An Impempe whistle was recommended to me. Does anyone know of any reviews of this whistle? And does anyone have any info and/or opinions that can send my way regarding this whistle?
Thanks!
Steve
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I had 4 Impempe whistles, I have 2 left. It’s a different whistle from many other whistles. It’s very solid, with a thick wall and therefore heavy, and it’s nicely finished. It has a flutelike sounds and is played in South Africa a lot; there they play a south african blued called kwela. The Kwela flutes are a sort of tinwhistles. Ian Turnbull, the maker of Impempe, see http://impempewhistles.co.za/, has tried to make a mixture between tinwhistle and Kwela-whistle. He’s a very nice guy who let me try his whistles and if I didn’t like them, I could sent them back.
The whistle is very direct and responsive. It’s also quite loud, comparable to my Burke Session whistle. The sound is very focused, so it can be heared from very far away.
The only thing is, at least the time I got them, which is one and two years ago, all the whistles have the same size bore, from the high Bb to the high F. Consequence is that the high F sounds very loud and the high Bb has half the volume. That’s a shame. The C and Bb have a kind of weak bellnote as well, so you almost need to underblow. But this is my only criticism to the whistle.
I like the whistle, especially for playing outside, because it doesn’t care about wind or rain, it always plays. Inside I prefer my Sindt. But then again, sound is very personal.
Hope it helps you.
That’s interesting. I thought that the classic kwela whistle was just an old Hohner.
It depends on how you look at the differences MtGuru. Ian had a beautiful story about it on his old website, which isn’t there anymore.
Such a tease…