About your search for “something different”, I’ve tried numerous makes of whistles over the years but always come back to the good old Generation (or Generation-like) sound… my tastes are a product of my time.
Couldn’t agree more (we have to watch that, Richard, agreeing on things).
Perhaps I wasn’t very clear in my previous post, but my underlying thought is that whistles were always rough and ready, cheap and basic instruments that are easily accessible and easily played. Best way to approach them as such and realise they have some limitations but within those limitation they are capable of all sorts of delicate, lovely things. Rather than go off on a quest for the perfect whistle, as some people seem to do, it may be better to accept the whistle for what it is and just play away, mindful of the limitations and making the best of it. Meet the instrument on its own terms rather than impose an aesthetic that may be foreign to it. Every whistle is a set of compromises, if you find one that does one thing exceedingly well, it is likely it will fall short on some other aspect. In other words, the perfect one doesn’t really exist. And in my mind the ‘auld fellas’ played music on simple whistles and they set the mould for me.
FWIW, I am, of my time, strongly rooted in the Generation camp, with Sindt/Killarney, Cillian O’Briain ‘improved’, the odd Feadóg and, most recently, a Potter for variety.
I’m in the practical camp as well. You don’t see people buying dozens of pianos or clarinets as beginners, do you? Yet we see many newer players leave a trail of whistles in their wake. I understand that the inexpensive nature of these lends itself to experimentation, but the occasional cautionary warning is in order.
And in case it hasn’t been mentioned in this particular thread yet, the player is by far the most important part of the music-making equation.
I suppose I’m in the same boat as the last few people who contributed to this discussion. My current goto whistles are either Generations or whistles that are somewhat inspired by that style of whistle (Humphrey and Hoover Whitecap). Like you, for a couple years I was trying to find the “perfect” whistle, and I tried, bought, and/or sold around 10 whistles. Some that people commonly recommended were not the style I had in mind. About the time I bought a used Humphrey, I learned that was the general style I enjoyed, and I didn’t buy a whistle for years after that.
Anyways, I recommend just sticking with a whistle that is generally in the style you enjoy and just shed on the instrument. I don’t know where you are in terms of experience, since people vary quite a bit around 3 years of playing. As I’ve gotten more experience, I’ve found that I’m pretty much satisfied with any whistle I play. The Humphrey is still my favorite, but the Hoover and Generation Bb are close behind.
At the risk of incurring the fire of the Sons of the Auld Fellas, I have a sense that there is a range of Irish music at least somewhat related to Trad. Ranging from the Auld Fellas thru Planxty/Bothy Band thru The Pogues thru The Corrs thru The Dropkick Murphys—etc. Whistles show up in all of these from time to time. In that range there are different whistles for different purposes/styles. PanCeltic and Gumby got their music either directly from the Auld Fellas or “back in the day”. Others come to the music at different times and with differing influences and so may hear things quite differently. So it shouldn’t surprise that people may, quite righteously, hear whistle music in varying ways and consequently hear their “ideal” whistles with varying sounds.
I agree that the imprint of what a whistle ‘should’ sound like comes from what we hear in our, let’s say, formative years. I think I said as much and so did Richard.
In that context I am not disputing anyone’s preferences but I sometimes feel that people come here with unrealistic expectations of what buying yet another a whistle will do for their playing. And my suggestion would be to settle on one or two whistles you’re reasonably happy with and play it/them like there’s no tomorrow until you reach a fair degree of competence rather than waste time on a wild goose chase for The One.
To those of you who say that a good musician is so important that even a typically ‘bad’ whistle will sound good when played by an experienced player, would you say that then there is no such thing as a really bad whistle as long as it’s in tune with itself? Personal preferences on volume and tone aside, are they all pretty much equally good to play? Or are there still noticeably ‘good’ and ‘bad’ whistles, the latter of which shouldn’t really be played?
As long as the whistle can be played in tune though two octaves, all is more or less well. The whistle is a rare occurrence where even a $10 instrument could be used as a “professional” instrument. Like has been discussed, there are a ton of small preferences about how whistles play, and different players will consider different instruments “good” or “bad”. I’ve played whistles ranging from $5 to $350, and while there were differences between them and ones I liked and disliked, I could have taken any of them to a gig. You could say that some whistles are more consistently quality instruments, and there are some makers who always make great instruments, even if some may not prefer them to others.
And I also agree with Mr. Gumby and was trying to express the same, especially since I went through buying a ton of whistles a few years after I started playing and was happy once I just settled with a quality instrument and played the heck out of it.
But isn’t the discussion now a little outside of what the OP asked about? It wasn’t about finding a hypothetical ideal whistle - the OP already owned a real one, that particular Clarke. Which has since suffered mechanical breakdown of some sort, and the OP is merely trying to find a replacement that plays and sounds the same. And that has turned out to be a difficult quest.
(Sorry for only writing OP (original poster) - this mobile device limits my view of the thread)
Thanks for mentioning this. I still want to find the whistle that sounds like my original one, as you pointed out. That being said, I do have a very good whistle to play in the meantime (my Killarney), and this thread is still going down an interesting discussion, so I’m glad for the tangent. Even if it’s not helping me find exactly what I want, it’s helping me appreciate whistles that sound different from my original one.
I am amused by people’s attempts to make a whistle play more like a Recorder or more like a Boehm Flute or indeed anything other than a whistle. These people are nearly always from such backgrounds and can’t seem to help themselves from trying to impose notions from those foreign instruments upon the 'lowly whistle".
To those of you who say that a good musician is so important that even a typically ‘bad’ whistle will sound good when played by an experienced player, would you say that then there is no such thing as a really bad whistle as long as it’s in tune with itself? Personal preferences on volume and tone aside, are they all pretty much equally good to play? Or are there still noticeably ‘good’ and ‘bad’ whistles, the latter of which shouldn’t really be played?
This was sort of a hot topic in the earlier days of this forum, say fifteen years ago. There was an atmosphere here then that vehemently dictated that all cheap mass produced whistles were unplayable and most, if not all, ‘designer made’ expensive whistles were by definition superior. Things have, thankfully, mellowed a bit since and these discussions have lost the vehemence they used to have. In those days I sometimes went out to the shops to buy an off the shelf mass produced whistle and record it to show they were serviceable instruments.
But it is important who ‘drives’ the instrument, undoubtedly. An old example I shouldn’t perhaps go back to is the ‘absolutely unplayable’ one Jerry Freeman sent to me when he just started his business. I suppose it was his way of trying to show me that ‘tweaking’ whistles was a necessity, a premiss I had doubted publicly here. Let’s say, to me it was by far the nicest and playable whistle included in that batch.
There was also a Sweetone C that I declared the most awful whistle I ever came across (there was some hyperbole involved but I did think it was an unpleasant intrument) that I sent to a member of the forum who thought it was lovely and made a recording of it that made it sound OK.
Who drives the whistle has a large influence on the tone and tuning that it will produce. And that in turn will influence the eye of the beholder. What I am saying, rambling at eight in the morning and before coffee, is that there will be the unplayable ones, the real stinkers, and probably more likely the ones that you can play but don’t want to but we may or may not always agree exactly which ones they are.
What about low Ds, Richard? You play them a lot, but they’re hardly ‘lowly’ (no pun!) whistles with the good ones frequently having (even requiring) some of these supra-whistle characteristics you’re not liking in the regular high ones. For example Reyburns, which you’ve described in quick succession as having ‘a unique tone, in my opinion the most interesting tone of any whistle out there’, ‘when I want that magic tone there it is’, ‘more like the offspring of an Overton and a Native American Flute’ and ‘NAF in a fog’.
For sure, I too like ‘traditional’ whistles and think tweaking-as-necessity something of an overrated cult, but was also playing a range of colour from pure Feadog Mk1 and breathy Shaw to more recorder-like Susato twenty years before I had any aluminium high whistles. It’s horses for courses as suggested by Steve Bliven above, with the additional caveat from my perspective that it’s not even all about Irish music. For me also Scottish (obviously!), with some European, American etc., for others perhaps Kwela or other things.
So, while appreciating the traditional high whistle for what it is and understanding why it’s typically still the gold standard for its long-established use in Irish trad, I can’t see further experimentation with high whistles as any more ‘foreign’ than the development of the low whistle. Nobody has to play expensive and/or untraditional whistles, but they’re there for those with the use/desire for them.
Might add that I’m now completely immune to so-called WHOAD. I sold all my Shaws, old Generations (still have Feadog Mk1, Killarney, solid brass and trad Dixons, Bracker narrow-bore etc.), original Bernard Overtons (superseded by my clearer, more reliable Brackers), Chieftains (which just didn’t do it for me) and others I’ve given a briefer go (e.g. Alba and Impempe high Ds). I have a reliable, well-matched set of Brackers from low D to high E augmented by a range of mostly inexpensive alternatives at Bb and above, and just don’t need more. If I ever buy more whistles now it’ll be because I’ve tried something and really liked it, not because I ‘need’ another pig in a poke!
Fair enough, but I will say that I didn’t start out with an NAF tonal ideal in mind and then search for a whistle that sounded like that. I’ve had a number of Low Ds pass through my hands, the Reyburn merely one of many. I spend more time on my Goldie, which has more or less the classic “low whistle tone” established by Overton. Timbre for me is down the list of the things I look for, behind efficiency, response, and tuning.
What comes to mind are Burkes, with a very pure tone, rotating Hole 6 so that it can be offset, and thumb-hole, all (it seems to me) to cater to those coming from Recorder or Boehm flute. For sure people with those backgrounds usually love Burkes.
The Low Whistles that feel more “native” or “traditional” to me are whistles in the classic Overton mould, though of course Low Whistles as a species aren’t “native” or “traditional” in the least. Overtons, after all, are more or less Organ pipes with holes drilled in them.
I’ve never cared for Overton high whistles (or their ilk) or, really, any high whistles that strayed much from the classic Generation path.
But you’ve got a fair collection of smaller (maybe mid-sized), six-holed Burkes, haven’t you?
I’ve never cared for Overton high whistles (or their ilk) or, really, any high whistles that strayed much from the classic Generation path.
I’ve never had, or tried, an Overton or Overton-type (unless you count my former Chieftains) above ‘mezzo’ A. The Bernard Overtons I had were low D, G and A, and there really wasn’t much choice in lower whistles when I got them. I also once had a Howard low D that looked somewhat like a giant Generation with plain brass tube and removable plastic mouthpiece, but its potentially more ‘trad’ qualities were undermined by the awkward combination of being both weedy and sharp in the upper octave.
Interesting - all the Gens I’ve played (briefly, when I’d been playing two months) sounded fine to me. I got lucky with my first whistle and my later acquisitions have been geared towards different porpoises - I wanted a whistle I could hear in a session, I wanted a wooden whistle to see what it was like, I wanted a Bb and a low G, etc. It’s more by accident that my wooden Sweetheart (IrishFluteStore claimed African Blackwood - I’m thinking it might actually be something else) took over as my primary whistle from the Potter I got the first time.
The Clarkes (not sure which ones they are - rolled sheet metal with what felt like a balsa fipple plug) were unplayable without hyperventilating, but I’m sure that was just me.
Then again, I’ve been playing for less than a year and I haven’t managed to play a good short roll yet, so take all this as you want.
I started on the Highland pipes back in the 1970s. I bought all kind of records back then, records that had any kind of Celtic connections. What struck me early on was how an instrument that looked like a toy with a little red mouthpiece could produce such beautiful sounds. Then one day, I stopped playing the pipes for a number of reasons, and started playing the recorder because it had eight holes like the pipes. There was no way I was going from an eight holer to a 6 holer. For years however, I wanted my recorders to sound like the whistle, until I put the recorder down and bought my first whistle. I too, went through the whistle buying manic phase until I finally settled down and kept just a few “cheapies”…Clarke, Generation, and Waltons. I appreciate their traditional sound. My expensive whistles are all Reyburns, all of which I purchased recently. As others here have said, the Reyburn has a hybrid sound that to me, is exquisite. But it still feels good to reach for my breathy Clarke C, the black one with the gaudy gold diamonds. On most days though, I reach for the Reyburns.
This really is a fascinating road trip.
I nearly added a rider anticipating your response! How many are like that - with a regular change in volume from note to note within each octave - as bought? And if not are they ‘reject’ whistles?
My Feadog Mk1 head has spent some of its life on its original tube and some on the tube from a Generation of about the same age. Some tunes sound better to me on one, some on the other. I could probably carve/tape a Generation tube to be ‘needle straight up’ with an even volume profile - but that would be tweaking.
