I have several A whistles. My two favorites are very different.
I like the brass Copeland A because it is the most well balance whistle I own. It has a good strong bell note with a sweet high end and the breath pressure required to play it is, of course, not completely even from bottom to top but is the closest to that of any that I own regardless of key. Unlike other Copeland’s I have, it seems very breath efficient.
My easy blowing non-tunable Goldie A has tremendous resonance and a powerful bell note. I can actually feel the vibrations and air moving through the instrument on my fingertips as I play. It also has a very nicely reachable 2 plus octaves.
A is currently and easily my favorite key at the moment. YMMV of course.
I wouldn’t call either of these inexpensive, though I’m fuzzy about “affordable”, but the Goldie is certainly “obtainable”.
Richard was indeed kind enough to allow me a go on his re-engineered Gen A. Thank you! A nice whistle. The bell note is a bit scratchy, but otherwise it’s very sweet, much like the Gen Bb it started as. Overall, I’d still opt for my Susato A for versatility.
Yes, with that head on it… a funky 35-year-old Generation Bb head. I can put my Freeman Tweaked Bb head on it and get full round low notes, but the 2nd octave isn’t as sweet.
The best all-around head on it is the Bb head I tweaked with the hacksaw tweak, the head I use on my Generation B. With that head it plays nice and sweet throughout the range.
I don’t have extensive experience with A whistles but of the three I have, Tweaked Freeman, Susato (recent…same bore as a fire hose as near as I can tell) and the Milligan, the Milligan gets played a lot. The harper in our trio is also a flute player and her Alto flute and the Milligan A are incredible together.
My A Milligan is in Diamond wood, and the hole placement is very comfortable. The Freeman has a bit wider reach, but with the Susato I actually have to use my little finger on the 6th hole. But then I have some finger issues even though I have fairly large hands.
High A, really? That’s A above a Generation G? That’s a mighty small whistle.
Actually, I see Alba offer an alto A and bass A (like Ben’s). So I guess yours is the alto, which is indeed relatively high compared to the other.
The A terminology is tricky. Taking the Generation range to define the conventional “high” whistles, there’s no Generation A, so that key falls in the crack between “high” and “low”. I’d normally take unqualified “A whistle” to mean the alto range, with high or low an octave above or below that, respectively.
Yeah, weird huh? A classic case of Piper’s Palsy. My birls were the first to go missing, not that they were ever “solid” and then the ability to reach low notes with the pinkie followed.
Strangely, it’s only the Susato A that I use the little finger on, the Milligan and the Freeman are fine. But I do use the pinkie on the Reyburn low D with offset holes.
So for me, it’s small pipes in D, maybe C if I can find a set to try, and funny fingering on my low whistles, but I’m still playin’ the music(!) and drinkin’ the dark frothy stuff.
A blue anodized Goldie Overton. It has a lovely, complex tone. I get a lot of compliments on it.
I bought it from Doc Jones when I joined my band and I ended up using it more than the D whistle when accompanying songs in D since those tend to get below the bottom note on a D whistle.
