flageolets

Whistle
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I received yesterday, compliments of Mack’s Fire Sale, a real flageolet. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the difference between a flageolet and a whistle, the flag. has a protrusion that looks kind of like a straw with fins. You blow into this, and there’s a chamber maybe an inch long before the windway, which is wide and extremely thin. From there on down, it looks pretty much like a whistle – this one is conical, with a taper about the same as a Copeland.

The sound is extremely pure, thin, and tinny. It’s used in a lot of African and Caribbean/South American music; you can hear it on some cuts on Graceland, Robert Palmer’s version of “Pressure Drop,” can’t think of too many other places off hand.

I really like this one, except it’s horribly out of tune. (My wife asked if it was tuned to some bizarre scale.) Does anyone know where one might be able to acquire real flageolets, who makes them, etc.?

TIA, Charlie

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Alba whistles make flagolets out of aluminum and composite materials. You can find them at http://www.albawhistles.com

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Are you certain its one of these on Gracelands?If it,s `you can call me Al´it sounds like a penny whistle to me.The generation as you know is marketed as a flagelet.Your flagelet is intriguing,do you mean tinny as in metalic or small? :smile:Peace, Mike

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Ralph Sweet makes lovely flageolets! I think his link is on the high end whistle page.

Saw Ralph this Wednesday at session in Hartford. Nice to see him out and about. He played his flutes rather than a whistle.

I was able to stay for nearly an hour and a half before The Foot started complaining. Seventeen days til the next xray and cast!

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On 2002-04-13 15:00, mike.r wrote:
Are you certain its one of these on Gracelands?If it,s `you can call me Al´it sounds like a penny whistle to me.The generation as you know is marketed as a flagelet.Your flagelet is intriguing,do you mean tinny as in metalic or small? > :smile:> Peace, Mike

Actually I’m not 100% certain it’s a flageolet; you may be right. What I mean by tinny is the sound is kind of thin and metallic; very pure.

Tyghress, Ralph Sweet’s flageolets are actually whistles. I got one of his from Mack, too – very nice, pure, woody sound. I have trouble holding the top half of the upper octave, though. Absolutely beautiful, too, plus, as you say, Ralph is quite a nice guy to deal with. I got one of his walking-stick flutes for my wife for her birthday.

Dzokhar, thanks for the link to Alba. I’d forgotten they make these. It’s a good excuse to get something from them, speaking of beautiful instruments.

Charlie