Joe and List: Joe I noticed you mentioned on the favorite whistle thread about a Soprano O’Grady whistle , could you or anyone else tell us about these whistles? Do those of us with WADO need to scuff up some of these to add to our ever growing collections?. I did do a search and saw that a store in Maine has them and that they are from Canada, but aside from that I would like to hear more about them
Ben
They are listed in the inexpensive whistle section of this website. Dale describes them briefly.
The only place I know of where you can buy them is Song of the Sea in Maine (for $9). They are similar to a non-tunable Clare. I didn’t like them at first (I have two)but I put on a Walton Little Black mouthpiece on one and it plays great. The other one I added some stickey tac to the mouthpiece (to fill the cavity) and sounds very good.
I don’t know if it is a must have whistle but if you find yourself in Maine or are order something else from Song of the Sea, I would get one.
Joe
O’Grady whistles are made in Newfoundland (my home province) and are actually a decent sounding little whistle. They have a little more chiff than say a Generation and tend to be a bit on the quiet side but are a hoot to play none the less.
You can order them from O’Brien’s Music in St. John’s (www.obriens.nf.ca) but they don’t have the instrument section of their page up yet. Still, if you drop them an email the guys will be more than happy to ship wherever… and the prices in Canadian dollars will keep the folks south of 49 happy!
Can I throw in a vote for the O’Grady? It’s my main whistle. Before I got it, I tended to to avoid playing in the second octave, but the O’Grady is steady through the whole range. It’s a nice $9 whistle.
It also looks identical to the Clare whistle, so I don’t know if the whistles are tweaked or what. I like to pretend that maybe Mr O’Grady is just doing some basic quality control (the kind of thing I wish the Generation people were better at).
bye
Bill