A friend of mine took 2nd in an All-Ireland competition (not on the whistle) and their comments essentially told them to get a “better” instrument. Their instrument actually sounded lovely, I honestly preferred the tone of it to the guy who won, but it was older and featured some unsightly (taped-up) repairs. Ah, well.
So I ordered a Tilbury. I really needed to stop over researching and the only way was to buy something. Besides that I’ve read a lot of good stuff about them and like the sound clips I’ve heard, I emailed Chuck the other day asking if its possible to do head with multiple body combos in the future and he responded really quickly and said yes (I can do a D + Eb), so that was a nice +. Also, its sold from USA so I shouldn’t need to worry about it taking forever to come in, like my shirt I bought last month from the UK (probobly taking extra long thanks to covid…). It checks my “support the less popular maker” box. And it is the all metal style body I’ve always thought is cool from looking at low whistles I couldnt afford when I first started haha.
This ruins my plan of “If I like shearwater I can get others when I get low whistles and save $”, but this gives me an excuse to get the other different ones I wanted in the future 
When it comes in I’ll prob post in this thread with an update on what I think for if anyone is doing search function research and finds this thread and is wondering what the final verdics was. Whenever I was searching I’d always find a thread where the guy buys it but then never says if it was worth it or not haha.
Also @Sedi I fully respect that flute. The end caps are cool and the giant thumb screw adds a lot of character haha.
That’s really unfortunate. I feel sorry for any musician at any age who gets caught in a “please the judges” sort of thing, if it’s not a Gong Show just for fun and drinks. If the judges aren’t wearing funny hats, you’re in the wrong building! When the focus stops being on the music, and shifts into “try to please the Russian Ice Skating Judges with the dour faces”, some kind of general malaise descends like a plague.
Play to raise the sunrise.
Judges should not judge on appearance, but that is human nature - they should turn their backs to the player to make their assessment, & give their opinions, then turn around to address the participant.
I hope your Tilbury performs as you hope. I’ve gone through a fair amount of “mid-range” whistles and found, by maker, some characteristics:
Dixon: well-balanced, in tune, easy-blowing, not much back pressure, good all-rounder
Shearwater: Very sweet, VERY quiet, and required loads of air. Good for recordings but not for live performances
Susato: Bright/edgy tone, perfect tuning, loud
Kerry Optima: Warm airy tone, medium- to medium-high air requirements, wonderful playability and volume, EXCELLENT performance for the price
Killarney: extremely low air requirements, bright bird-like tone, thin sound and low volume better suited to recordings, can easily be overblown
Interestingly it seems the performance on Shearwater varies much more than, say, Susato, which makes sense given it’s a handmade instrument versus one pressed in a mold. Your playing and performance requirements are going to point you towards one maker. And if you find one that does well in all keys, let us know!
-Peter
I have one of the older Tilbury whistles and it’s excellent. Haven’t tried the new design though.
I too hope I like it haha. Over time I’ll understand more what I want and then will prob buy into a specific brand. Until then i need to just try stuff out. I’m hoping I get to be one of the people who say the upgrade was well worth it, but if I’m not than bare minimum I have something that I know isnt the problem. With the $10 whistles as a novice it can be really tricky to know whats wrong when my whistle didn’t even come slightly in tune.
You might well never need another one. The Tilbury I have is really top-notch. He modelled his design after a Pat O’Riordan whistle. They are easy to control, have a lovely sound, the tuning is great, as is the workmanship. He could charge a lot more IMO. They’d still be a good buy at double the price – he strikes me as a modest fellow, who maybe thinks they should be even better before he charges more. I also learned a thing or two from him for my own whistles as he gave me some helpful advice on tuning for example.
The slightly larger bore is more forgiving than your average Generation, Feadóg or similar “trad”-style whistle (plastic head and brass tube), which need some refined breath control to play them without getting scratchy or having some notes “break”.
I think he nowadays only uses brass, mine is from aluminium. But he claims the new design is even better than the old one. I am inclined to believe it and might well get another one.
Ya if I like mine when it comes in, which is very likely, I prob wont be getting another C whistle. At least for a very long time. By getting others I mainly mean other keys. And then from getting those I’d realize what I like the most. And maybe then could get a new C if what I wanted was that much different than the one I already have. But theres way too many cool things for me to buy to need multiple high end whistles of the same key haha.
This will probably be something you already know. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Broderick_(musician)
In 1953 he won the All-Ireland flute competition performing one of his own compositions, and playing a copper-pipe flute that he had made himself.
Yes, unfortunately I couldn’t find anything more about it, like a recording or something. If it ever was recorded at all.
Now that the subject has been answered properly (doubtless not exhaustively) I feel I can make my completely irrelevant comment:
Every time I see this thread title, I somehow manage to see it in some sort of imagined, Germanic language. “Good mid tier” … God with the third?
OK. Carry on.
Maybe “Gott mit dir” – “God be with you” or actually “tier” means animal. So “Gott mit Tier” – “God with animal”. I wonder what animal though.
Well … it whistles … maybe this one?
That whole CCE thing fascinates me.
My impression with Killarneys is that it was important for them not only to play like a Sindt, but also look like a Sindt.
Competition breeds conformity, you’d best look and sound like the others. Look at dancing, if you show up in a costume from a decade ago you can’t win.
I’ve competed in Pipe Bands for 40 years now. At any given time there’s a “look” that the “serious” bands have, and you’d better look like that or the judges won’t think you’re worth a listen. If a top band wins a string of competitions wearing buckets on their heads, next year all the bands would show up that way.
Oh there’s a “sound” that’s in vogue too, it’s more than the looks. Currently it’s having the bagpipes tuned halfway between Bb and B natural, screaming a quartertone sharp. And at the end of your medley you have to have half your pipers play a reel while simultaneously the other half are playing a slow air.
In solo bagpipe competition there was, around 20 years ago, the exact analogy to the Sindt whistle thing.
There was a bagpipe chanter called Naill and at top competitions every single piper played one. A friend of mine had been winning everything in at the penultimate Grade and when he got promoted to the top Grade he came in last every time.
Finally one judge wrote on his scoresheet “get a Naill” and he did. As soon as he got a Naill he was placing in the middle of the pack.
So update, got my Tilbury C in today.
I like it significantly more than my Feadog C in several ways. The tuning is miles better. My feadog came so out of tune i had to un-glue the head and pull it out. Making it not tight enough to not move easily so I had to tape it on lol. And even then its only almost in tune. Every note is either flat or sharp of what its supposed to be, and it doesnt even really sound in tune with itself. Second octave after like 2 notes in it starts just sounding really bad. Idk if I’m just not blowing hard enough but that leads into thing 2. The Tilbury tuning is perfect, in the green on my phone tuner every note both octaves.
Thing 2- The Tilbury uses significantly less air. I find it a tad hard to hit the lowest note well because I overblow it (but ill adjust to that quickly). The main perks is that its significantly easier to hit second octave, and especially high second octave. And its quieter. The feadog I technically could hit high second, but it would be way too loud (i’m inside my room), shrill, and not even sound in tune. Which would make me underblow the higher ones for the sake of my ears making is sound extra extra bad.
So overall is a nice upgrade over the feadog. Generally just everything I play sounds better in general on it. I think my feadog was also an extra bad batch lol.
VS my generation Bb the difference is less mind blowing. My generation is the opposite, I think I got a good batch. I read that you can see the dots on ur generation mouthpiece where it connect to the body, mine has 2, which Is usually a good sign. The tuning on it is good but a few notes are off a bit, and its not tunable which could matter down the road. The generation also still takes a lot more air than the Tilbury. Its also Bb so I’m not sure how it would be in C. Maybe I would have almost liked a C generation as much but the Tilbury still just has more quality. Which matters less than Vs the feadog, but in the future at a more advanced level the quality will matter more.
And like I was saying before its just nice to have something you know is good to learn on, vs worrying that im 100% the problem. Now I know I’m only partially the problem haha.
But overall like others have said more money doesnt always mean WAY better. But the little bit of perfect tuning vs a good cheap one like the generation can still matter and can be worth paying a noticable amount more for.
While I’m posting, regarding tuning slides. Should I have it tuned so that blowing as soft as possible to hit the note well is in tune, or blowing slightly harder, or in the middle? I remember reading that non tunable is better for new users so they cant develop bad tuning habbits. so I want to make sure I actually have it tuned how it should be haha.
Just as it does in English:
But mice and rats and such small deer have been Tom’s food for seven long year.
Deer is the native English word, animal is borrowed from Latin.
The use of deer to mean one particular sort of animal is recent.
(German initial T > English D cf tanze > dance etc.)
And as with many things, Dutch falls right in the middle with “dier.” “Hert” is the animal with antlers, and “hart” used to be used in English for a stag.
Still in use but only if white and the name of a pub or a lane.
I see what you mean. 
But actually, it is still in use, mainly for a male red deer. Common word round here, in The Forest of Dean.