… A couple of months ago, a dbn from 2011. It is a great whistle and I fell in love with it on first sight BUT it is very shaky on C and anything above F in the second octave, is this the whistle or the blower? Do I need to explore alternative fingering?
Can you elaborate on “shakey?” I find that compared to say, a Generation whistle, Burkes require some push to get the top few notes in the second octave.
Well to my ear it goes in and out of tune, as if I was not maintaining a constant pressure - on the c that is, second octave feels like I’m blowing too hard and the notes waver between the first and second octave, which makes and interesting drone effect but plays very false notes
Every Burke I’ve owned has been rock stable.
Could you possibly post a video of your playing somewhere so we can see exactly what you are doing and what the issue is you’re having?
If you’re worrying that you’ve got a bad whistle, don’t. 99% of the time I thought there was something wrong with my whistles, practice cured the problem pretty effectively.
Eskin, I’ll put something together when I’m back home…
Madman, I was thinking it was quite probably me but a little confirmation goes a long way. I’ve been playing a tony dixon tunable d with an aluminium body the past 3 years - it slides into the second octave with no effort at all, which might actually be my problem, either over / underblowing or something to do with how I’m pushing air through it.
is it possible that the whistle is dirty from the previous owner? you don’t necessarily have to be able to see gunk in order for it to be dirty.
This is probably off-the-wall, but I had a Burke a while back who’s head came apart a little. Actually, the window was slightly foreshortened because the inner part got pushed up a little. Since you’ve been playing for a while, I really don’t think it’s you… If you know someone with a similar whistle, compare yours to his/hers to verify the integrity of yours. I’ve played and owned quite a few Burkes and found them all to be easy to play and in tune. If you DO find a problem, send it in to Michael and I’m sure he’d fix it.
Pat
I’m with Pat. I bought my first Burke DBN here on C&F and it played like you describe yours does. Having owned other Burkes, I began to look it over in comparison and discovered that the mouthpiece had slipped down the tube a little which pushed the blade too close to the fipple area causing the shifting and weak second octave you describe. It did take a bit of ingenuity (foolishness), which I would not recommend to the faint of heart, using two rubber jawed pipe wrenches to grab the tube and mouthpiece and pull them further apart. It fits so tightly I can’t imagine how it happened in the first place. It must have been dropped on the head I guess.
Though it still plays like it should, in hindsight, I should have sent it to Michael for repair and definitely would do so today. I was younger then and far more foolish 
.
Good luck,
ecohawk
Brave soul . . . but admirable novelty in tool-use !
(was there any WD-40 involved ?)
Nothing that sophisticated. I didn’t want to loosen it much since it’s not supposed to move. Only used brute strength and real dumb luck to ease it along. As I said, young and foolish.
ecohawk
Thanks for your replies, influenza has sapped all my energy so I’ve ignored my own thread.
I live on a little island in Denmark and if there should be someone else who plays the whistle I doubt there are any other Burkes…
The whistle doesn’t appear to have been tampered with, everything is tight and no marks that would suggest any tools having been used on it.
I haven’t got round to cleaning it yet and just inspecting it after the suggestion was made, showed that it needs a good clean.
I just played it this morning and the C didn’t bother me as much as it did a couple of weeks ago - going into the second octave anything above G requires a lot of air and it doesn’t slide into the second octave as easily as my Dixon.
BUT ( a huge but ) the more I play this whistle the more I’m finding how brilliant the differences with my Dixon are. The Burke isn’t a slow air whistle - where as the Dixon is perfect for these.
So I’ve some to the conclusion it isn’t the whistle that is wrong, just my ear, breathing and repertoire that needs to adapt to the Burke.
To sum up I now have two whistles I love for very different reasons and now only lack the talent / practice to do them both justice.
Once again thanks for all the replies and tips.
I still think you should compare your whistle to another Burke in the same key (pictures on Michael’s site are probably good enough). Mine LOOKED perfectly normal with the inner sleeve moved. I was able to eventually move mine with my hands, btw.
Pat