I haven’t posted here much lately, but I have been playing & practicing with greater regularity recently.
I have about 10 or 12 tunes that I have wrapped my fingers around, and I’m starting to work more on ornamentation, both with exercises and integration into tunes.
This summer, I decided I’d treat myself to a nice whistle, and I’m looking at the Burke D Session and the Burke D Narrow Bore.
Searches here gave some useful intel, but there are so many Burke hits that it’s hard to sort through them all.
I wondered if folks here could speak to the two whistles. I like the more mellow tone of brass, and I’d likely go with a brass Burke.
What are the major differences as far as tone, ease of play, breathing, etc.?
This question seems to come up regularly. I do own and play Burke high D’s in all three materials and both bores. They are all very good whistles. I don’t think of the brass Burkes as mellow. I would describe the composite Burkes as mellow. But compared to many other maker’s whistles I suppose you could describe Burkes as mellow in general. The brass Burkes, IMO, ring a little more than the aluminum or composite Burkes. But that is only apparent to the player themselves. The brass and aluminum Burkes sound very similar from a few feet away. The narrow bore brass Burke high D is one of my favorite whistles. It is a very balanced sounding whistle. It is a very crisp and sweet sounding whistle. It is not a quiet whistle but wouldn’t be described as loud. It can be played at all but the loudest sessions. The air input/pressure curve is very smooth from bottom to top. Playing characteristics are very predictable - no surprises. If you play Gens or Feadog type whistles, the narrow bore Burke will feel familiar and you’ll adapt to it easily.
Burkes are generally free-blowing whistles but neither high D needs a lot of air to make music. Playing characteristics are similar to the narrow bore but just a little more air is used to keep the session bore operating at its peak. The session bore Burke has a nice clean, round sound and while not as smooth as the narrow bore, the top-end notes are easy to get to and not at all strident sounding. The first octave is fuller sounding on the session bore. The session bore brass Burke is a little bit louder than the narrow bore but not hugely so.
If you need a louder whistle, get the session bore. If not, start with the narrow bore. In any case you’ll probably like what you choose. These are just my thoughts and others will likely share theirs.
I own about 50 whistles and of them about 15 are Burke’s. Some of my other whistles have some wonderfully distinctive tone and feel qualities, yet I find that I keep coming back to the Burkes. When I’m running out the door to an appointment and want to grab one whistle to play during the long commute into town (only on red lights!), it’s my high D Burke that usually gets to ride along. Good luck.
My first whistle was a yellow acorn. I lurked around the board for quite some time afraid to introduce myself. I read a lot of other people’s comments about various whistle brands before deciding on a Burke, brass session whistle. The whistle only cost 100$ at the time and the aluminum version was not available. Back then Michael only used one O ring on the tuning slide.
I am very fond of “the Burke” and it is sort of a safety blanket for me. It is pleasing and predictable. I know it sounds like ancient history but the whistle is dated Feb 2001. At the time it was a great choice as I have owned or played all of the best whistles that are available and I am still hanging on to my Burke (and a few others).
I haven’t tried any of the newer renditions of the session whistle but from the pictures I have seen it looks like the tuning slide is a bit over engineered for my taste. I am sure it works flawlessly with 5 O rings in place!
Nice description. I have a brass and a aluminum Session and a brass narrow bore. There is no big difference between the sound of the brass and the aluminum session whistle. But the sound of the narrow bore is different in the upper register. hard to describe, I would say a little harsher. I can hardly sense the difference in air requirement.
Very nice whistles and for me it changes from day to day, which one I like more.
