Three different whistle youtubers have stated that their favorite whistles are Low F, and that made me curious. For those with a wide enough range to have an informed opinion on it, what is your favorite key of whistle?
The professional’s answer might be “whatever key I need for the gig.”
All of my whistles from Bass A to High Eb are voiced pretty much the same, respond the same way, are tuned the same way etc so those performance factors wouldn’t be part of it.
If it’s that “stranded on a desert island” thing I suppose I’d want one in the middle somewhere, standing between the gravitas of the lower sizes and the birdlike sweetness of the higher sizes, the Mezzo sizes, like the F you mention.
It’s tough. Would it be my Goldie F? My Alba E-natural? My wonderful Generation-based A?
One of those.
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Bb, hands down.
It’s a sweet spot for the tin whistle, but also a sweet spot for Irish music.
And uilleann pipes in Bb are nothing short of majestic. If having a purring cat on your lap feels calming, someone starting the drones of a Bb set is like being wedged between two purring cheetahs.
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Bb and low D.
Bb is accurate for Breton tunes - it sounds close to the bombard. Low D is OK to emulate the wooden flûte for Irish tunes.
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I’m rather enjoying my Goldie Low-D whistle. It’s more challenging to play, but rewarding.
I’ve recently been looking at the Kerry Optima Mezzo whistles. I They all have a 3/4 inch (19mm) bore from high D down to F, which would make them all different from each other. I’m intrigued by that. I don’t have a “set” of any whistles, just whatever I’ve picked up over the years.
I’m under the impression that there’s something trendy about F whistles right now, which might be the answer to the OP’s question. Just something new that youtubers are latched onto.
EDIT: I have the high D now and the bore is 15.8mm
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I find three pitches of whistle hit the musical sweet spot. A high F or G, or sopranino recorder, are up in a range that has a bird-like quality and are a unique tone. For sure, a mezzo range whistle I can listen to all day, so mezzo G, F or some of the A’s, sit perfectly in the whistle range I can listen to all day. Also, never had one, but a low pitch can explore the deep tones, like low C or A. I had a tenor recorder once, but the holes were an uncomfortable stretch, so I sold it. Will probably never buy such a low whistle, but hey, if the right one, at the right price showed up, I’d spring for it. The top favorite would be the mezzo, and for musical reasons, non-Irish for me, I’d pick a good G whistle.
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For sure comfort and playability are a big part of it for me.
Yes I love my Goldie Low D but my Alba Low E, though only one step higher, is more comfortable for the hands and the lungs. Both my E and my F fit in the hands so nicely.
Yikes!!! A High D with a 19mm bore? Could that even work? Would the 2nd octave even sound? The Burke “session” High D at 12.6mm is already pushing it.
Just to give something to give perspective here are some bore sizes from various respected makers through the range of sizes:
High D: 11.5mm
High C: 13.5mm
Bb: 14.25mm
A: 15mm
G: 15mm
F: 18.25mm
Low D: 22mm
IKR? It looks weird to have such a wide bore with giant holes on short body. FWIW, Jerry Freeman’s Mellow Dog is 13.4mm on my caliper. In the video where Phil announced the Mezzo D (last year) he says it’s difficult to get the top notes and suggests tonguing. He also shows moving the head in and out to make it play in tune at different breath pressures, if I understand that part of the video correctly.
I just watched that video. I love the tone of that wide bore whistle, it makes a high D actually listenable, musical. I’ve heard so many scratchy, tinny ones. The Optima Cobres are another approach that keeps the tone pure and sweet. And the Killarneys and narrow bore Burkes too. The very wide bore for a high D was probably interesting to experiment with and decide on in the shop, because it seems to be the limit of what’s possible before that highest range of the whistle shifts into white noise notes. I’d still prefer that to the thin toy-like tones out of most standard cheap high D whistles. But there ARE on the market some quite nice, inexpensive whistles. All it seems to require is that the manufacturer actually want to experiment to fine tune the various whistle features to make an inexpensive whistle produce a great tone. A pre-tweeked whistle.
I’m not sure which video you are referring to, but I’ve watched several of the videos where Phil demonstrates the mezzo high D whistle with the very wide bore, and on all of them its clear that they play around a lot with dynamically adjusting the compression and volume of the recording. Each time he starts talking after playing the high notes his voice is initially almost inaudible.
Here is an example.
So I infer from that manipulation of the volume that the higher notes are probably extremely loud indeed compared to the low notes, which, in my personal judgement would make it unlistenable and unmusical. I haven’t actually played one, but I have played a lot of different whistles and have yet to find a high D with a bore above 12.5 mm that I like. In fact I could probably lower that to 12 mm.
The problem I have with a lot of high whistles is that the upper end of the second octave is so loud compared to the lower notes that they hurt my ears and are unplayable indoors at home, and this problem tends to get worse as the bore size gets wider. Of course, there are other variables you can play around with too, but bore aspect ratio does have a very big effect. And I do realize that this particular whistle was not intended to be played indoors at home so much as out busking, but I think that just reinforces my point. Maybe it depends on what we mean by listenable and musical.
I’m curious if any of you have actually measured the bore of one of these. In the videos, the bore does look big, but it doesn’t, to my eye at least, quite look to be 19 mm internally. I know that is what they say in all their marketing material, but I’m wondering if its the outside diameter of the tube that is 19 mm rather than the ID. 19 mm would be absolutely huge for a high D.
If the high notes are so recalcitrant that you have to tongue each note out separately it’s not much use for Irish trad IMHO.
Years of measuring various whistles which have passed through my hands has taught me that there’s a pretty narrow range of bore-size-to-sounding length ratios that result in whistles that will be accepted by good Irish trad players as professional-quality instruments.
Thus AFAIK pretty much all of them will use tubing of around 21.5mm to 2.25mm for Low D.
Of course most makers have more sizes whistle than sizes of tubing, so there will be in-between whistle sizes where the maker might offer, for the same size whistle, one with a slightly bigger-than-ideal bore and one with a slightly smaller-than-ideal bore (and what’s “ideal” will vary a bit from player to player).
Just how fine the margins can be was demonstrated when I acquired a set of Sindt whistles, one head and three bodies A, Bb, and B. In spending quite a bit of time switching around it was clear that the tubing size best suited Bb.
In like manner I got two whistles from the same maker, one Bass A, one Low C, both using the same huge 24.5mm tubing. As we know nearly everybody goes the other way using their Low D 22mm tubing for their Low C.
Anyhow the Bass A is a superb player with perfect voicing, the Low C (IMHO) was nearly unplayable.
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Ha! I suspected as much. That clever man.
I won’t knowingly listen to any “whistle demo” on which the audio has been altered.
Actually I feel that YouTube “sound demo” videos are pretty useless as a species.
Which I learned personally when I made a video comparing 3 or 4 Low D’s that sounded quite different to each other in person, but all sounded the same on YouTube.
Despite these realities, newbies will listen to videos and make up their minds as to what various makes of whistle sound like. They’ll even base purchases on videos they hear!
You have to hear an instrument in person to know what it sounds like, and you have to spend considerable time playing it to know how it plays.
It’s why, when I had to give up flute, I went through probably 40 Low D whistles, all bought second-hand. Why? Because a four year old used whistle has the same value as a five year old used whistle, that year being your free trial period.
I went through around 40 Low D’s, now I have one.
I guess taken to the extreme that would exclude anything that wasn’t recorded in an anechoic chamber with a measurement microphone. I like demos that include a well known whistle. So like if you record a demo of XYZ whistle and also a Sweetone using the same setup, then I can mentally compare the recording of the Sweetone with what I know a Sweetone sounds like. Whatever coloring the room, the microphone, and the microphone placement impart will alter both whistles.
Without that I don’t put much stock in the audio because there are just so many variables, even without any intentional alterations.
For me, if I don’t have a lot of time, I will grab a D (Sindt or Impempe) or C (Humphrey) out of the jug. usually the C. If I have a bit more time, it would often be the Sindt Bb or A, but I have to go to my whistle box to get those. I haven’t bought a whistle in a long time, but I would like to get an F, maybe a Goldie. I think it would get played quite a bit. I have a MacNeil low D, so if I went on a spree, after the F it would probably be Eb, E, G in that order.
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Just reflecting a bit on the original question. I tend to think of low whistles and high whistles as two different categories. Of the high whistles, I tend to prefer my Sindt Bb. It has a lovely balance, doesn’t hurt my ears in the upper second octave notes, but is still agile like all the other high whistles.
Of my low whistles, I tend to prefer my Goldie F or Grinter F. They sound and feel like low whistles, but have more comfortable ergonomics than the lower key low whistles.
Reflecting on this made me wonder why I didn’t just split the difference and say that my favorite whistle is a G whistle. But I hardly ever play my G whistle in practice, and i think the reasons is that high and low whistles are two separate categories for me, and it doesn’t really fit into either.
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I bought the Kerry Optima Mezzo high D. It actually has a 15.9mm bore and not 19mm like I previously said (sorry for any confusion) They’re all 15.9mm from D down to middle G. The F is 19 (18.8). Still, that makes the high D big enough that a Generation Bb will easily fit inside it. The top of the 2nd octave is harder to play (takes more breath), but works well up to the 2nd octave B. That B and the 2nd octave C# might not be useful in the context of a fast tune. Or it might need more practice.
But between the large bore and the large finger holes, it is easy to be expressive, and I like the sound, so it might become one of my favorites, especially for slow tunes.
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Thanks for clarifying that! I was hoping someone would actually measure one.
Am I right in assuming that the outside diameter of the tube is 19 mm, and that this is what they are referring to in all their marketing literature/videos when they talk about a 19 mm bore?
Even if this is the case, it is still a bit disappointing, not to mention misleading, for them to refer to the outside diameter as the bore! OD and bore are two very different things.
Yes, the OD of the high D through the low G is 19mm. The OD of the F is 22mm.
There’s nothing on the website that gives any diameters. I guess I heard the 19mm figure on a video. The ID of the tuning slide is 19mm, so I assume the OD of the head is 19mm; maybe it’s just confusion.
I heard it said on a few of the videos that are out there too, but I can’t find an example right now.
There is plenty of this kind of thing on the Internet though, this being from the Kerry Whistles listings for new whistles on Reverb, this time for a mezzo C whistle:
Note the statement: “Made with a 3/4 inch bore aluminium alloy tube and a silver polymer ABS head head”.
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