In my church today was a guest who played
something she called an Irish flute.
It looked like a very long and thick wooden recorder and had a very mellow and “woody” sound, and sounded like a flute instead of the recorders i’ve played(cheap plastic yamahas). It also had quite a “full” sounding tone.
I just loved the sound and I would like some help in identifying what kind of insrument it is.
Any help is appreciated
p.s - any websites out there that have sound samples of different kinds of woodwinds so maybe i can sample each of them and see which sounds the most similar?
was this flute side blown like a silver flute or end blown more like a recorder? If it was end blown, it was probably a Low Whistle. Low whistles are the larger version of the more commonly seen tin whistle (or penny whistle).
If it was side blown, it probably was what we call here an Irish flute which is usually a modern made variation of the flute that existed before the silver orchestral (Boehm) flute came around. Slightly confusing isn’t it?
Here are a few sites with pictures and sound clips of flutes or flutes & whistles that may help:
Well, it was played vertically and with a mouthpiece like a recorder.
It might be a low whistle, but the ones i’ve seen on the net are all metal but hers was wooden.
A friend of mine managed to ask her about it and he is gonna send me the website she gave him tomorrow.
There are three makers that I know of who make wooden low whistles: Michael Grinter, Plil Bleazey and Jonathan Swayne. There’s contact info for all three on the main C&F website. Bleazey is the only one with a website that has his whistles on it.
I don’t know which one i should pick. I want to go for a very full bodied kind of sound. Can flutes achieve this kind of sound too? Because i read that low whistles are the same range as irish flutes. Whats the difference of tones between the instruments. Or should i buy a flute and a whistle?
Can anyone give me advice on the different brands?
There’s a whole separate discussion forum on Chiff and Fipple devoted to whistles (including the low variety), so you might want to direct your questions about specific whistles there, as you’ll probably get more replies. Click on the “Chiff and Fipple Forums Forum Index” near the top of this page to see a list of all forums. Also check out the Chiff and Fipple site itself for reviews of various low whistles.
However on the generic question of whether flutes and low whistles have similar qualities, here are a few thoughts:
The low whistle and the “Irish” flute have very different tonal qualities even though they’re the same pitch. If you really love the sound of the low whistle you heard in church, that’s probably the instrument you want.
The low D whistle can be a pretty challenging instrument to play. Some models have very big tone holes that are spaced quite far apart, making it difficult to cover them properly with your fingers. If you have small hands or skinny fingers, you might want to ask around on the Whistle discussion board to see if anyone could recommend a low D that might suit you.
A good low D whistle will be cheaper than a good D flute.
The D whistle is more limited than the flute in terms of the variety of sounds and tones you can get from it. The D whistle is also quieter…its sound can carry a long distance in a quiet place like a church, but it’s a very “round” sound that can get lost when you’re playing with other people or in a noisy room. The flute is more versatile and powerful; it can produce a variety of tones including something that approaches the haunting quality of the low whistle, but the whistle really has a unique sound. I personally prefer the sound of metal low whistles to the wooden or plastic ones I’ve played, but there’s a wide range of opinion on that matter.
If you’re really drawn to the sound of a low whistle, that’s the instrument you want; I don’t think you’ll get the same sound from a flute. If you’re not planning to play with other musicians, you might want to start out with a smaller low whistle; I’d recommend getting one in the key of F, which has a great haunting sound but is smaller and thus easier to play than the big low D.