I keep hearing about winning the lottery and finding a “perfect” Generation, but I can’t seem to find anyone showing one off or doing a comparison. Does anyone out there know where I can find a video demonstration/review, or maybe a text review with audio samples?
I don’t think a video ‘comparison’ would be helpful in this case, or ever, for that matter.
A perfect whistle doesn’t exist, not even a ‘perfect’ one. Some are nicer or more playable than others. If you want to hear really nice ones, listen to Seán Potts’ early Chieftains recordings, or Mary Bergin’s Feadoga Stain.
I strongly feel most Generations are ultimately serviceable, some better than average some less, but rarely unplayable. Will a (relative) beginner or intermediate player be able to spot a really good one? I doubt that very strongly. The devil, as always, is in the detail.
Overall though, I think the internet and forums like this have mythologised the better ones as something unattainable and rare, the Nirwana of whistle playing. That is not based in reality.
That said, I have encountered one I absolutely loved. It once belonged to a wellknown traditional player when he was alive. It was in the case with the flute his widow treasured. I know she would have given it to me if I said I loved it but I didn’t as it was something of her late husband’s and was one of her treasured memories.
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Agreed with Mr.G that rarely are there actually unplayable generations. I have one Bb that isn’t great, but still usable. Years ago I went through a box of over 20 D whistles and they were pretty much all indistinguishable, with one or two that were barely “better” (and which I bought one of). It’s almost always user error in my experience…
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A lot of it is luck.
Every time I’ve been anywhere that has Generations for sale, that allows you to try them, I’ve tried the D’s and Bb’s.
I used to work in a shop that carried Generations, hundreds went through the shop and I tried every D and Bb.
So around 50 years of doing this and I must have tried hundreds of the things, and never have I found a great one. Oh, I’ve had the chance to toot on absolutely fantastic D’s and Bb’s owned by people who will never part with them!
Up until a few years ago there was a music shop down the street from my house that carried Generations, and I was a frequent visitor and tried tons of their whistles over the years with no luck.
Then I had a new student, he wanted a Generation D, he went down the street to that same shop, grabbed a D at random, and darned if that wasn’t one of the best D’s I’ve ever tried.
So for him yes a great Generation D was easy to find! But the High D slot in my whistle roll has been occupied by a Feadog D for over 45 years.
I did indeed find a great Generation C and I’ve been playing it over 45 years.
I do now have a great Generation Bb but I had to make it great: I did the saw-through-the-window thing which allows you to get the perfect alignment between windway and blade, which is the key to the whole thing.
As I’ve repeatedly mentioned I actually got a statistical snapshot of Generation D quality control by having first crack of a straight-from-the-factory box of 24 D whistles.
One was really good and another was nearly as good. (Neither quite as good as my old Feadog.) Around half the box were decent players. Contrary to what people say there were a few which were quite unplayable, just making breathy squeaky noises when I tried to play the 2nd octave. Yes a skilled person might be able to work on these and get them to play.
When I hear Sean Potts or Mary Bergin I think of how many hundreds of Generations must have gone through their hands, upgrading little by little over the years until every whistle they have is superb. It helps that they were around when overall Generation quality was higher than today.
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I’m always a bit skeptical when I hear about “perfect” Generations. Whenever I’ve heard a purported “perfect” Generation being played, the playing has almost always been extremely out of tune and a bit squeaky. Which tracks with my experience of Generations in general.
The one exception I can think of is the Shire theme in the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. That sounds absolutely beautiful, and perfectly in tune, and it was apparently played on a very well-made Generation D whistle. (Then again, that theme has a very limited range and is played rather slowly, and it was also played by an excellent musician who probably could’ve made the tune sound fantastic on any whistle you gave him.)
At any rate, I’ve yet to hear a supposed “perfect” Generation that knocked my socks off and made me want to find one for myself.
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M. Gumby, the comparaison is a bit unfair : the whistle Sean Potts uses in the video has the famous electric-tape-around-the-fipple tweak, which notoriously improves tone.
I was actually looking for some airs Potts played during the seventies. Such beautiful, clear tone.
This one is half decent, though. It will have to do 
Dark woman of the glen
I assume this is a joke? 
That’s some amazing playing, thanks for sharing!
Don’t particularly love the tone on those whistles in the first video, personally. They do, in fact, have a squeaky/raspy sound that lots of Generations seem to have. It hardly detracts from fine playing like this, but it’s still there.
The other recordings, I think, prove your point better. I honestly completely forgot that Mary Bergin used to play Generation whistles.
Honestly, I’m probably too judgmental of Generations due to (1) every one I’ve played personally being no good, and (2) videos on YouTube of “perfect” Generations that sound terrible. But these old videos certainly prove that you can get a more-or-less perfect sound out of a good old Generation.
The only remaining question in my mind is if any of these whistles are modified, or if they’re all original.
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I would like to add this one.
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Not too shabby here either
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I often wonder about people who say things like this online, because it seems like there may be a common denominator. It’s definitely been my experience in person anyway.
That said, there definitely are some people who prefer a tone on whistles that to my ear is uncharacteristic of what a whistle should sound like - typically very pure, often without much in the way of harmonics, and usually very loud. Lots of room in the world for different aesthetic preferences anyway
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A “perfect” Generation is often held up as a sort of ideal because Generations were the main whistle played by a lot of great players throughout the middle and end of the 20th century, as the whistle got a bit more recognition and respect as an instrument. The Generation sound is what a lot of people, myself included, think of as the “traditional” sound of a whistle, given the recordings produced by Mary Bergin, Paddy Moloney, Sean Potts, etc.
However, I do wonder if public opinion has shifted somewhat, and other whistles have taken up the position as the “ideal.” Comhaltas certainly seems to think so; any serious students seem to be directed towards a Sindt clone (usually a brass Killarney or an actual SIndt) and if you play an off-the-shelf Generation at the Fleadh you’ll probably get a note about it. Comhaltas isn’t the arbiter of taste in the trad world (much as they might like to be), but anecdotally I see fewer non-tweaked Gens/Feadógs/etc. in sessions than even 10 years ago. A lot of popular recorded players like wider-bore whistles (Brian Finnegan and Goldies come to mind), and even Mary Bergin herself has long since moved to playing Sindts mostly.
So, if that Generation sound is no long thought of by many people as the ideal, many Generations can come off, well, less-than-ideal. They are certainly a bit less “pure” than a lot of the now-popular whistles. But that is entirely a matter of preference at the end of the day.
Personally, I have a handful of Generations and they’re all at least good. I’ve got a D that I really like and I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on, and an Eb that was a little off, but that I worked on a bit and now plays and sounds great as well. I play a Killarney mostly, but that’s again a matter of preference, and if I could only play Generations for the rest of my life I’d be perfectly happy.
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Whistles on YouTube will be slightly different in real life than on video. Also, “perfect” is subject to the relativity of the pressure wave recipients ear drum (PWRED) to brain audio appreciation program (BAAP). It’s like asking a young dog what it’s favorite food is, and then waving a freshly cooked 12-ounce piece of liver in its face; whoops, opinions change rapidly. For whistles; consider personal preference for playability, tone, intonation, air requirement, key, how it handles ornaments, etc. Instead, I’d create of list of what features you want, and then search for whistles where people say those playing features are consistent.
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Regarding the widespread acceptance of Sindt whistles, and later Sindt clones, I think it is worth pointing out that Sindt’s main goal in designing and refining his whistles was to try to consistently reproduce the sound of a good Generation whistle. So I don’t think the adoption of Sindt whistles by a large number of players is an indication that the Generation sound has gone out of favor. I think people like Sindt whistles because of their predictability while approximating the sound.
That said, the really good Generations that I’ve played have all been of that earlier vintage which had a seam down the middle of the top of the beak, and I found their playing characteristics and sound to be a bit different to my Sindts, although not radically different, as many wide bore whistles seem to be.
A really good vintage Generation is still very difficult to top in my opinion.
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I’ve got almost a full set of the vintage Generations and I like them, and while I don’t think I necessarily got ‘cream of the crop’ from that era, I do find myself reaching for that old nickel D more often than any of my other whistles. I kinda plan to buy any I see for a while and see how they compare.
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I wonder how many people’s idea of what a perfect whistle sounds like is informed by studio recordings (and video) with their EQ and compression, rather than what they’ve heard in person.
I have an old Generation Bb and it sounds good and plays well, but it’s not as good as the tweaked Bb I got from Jerry Freeman.
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I have in the past wondered out loud on the forum if that was the case with some makers/tweakers who didn’t really start out from a playing background. Some whistles are so tightly voiced, squeezed within an inch of their life , that you have to wonder if they were trying to achieve the heavily compressed/equalised sound of a recorded whistle.
In real life though, there’s more to the quality of a whistle than just the sound/voicing. Playability, responsiveness/agility, ease of playing all come into deciding what is a good whistle. And on that count I think the (old?) Generations set a standard.
Bflat, I don’t know. I got one in a batch of other whistles a few years ago but, speaking for myself, I never felt the need for one (and went without for at least four decades). The one I have now does play well enough but it essentially gets no use at all. I do see them played: I saw Mary Bergin and her daughter play duets on Generation Bbs and Róisín nic Dhonncha seems to like playing airs on them. As good an endorsement as you could wish for.
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