Generations - What's the problem?

Whistle
21

Peter, I would appreciate if you wouldn’t quote comments from years ago as if they represent the current state of the discussion. You would have to go back to a time when I was just beginning to learn about these whistles, a few years ago, to find any reference to a mass produced whistle as “unplayable.” That was a productive exchange back then, but nowadays I avoid asking for your opinion on anything because of your tendency to be very polite and helpful in private, but then post rather harsh, dismissive remarks in public.

Best wishes,
Jerry

22

What’s the problem Jerry, I don’t think there was anything there that was harsh dismissive or un-true. Your prototypes were as scratchy as the untweaked ones and much harder to play as well and as you may remember it totally baffled me. It was one step in your development of altering whistles and there’s no shame in it. But there’s a parallel I think with people who believe some whistles to be unplayable. The prototypes you sent me had all one thing in common, they were in my opinion, as I said here before, first and foremost made fool-proof : they were made to resist overblowing by beginning players with little breath control and as a result all people who I consider good whistleplayers who had a go at the ones I showed them didn’t like them at all at all because they were miles away from their originals and had some of the qualities these players would look for in their whistles removed from them in the process.

As I pointed out after receiving your first prototype I think tweaking should be about addressing the faults in the sound of the whistle, the rasps, the scratchiness, overly loud octave notes. At the time that was not your first concern.

Now, you have your market and a big and appreciative one at that, be happy with that but don’t ask me to stop giving an opinion or speaking of the experience of trying out your whistles. Fair play to you for what you do but accept you’re never going to please everybody especially when your aiming for a particular group of learners as you are.

23

The problem is …

I sent you prototypes, in private, a few years ago, for your evaluation and feedback.

They were prototypes, for the PURPOSE of making adjustments and improvements. To my knowledge, none of the prototypes you tried, and which you continue to criticize, was set up with a tweaking scheme that is used in any whistle I now offer for sale. Your feedback was helpful, as was the feedback of many other people, and I appreciated it.

I would also point out that a whistle identical to one of the prototypes you rejected as “too scratchy” became a favorite whistle of Stephen Jones, not a beginning whistler by any means, who has played it frequently in public performances. He lost the one I sent him and asked me if I could reproduce it, which I did. That whistle was a prototype, too, and I don’t produce a whistle for sale that follows that tweaking scheme, either, as it doesn’t suit the preferences of most of the people I’ve encountered.

Best wishes,
Jerry

24

Of course not all Generations are cheap.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=009&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=190066054218&rd=1&rd=1

25

hehe I was actually keeping an eye on that one but it’s already getting out of range.

26

For the record …

This is nonsense.

Best wishes,
Jerry

27

I don’t buy it.

What is it with you and the number 5? Every time someone has something nice to say about a non-generation it’s like “I’ve heard 5 recently that sucked” :laughing:

28

It turns out it was four out of the five I tried this is the thread that discussed it at the time.

Just an illustration scratchiness is found across a range of whisltes. The post ended, omn a positive note :

The Dixon Trad I bought isn’t scratchy by the way

but that was easily overlooked wasn’t it?

29

The suggestion, made before, that the lesser quality ones get shipped to the US? Laugh.

This isn’t a fair quotation, as a reading of my original post will show
(note the sentence was a conditional (you omit the antecedent),
and was immediately followed by disclaimer saying–this may well
not be it). I very much doubt that lesser quality ones get shipped here.

As to the idea that we ought to start posting clips to show
that we 'have credible, real skills, hey, it’s OK to like Gens, Peter, but
insulting our competence is taking things a bit far.

As mentioned in my post, I’ve been playing Gens for 30 years,
I’ve been playing seriously for 8, eg. lessons, two hours
practice a day, gens appear to be getting worse as I
improve. They were quite good when I just tootled.
Also the difficulty is local to Gens.

You might start reading fairly what people are saying
and responding to the real force of their argument, not seizing
on snippets out of context.

30

Jim the suggestion has been made several times in the past and you said:

If most Generations available
where you are are pretty darn good, then maybe different
ones are sent here

In the last tweaking thread is was suggested, by Lyrick I think, that there is some sense in listening to people on the board play before you value their comments. It’s an interesting point as I have heard several prominent posters who regard their own opinion very highly who can’t actually play their way out of a paper bag. So I think it’s a valid to wonder on what these opinions are actually based as I see hundreds of lovely players playing cheap whistles all the time, without any hassle.

31

Kindly respond to this peter, fairly, if you will.
Go for the strongest arguments, please.

Note that you shifted in your last post to people happily
and well playing cheap whistles. Absolutiely,
that wasn’t the issue. Gens were the issue.

Oh, Peter, trust me on this one. I can play my way out
of a paper bag.

32

Jim, you say playable Generations are hard to find. The received wisdom on the forums is that only the imaginary sought after great generations are good and even the only ones playable. For years I have been saying this is nonsense. Of Generations and cheap whistles in general. Most of them are perfectly fine in the right hands. I see hundreds of beginners and advanced players playing them without any problem. In other words I don’t see a major problem with the vast majority of cheap whistles (Generation, Oak and Feadog anyway). In support of the argument I have on previous thread about Feadogs played an air to show my point of view. In this thread I linked to a number of tunes played on untweaked Generations, one C and two Ds. I volunteered that if need be I’d be happy to record one or more clips to support my point. Considering my own experience and the number of (new) cheap whistles played locally without a problem I wonder where the ongoing problem forummembers seem to have originate. You’ve heard the clips as examples of these whistles working well. Based on these I don’t think the whistles are the problem, it seems fair to wonder about he players who don’t seem to get on with them.

33

Again, I agree about cheap whistles in general, e.g. the Oak.
Not about Gens. Look Peter I can play any Oak is find,
any Clare I find, gladly. The problem is local to the Gens.
Last summer I bought four D gens, one was playable.
the rest squawked and rasped horribly.

The summer before I did the same thing. Same result.
But only with Gens.

I don’t think it’s a myth that some Gens are good; I occasionally
find one, but it certainly seems on the face of things that
there is a quality control issue.

I’m open to other explanations but, after all, what am I to make
of this? It’s been going on for years. Also it didnt’ used
to be this way. Gens were once consistently good and playable.
They have descended in quality, in my hands, anyhow,
as the decades passed. The one other feature that’s changed
is that I can play now a great deal better, having spent
lots of time and energy seriously trying to master whistle,
taking lessons.

From this, and the widespread reports from others who have
the same experience, I conclude that there is a problem,
local to Gens, of inconsistency. It seems that production
has become less consistent. Also possibly the design of the
plastic headpiece has shifted for the worse (speculation).

But why would I consistently get lovely Gens in the early 80s
and now ones I can’t play more often than not? Why would this
happen only with Gens? And why would it happen, only with Gens, as
my abilities have improved?

I don’t know what’s going on on your side of the puddle,
and I dont’ doubt your experience (or your expertise)
and of course I own that there are some good gens
out there (D being the toughest good key to find).

If you aren’t persuaded that’s fine, and I’m certainly
not going to dismiss what you say on the ground that
you don’t know how to play or whatever.

From where I sit it looks like descending quality control, possibly
from a company that has become complacent due to
the fact that it’s sure of its market. When we wrote them,
they answered that there’s no reason to change,
we’re selling lots of whistles as is, they said.

Possibly the people now at
the top of the this outfit no longer care much
about whistles?

34

Well, I think this is a bit disingenious, Peter. You’ve got what, how many decades of experience behind you? I can certainly make some whistles sound good now that I couldn’t play for crap 10 years ago. I have an old soodlum’s in my whistle drawer that I couldn’t play in tune at all that now sounds fine.

If you give an expert a crappy guitar, and he’s able to make it sound great, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with the guitar.

In that other thread you allude to, I certainly admitted that your recording was pretty typical of the whistle you were showcasing. The playing was certainly good. I also, delicately, indicated that I thought the tone was awful. It’s a matter of taste.

There’s a difference between tone and playability. These two points often get confused in this particular debate. Tone, as we’ve mentioned, is a matter of opinion. Playability, or the ease in handling the instrument, is subjective also…the more experience one has, the more they’re able to control their instrument. You’ve been playing so long, especially these kinds of instruments, I doubt you hardly even notice the challenges and problems they have any more. Your word about how easy they are to play really doesn’t help the person just starting out.

Heck, there are even squwks and rasps from the Generation on Mary Bergin’s playing in Feadoga Stain 1. Unless, of course, you’d like to suggest the fault was with her inability to play :slight_smile: And if she was squeaking the instrument, I am frightened to think what that whistle might have behaved like in my hands. :laughing:

Now on the other hand, you claim that you see generations working out just fine for beginners over there without any issues. But then you suggest that if someone on C&F can’t make a generation work out, they must be a beginner unable to play? I’m a bit stymied by the logic in that one. If they’re fine for beginners after all, does C&F just attract this certain brand of loser or something? :really:

35

I think there is something to this idea but I frankly don’t think it would be a very good test of the value of opinions. I can’t post clips—haven’t worked out how to record on computer—but if I could I’d be able to record and post clips of me playing blues on a cheap guitar with a monstrously high action and making it sound like a well set-up Fender. Suppose, on the basis of the clips, I then went on to suggest that the cheap 60s Japanese guitar I was playing was fine for beginners. I’d be lying or deluded. People who hadn’t been playing for 40 years wouldn’t have a ghost of a chance of making that guitar sound like that. Should they be learning on something like it? Definitely not. They should find a guitar with a good action that doesn’t require concentrated effort and half a lifetime of accumulated tricks to get an acceptable tone. Not a top shelf instrument mind; just a good one. They should be learning the instrument and not fighting its problems.

I know you’re not lying, and I’m not suggesting or hinting that you are. I also know that ‘difficult’ whistles get less so as one improves. But I can’t see how the principle I just applied to the guitar can’t be true, although to a much smaller degree, of whistles. Unlike guitar, I think you can learn on cheapies—well, you can learn the rudiments on a cheap guitar but you would need to upgrade to improve and the quicker you upgrade the sooner you improve. On saxophone, I’d recommend starting on a good intrument. You can blow an out of tune sax into tune but it ruins your embouchure. Anybody who calls that ‘breath control’ is having a laugh. Of course, no matter what the instrument, someone who doesn’t practice or lacks musicality and talent is never going to sound good no matter what they pay for their instrument.

36

Jim, I can’t answer you really, after discussion like this, especially if they are heated exchanges, I make a point of trying, whenever I walk into a shop that sells whistles (which over here can mean anything from Custy’s to the local newsagent, bookshops or village supermarkets), at least a half dozen of Generations in order to test the point I have made. And I find them all serviceable whistles, I have never found a really unplayable one and as I was just saying to Jerry in PM the untweaked one he sent me was the only one that was certified as unplayable and I didn’t find it so, there was a bit of a scratchiness to the high B but it was far from unplayable.
In other words, there’s still nothing to convince me I am anywhere unusual in my findings or that I am an exceptional whistleplayer. I am not, although I can hammer out the outline of a tune.

37

I have a Gen brass D and F. I agree wholeheartedly about the D’s being rather unplayable. I haven’t rinsed the D yet, but I may. Although I’m not sure it will do too much good. It’s pretty squaky and clogs with spit constantly. The F on the other hand has been perfect. No tweakage needed at all. It’s crisp and clean. Had a similar situation with a Feadog D. Once it was rinsed and tweaked a pinch, it sounds fine. Just picked up a Clarke Meg D for 3 bucks that sounds great. It’s just the luck of the draw I guess. =)

38

Geez, it’s like a bloody tennis match - everyone makes such good points on both sides of the net. In another thread (Down Cheapie Memory Lane, or something like that), I recently got out and played a nice sized collection of cheapies, including a bunch of Gens in various keys. All the whistles, but 2, and including all the Gens played just fine. However, these were all randomly (i.e., no pre-selection) amassed probably during the mid nineties from a variety of sources. Sometime back I also did a quick unscientific testing by recording a bunch of Bflats on the same tune and noted that the Gen was so close to the others so as to make it a “best buy.” That said, I also noted that the only difference I could detect was a slightly richer tone in the more expensive whistles, all played by the same crappy player. So, perhaps the difference is in the period that the whistles were purchased as stated by Jim; but both Walden and Wanderer make good points as well.

Heck, sort of reminds me of one of those old Farmer Brown cartoons (boy, am I old) where there’s a big fight and all you can see coming out of the round dust cloud are various feet and fists and an occasional head. I guess everybody’s “right.”

Philo

39

I haven’t had occasion to buy Generations from shops in some time and I guess it’s been some years since I’ve written about this issue. I’m a bit of an agnostic about it, honestly. I’m more than open to the possibility that the Generation Quality Control Problem is largely folklore and the possibility that it is largely true. Or, I might stick my neck out and say that it might a bit of both.

The problem is–nobody has done (or is going to do) the kind of big double-blind study that would be required to address this issue.

Simpler research: We put together a couple of dozen brand new Generations, meet Peter Laban in a public place, and throw down the jam. The Laban/Generation Challenge of '07. To be entirely candid, if forced to bet, I’d put my money on Peter. But not anymore than I could afford to lose.

I would say, however, that I sat across from Paddy Moloney a few years ago and listened to him endorse the idea that a really good Generation is hard to find and often needs tweaking. Now, that could prompt Chieftains-bashing (I myself don’t buy their records anymore) but, you know, the guy can play the pennywhistle.

40

I wonder if guitarists have the same kind of discussions on their forums?
-Can blues be played on anything but Fenders and heavy-metal on anything but Gibsons? -What about hand-made expensive guitars?
But there’s one thing guitarists can’t do;-stabbing each other to death with their guitars. -We can, with our whistles, if they’re made conical enough.

A happy New Year to all of you on this forum,-regardless of opinions.
:party: