I’m in the market for a new whistle and need to know whats the smallest Low whistle, a low G? If not what is? Is the Low G much bigger than the Bb?
Thanks.
The smallest low whistles are in A. I admit that I don’t know their relative size to Bb, but they are not very large and are quite easy to handle.
I can easily handle my Dixon Low G without resorting to a piper’s grip, and my hands aren’t very large. I don’t have a Low A (a situation which I plan to remedy soon), but it should be only slightly different from a Bb.
If I may respectfully differ,
the low whistles are generally
taken to start with the low G.
Yes, they’re considerably bigger than
a Bb, but not big enough to
create problems. I play with
piper’s grip, but I play a
high C with one, too.
On 2002-09-03 01:00, jim stone wrote:
If I may respectfully differ,
the low whistles are generally
taken to start with the low G.
Yes, they’re considerably bigger than
a Bb, but not big enough to
create problems. I play with
piper’s grip, but I play a
high C with one, too.
Hi Jim! I thought that the low whistles start on A because of the following, which is the definition of low whistle from Steafan Hannigan’s “The Low Whistle Book.”
"So what is a low whistle?
When Bernard Overton first invented the low whistle, the lowest flageolet generally in circulation was the Generation Bb. The six finger note had a pitch of B flat.
A low whistle can be defined as any whistle or flageoley with a six finger note below B flat. Therefore, the highest instrument which can be defined as a low whistle is the A whistle…"
So, that’s where I’m coming from. Really, it’s probably subjective anyway.
By the way, as I write this, I’m listening to a RealAudio stream of Liz Carroll’s new CD, “Lake Effect”. Great stuff! I highly recommend that you head over to http://www.greenlinnet.com and hear it for yourself.
I think the rationale has been
that at G you get something
big and hefty, finally–a low
whistle, in fact. The G really
strikes one as a quantum leap
into lowness.
But your
quotation is sobering. Thanks for
bringing it to my attention. Still
Hannigan appears to be proposing
a definition: ‘a low whistle
can be defined as any whistle
below Bb’. (His proposal is
based on the fact that
the Overton A was the first
foray below Bb.) And while one
can define a low whistle his
way, and for this reason,
I don’t think most people have
done so. Opinions? What do you
say, whistle fanatics?