When I won The Great Serpent Whistle Treasure Hunt in December I was given the opportunity to go to the Serpent Whistle Website and choose whatever I wanted for my prize. Well, I got a little greedy. Hey, I know, but even the best of you get WhOA from time to time. Right?! Well, it just so happened that there was a beautiful trio of brass whistles being sold as a Christmas special and I asked if I could choose the special as my prize and was told absolutely whatever I chose from the site was mine. No restrictions at all. Well, what else would a person with WhOA do? So I am now the new owner of a trio of Tunable Brass Serpent Whistles. The set consists of a High D whistle; with additional High C and High Eb whistle bodies. They come in a nice little burgundy pouch with 3 pockets and a leather tie string. Enclosed in the package was also an instructional sheet on how to care for the whistles, a fingering chart for all 3 whistles, and because it was prior to the change over from tape to bees wax for sealing, I received a roll of PTFE tape with mine.
I will first address my qualifications as a reviewer. Well, I have none. Just a couple (2) of years playing music, I know what I like and don’t like and I am an honest person and will tell you exactly what I think of these whistles. I have had these whistles for almost 3 weeks now and have been playing them exclusively.
I wish I had a picture to put up for you but all I can give you is a link to the website where they are. By the way I asked Bill if he would be posting new, better pictures and he said yes, they will be up on the site soon. The whistles pictured are not engraved so you can’t see how pretty they really are. http://www.serpentmusic.com/
I will describe them the best that I can. As stated, the whistles are brass and they look like brass, shiny and bright. The head of the whistle is very smooth and it looks almost like it was molded, but I know it wasn’t because there is very tiny indiscernible seams at the very tip of the mouthpiece. I really had to look to see them. I can only see the fipple plug by looking into the window because the head looks like it is just one solid piece of metal. I questioned Bill about the fipple and he says it is solid brass, held in place with plumber’s lead-free silver-bearing solder. The window blade has a slight curve to it. The entire head of the whistle is smooth and shiny except where the Serpent Logo is hand engraved on the back of the lower part of the head and on the front where there is a Celtic knot hand engraved. These whistles have a very finished look to them. No hammer marks that I can see.
I had the option of having the whistle bodies engraved. YES I took it! All 3! What can I say I love pretty things! On the back of the whistle bodies near the top, each one is hand engraved with the key of the whistle body. On the front, around the holes each whistle is engraved with flowering vines butterflies, dragonflies and other cute little bugs. Each one is unique due to the engraving being done by hand. The holes aren’t perfectly round but are very close to being perfect. They are also straight down the whistle (none of them are offset). I haven’t had any problems with the distance placement of the holes either; they seem pretty much the same distance apart as all my other whistles.
The way the whistle is made, the head collar/sleeve (not sure what the technical name is for this) fits down into the body. When I received my whistles Bill was still sending along the PTFE tape, but that was prior to the bees wax fix and I haven’t gotten any bees wax to try so the only problem I have found with the whistle is messing with the tape when changing from one body to another. The C body is a little more loose-fitting than the D body so I have to add a little tape when I change bodies, but I think once I get some bees wax, that will not be a problem.
Whistle balance and weight? Well, I have a couple of whistles to compare these to and as far as weight goes, they are about the same as my copper whistle maybe just a little heavier. And a lot heavier than my Clarke tin whistles and my PVC whistles. I think the Serpent is balanced very well, I don’t feel like I am losing it when I play the C# or with all the holes open while it is resting on my lower lip.
Playability? Now remember that I am a novice. If you don’t trust my feelings on this or can’t understand what I am saying, I guess you will just have to buy or win your own and make up your own mind, but here is my 2 cents worth.
As far as being in tune or not, I used a Korg tuner and all 3 whistles seem to be in tune with themselves. I don’t play with great speed yet but when I played my fastest tunes, I felt that I got a quick response and when I slurred, I had no problem slurring.
As with any metal whistle, I always warm the whistle up first and I have had very little clogging problems with the Serpent.
I was expecting to have to use a huge amount of breath to play them because of reading the reviews on the prototypes but that isn’t the case. As a matter of fact, they take so little breath that I catch myself over blowing, but I think that the longer I play them, the better my breath control will become and that the problem is not with the whistle but the whistler. Apparently Bill has taken the previous reviews to heart and fixed the breath problem.
The sounds of the Serpent Brass whistles are very nice. These whistles are very quiet, but not too quiet. I have decided to play the Eb at the old folks home in March when I go to entertain them. I will be playing solo so I won’t have other noise blocking it out. I think they have a very nice soothing, smooth tone to them. I hear very little chiff when I play them. I am not a very musically technical person so all I can say is that I think the tone sounds somewhere in the middle of my other whistles. I like the sound and I wouldn’t say it was mellow but I wouldn’t say it was bright either, just kind of in the middle. I’m sure that doesn’t help anybody decide on how they sound but every ear is different and you might hear something very different than what I hear. I just know that it is a very pleasing sound to me. And given the chance to buy them if I hadn’t won them I would have bought them upon hearing them. I am really pleased with them and I think that most other people would feel the same.
I know that I will never make a living at reviewing whistles or writing, but these are my perceptions of my pretty Brass Serpent Whistle Trio. So there you have it. If you have any questions feel free to ask, I will answer them as best as I can. If you want to try them out, just come visit me and you can play to your hearts content.
Kathy
Edited to change title and spelling
~Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often~ and DRINK MILK
[ This Message was edited by: chattiekathy on 2003-01-20 23:09 ]
[ This Message was edited by: chattiekathy on 2003-01-21 15:44 ]
but I think these whistles are wonderful and like you said Paul, They are "Very solid, well made whistles, and an excellent value for the dollar.