I’ve read a bunch of mixed reviews on whistles like Clarke and Generation that only lead me to believe that they are inconsistent and usually out of tune. I thought I’d get a C whistle to try out since a few tunes I like ask for it. I get it, you get what you pay for but at this point I probably won’t use it too much. Any recommendations?
For about $42 (a little less than 3 times the price of a basic Generation C whistle), you can get a tweaked Jerry Freeman that will play as good as the high-end whistles and you don’t have to worry about inconsistent quality. My two cents…
Pat
The old-school way to do it was to go to a shop that had a fairly fresh box of Generations, and to insist on trying before you buy. Some will insist that health regs don’t allow this, but you could usualy find at least one clerk that cared less.
If you want an inexpensive whistle, I recommend the Oak. I have one in D that cost about $11. It plays in tune and is tunable. Not sure about a C, as I don’t have one.
Von
I’ve been thinking about the Tweaked Freeman whistle but I thought I read somewhere that the tweaked Generations were discontinued. How would you compare a tweaked Gen D compared to say a Dixon Trad?
Any of the more affordable whistles are capable of being a terrific player. All the landmark whistle LPs, like Feodog Stain, etc., were recorded with them. Until the 80s that’s all there was available. The great players of the day got theirs by cherrypicking. In the post internet era, the body of knowledge that came to be known as tweaking began being assembled and shared. Now, folks have figured out what was wrong with the imperfect examples, and what to do to make them equal to the cream of the crop.
There’s not a whole lot of difference between any whistle with a plastic head and a metal tube, and the better they’re tweaked, the fewer the differences. I think that whatever marke Jerry Freeman* is using as his feedstock, at this point, you should trust his 20 years experience over the brand. He has a profile here, and while he rarely posts these days, he’ll likely respond to a PM or email. Ask him about the differences between his current offerings, and I expect you’ll get a forthright response. I suspect, however, that there are no bad options, so choose at random if you must. The most important thing is to get a whistle and start playing it. The time you spend dithering is time you’ll never reclaim.
*I’ve known him as a board member over the years, but I have no interest, financial or otherwise, in him or his business.
Jerry Freeman sells his whistles through his eBay store. A search will pull up his current offerings.
Von
I can’t recall playing a Freeman Generation C, but a Freeman Generation Bb is my go-to Bb whistle.
I preferred it to the Sindt Bb I used to have, and to the Burke Bb I tried.
The only Bb whistles I’ve tried that were better were a couple vintage Generation Bb’s which were owned by good players.
One thing you’ll find about whistles, whether they’re cheap & made in a factory or dear & made by a loving craftsman, is that inconsistency is all part of the game.
Any cheap whistle will need work for it to sing. Jerry Freeman does a good job tweaking Generation type whistles.
Rolled tin whistles, of which Clarke is but one brand among many, also need to be tweaked in order to sing. I don’t know if anyone offers that service or not, but it’s a skill you can learn easily enough on your own.
Beyond that, every whistle, whether it’s a dreaded Cooperman or the most expensive Copeland, requires your time, effort and patience to play well and in tune. Just like any other wind instrument you’d care to toot.
O.K., I sent Jerry a PM. Let’s see if he wants to talk.
I think you’d be better off just buying a Gen. I have a Freeman whistle in C (can’t remember if its a Bluebird or a Blackbird) - it’s ok, nothing special, and in my humble opinion, not worth the extra cost compared against a Generation whistle. (I also have two Dixon whistles in C which are ok. I have nothing against Jerry’s whistles, but please don’t expect them to live up to all of the hype expressed on this forum.)
I’m not sure what this means for most of what I have read on this forum describe Jerry’s quite accurately. The two that I have from him, a Blackbird in C and a brass tenor in G, are exactly as represented. Very nice whistles.
I don’t think the argument is that Jerry’s whistles aren’t nice whistles. He sells whistles to cater for a variety of tastes. And their suitability will depend on individual tastes. They are modified mass produced whistles. Their voicing and/or playing characteristics have been changed from the original. And so far so good. Opinions are divided when it comes to the playability of off the shelf whistles whistles and the effect of tweaking, some would argue cheap whistles can only be used effectively when modified, others would see that differently.
Claims from bringing about world peace down to saving the future of Irish music and all that, that’s hype.
You guys really like to set a high bar, I was just hoping to stop annoying my cats.
That’s probably a good start.
I’m favoring my Dixon Trad. It’s about $30. I like that the tube is slightly larger in diameter which I find easier to hold than the Oak and Blackbird. It’s a good starter whistle.
Von
Since my experience of Jerry’s whistles is similar to Mike’s in finding them OK but nothing special, the ones I have simply can’t compete with my preferred choices (which are not universally more expensive) and don’t get played. As a ‘cheap whistles need tweaking’ sceptic, I look at their cult status here and can’t help wondering how many C&F users get them because they’re told they’re good then tell others they’re good because that’s the done thing. Or how many have actually compared, as I have (admittedly in just one case), tweaked and untweaked models purchased simultaneously for that purpose. So I’d be interested to know how they’d be rated if Jerry had started as he intends to finish by offering whistles designed/built from scratch (instead of modified from mass-market models) with the same playing characteristics, but of course we’ll never know that because we can’t start again now…
So I like my Freeman Mellow Dog D/C but don’t play it because I have other high Ds and Cs I like far more, and prefer my (cheaper) Susato Oriole Bb* to Freeman Gen despite neither being my first choice.
*Not a general endorsement for Susato Orioles when they’re all built on the same bore… I like the Bb and C for their narrower length-to-bore ratios, but never play the comparatively ‘fatter’ D or Eb!
As I’ve said before, I recommend tweaked whistles (whether from Jerry or someone else who know’s what they’re doing) for beginners—because then you know that if there are issues, it’s the player and not the whistle. I’ve heard too many tales of beginners whose whistles were bad to begin with, or had quality control issues, or some other problem, who can’t tell if it’s operator error or bad instrument. It costs a bit more than one ordered via email or taken from the shop shelf, but it may save a whole lot of time and anguish in the early stages.
Once someone has learned to play and listened to and tried other whistles, then she/he should be able to decide whether the tweaked instrument is what they really want.
As for a beginner going into a shop and trying dozens of Generations to find that magic one—
- No shops around here have more than one in any given key (those cardboard stands with one for each key show up around St. Patrick’s day and either disappear soon after or just gather dust for the rest of the year),
- The shopkeeper won’t let you try whistles “due to health codes”. (But, “Try a trumpet, sure.”)
- The beginner doesn’t have any frame of reference to tell whether the whistle is good or not. And probably can’t tell whether he/she is good or not.
So, for those reasons, I recommend tweaked whistles to start with…
Them’s my thoughts.
Best wishes.
Steve
For relatively inexpensive whistles (metal, not polymer or wood), I have a few Dixon Trads and a few Freeman whistles in various keys. I really like them all, except for just the Dixon brass C, which I find takes too much air and is too ‘whispery’ for me to play effectively…but perhaps I will grow into it.
It could be worth looking at a Timothy Potter, $28-ish if I remember correctly. Plays like a tweaked whistle (whatever that means) but without the glued in bits. I believe they’re still available on ebay.
[edit: I see a few available on ebay, as buy it now €24 and an auction starting at €21-ish. Outside the US postage may hurt a bit or can even be prohibitive.]