkened & carved bamboo to cover the holes and sort of rustic-looking black twine and bamboo sticks to bind them together in an “A” shape. He’s also angle-cut the mouthpieces and glued them so you can fit the double mouthpiece in your mouth easily.
I’ve only tinkered around for about five minutes–I’m at work–but the sound is REALLY cool. It seems at first you’re a little limited because you only have one hand for each whistle, but you can play the side with no holes covered as a regular whistle and let the other one be a G drone. It really sounds GREAT. The people at my office were all coming by, saying, “What IS that?” And it’s very easy to play. If you are at all interested, I recommend this double flute. I can tell it’s going to be a lot of fun, and certainly worth the $39.
I also got one of his Kiowa Love Flutes, which is a VERY easy to play end-blown NAF-style flute. I was worried that having no mouthpiece but just a tube would make it hard to play, but all you need to do is just blow softly. It’s got a haunting lovely sound and a pentonic scale. The reach is similiar to an Bb/A whistle. I’ve been wanting to start NAF but the cost has been prohibitive–the Kiowa flute was only $35.
I don’t know Erik at all and this isn’t an endorsement or anything, but I just thought others might be interested because I really like both these new instruments. For those with uncurable WHOA, it’s nice to have a whistle with a twist (like the double) to really feel like you are justified in getting YET ANOTHER whistle…
In case you want to check it out, this is Erik’s site:
http://www.eriktheflutemaker.com