Mickey Dunne is more of a piper, but when he plays whistle it’s O’Brien tweaked
I just did a church gig over the weeked. I was hired to play uilleann pipes in an enemble that consisted of piano, guitar, harp, trumpet, cello, oboe, and flute.
The flute guy was the typical sort of pro I often run into, and showed up at the gig with his professional Boehm flute, a soprano sax, and a bag full of various Irish whistles and bansuri bamboo flutes.
So at the rehearsal before the service the choir director asks him if he has a pennywhistle for a particular solo in a certain song and the guy produces from his bag an interesting unfamiliar-looking D whistle.
In the rehearsal all goes well with this guy’s whistle solo but during the actual service his whistle just honks and burbles every time the poor guy tries to hit high B. After the gig I showed him my whistles, my bag full of Generations and Burkes and Susatos and my MK and, upon seeing that I too play whistle, explains that during his whistle solo he found that the windway of his whistle was all clogged with moisture and wouldn’t hit high B no matter how he blew. (Funny… I’ve never had that happen on any of my high whistles, and among Low D’s only on Overtons.)
Anyhow I had him give a toot on my MK Low D, my Susato Low C, and Burke F and A and I think he’ll be ordering some Burkes and maybe an MK soon. (It can happen like that with these pros. At one gig I had a guy try a Burke and the next day he ordered a dozen Burkes in various keys. It’s all a tax writeoff for these guys.)
the chimera rises! 
Yep. Bloomfield documented the beastie here:
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/davy-spillane-low-d-review/28191/1
Between MT’s music theory posts and Mitch’s philosophy posts, I spend quite a few hours pondering. At least they have the grace to spread them out a bit. Thanks for the thoughts, guys.
Well, OK.
In addition to this wonderful old Bb Generation, and other whistles on various of his recordings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgxu0cclU9M …
Vinnie Kilduff plays Freeman Blackbirds. In the next week or two, he’ll put down soundclips of all the Freeman whistles, which I’ll post as soon as they’re available.
I sat for about an hour with Kevin Crawford, Cillian Vallely and Ted Davis Saturday night. Kevin already had done some performances with a Freeman tweaked D Generation I sent him last fall. He went through a selection of all my whistles and invariably picked a tweaked brass Generation in each key. He later commented on Facebook that he played them on his next gig on the tour.
Cillian picked out a Mellow Dog in D and a Blackbird in C (same whistlehead, but that makes the D a wide bore whistle and the C a standard bore whistle).
Ted picked out a D Blackbird.
The fascinating thing was, each whistle sounded better or worse depending on who was playing it. It wasn’t simply that each picked out the sound he liked best, it was that each player sounded best on a certain whistle and each whistle sounded best with a certain player. Very interesting, and reinforces some of the things MTGuru said in an earlier post.
On Saturday, Kevin and Cillian played a tune on F whistles. I believe Kevin told me his low F is a Grinter. Cillian’s low F may have been an Overton, but I didn’t look closely or ask about it.
Lawrence Nugent plays Blackbirds. When he was visiting with Peter Maguire a few months ago, he tried one I had given Peter at the Pipers’ Gathering last summer. Peter reported that Lawrence had loved the whistle, so I sent him an Eb/D/C Blackbird set. He phoned a week or so later and made it clear he’s quite thrilled with them.
And Brid O’Donohue has some Blackbirds she likes. She was helpful in sorting out the various prototypes and selecting the final version. Her son Liam played a C Blackbird at the Micho Russell Concert in Doolin a couple of weeks ago.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Edited to add: I looked up Vinnie Kilduff on lala.com and found him playing other keys of high whistles, and I also recall a YouTube clip where he’s playing a low D. I’ve no notion what makes of whistles they were.
I was having a ferret around on Tony Hinnigan’s site the other day. Although he favours his Abell for recording and raves about the Oz he says that when he is asked to attend a recording he takes a large bag full of whistles and flutes and lets the director choose the sound quality he is looking for.
Cheers
HS
I hope you’ll put these up a.s.a.p. This will be very helpful.
Man, on that clip you put up by Vinnie on the Gen. Bb - I’ve never heard anything that beautiful! That is exactly the kind of playing I have been looking for. I could listen to this guy all day!
I’ve listened to that clip a lot. Vinnie contacted me awhile back to tell me he was enjoying a C Blackbird he had gotten, so I went online and looked up as many of his clips as I could find.
He also plays mandolin, and I believe you can hear the mandolin influence in the precise timing and strength of his finger vibrato, which in certain instances, he raises to the level of a sustained trill. It reminds me of the way a mandolin player creates a sustained note on a single pair of strings by “tremolo” picking.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I know this thread is old, but I had a (somewhat) funny story to share. I’m a concert flutist (student) who’s branching out into ethnic instruments with the aims be one of the studio ‘pros’ mentioned in this thread. My teacher is one of the top recording flutists in hollywood and he told me about this time that he picked up a neon green whistle for $2 at the flea market. The next day he was going to be playing with someone at the Grammy’s. They asked him to bring all of his whistles and he threw them all in the trunk (he has TON), and threw in the neon green one for kicks.
When he arrived and laid them all out, sure enough… the neon green whistle was the one that they wanted! So here he was, one of the top flutists in the country playing a $2 neon green whistle on national television. Haha! And he said to me: ‘And to think of how much money I’ve spent on the other ones, and they wanted a bright green thing that I picked up for almost nothing!’
So yes indeed! They will use whatever is best suited to the occasion (even if it is just to keep the conductor happy).
Cheers.
Oh. P.S. Even though I’ll never be a genuine whistle player, I’m sure learning a lot on this board! Thanks for putting up all this great information! I just got a Low D and low F whistle (both susatos) the other day and I’m having a blast. 
Well! as the world’s ONLY professional stick, I gotta say:
It’s all about professional-ism .. if you aint got the “ism” you aint got.
What’s “ism”?
Well .. I think it’s a digital thing. Personally, being a stick and all, I have no “digeets” per se, but, so long as there’s a camera there - I’ll ALWAYS be famous darlink! Just watch out for them damn paparazzi is all I can say!
(Little edit: ISM is not the same as ITM … No ITM ever got on the cover of Vogue!)