I recently (a bit before the last shipwreck of the board) received a set of Abell’s A + Bb.
Nothing new if I tell you the whistle craftsmanship is exceptional, so is its voicing, and–guess what?–it’s flaming beautiful.
One thing worth mentioning, though, is it works just as well in A as in Bb (while my Sindt gets weak down the scale of the A tube).
Also, it has the balance between purity and chiff I like, i.e. a good bit of the latter. This is what I most wondered about, having read quite contradictory reviews here and else.
However, I did have a bit of a hard time to adjust to the shape of the mouthpiece, and this may well be related to some complaints about “breathiness” of other Abells.
By this, I don’t only mean the odd, blunt, shape of the fipple plug, almost straight cut where most whistles have a quarter-circle cut-away to make the mouthpiece decreasingly thinner. But this I could adapt to…
On this head, the outer silver sleeve, the black Delrin plug, and the wood sandwiched in-between, are cut like from one single slash of a sabre. In this way, the metal protrudes a few mm farther in the mouth than does the plug, i.e. the windway opening is not straight, perpendicular to the tube axis, but slanted at ca. 30°.
As is, here was my poblem:
- This sharp metal tip kept hitting my front teeth (ok, when a kid, my parents missed I should have worn braces…)
- I first couldn’t get a clean sound on the lower two tones: it was breathy as hell. I was a bit worried, having read concurring comments here on C&F. Then I found out this whistle, contrarily to all others I’ve a chance to play, needs a proper embouchure (or should I say orientation relative to the mouth?) for a clean sound. It reminds me the embouchure I’ve seen with most flute players, with the bottom lip held back.
- I also had to keep the whsitle straight in front of me, when I usually play slightly to the side of the mouth.
Now, my cure–there is a twist:
I play it now with the whistle head turned around half a turn, with the window down. OK, it feels a bit strange at first, and vaguely reminds me of a sax mouthpiece. However:
• the whistle feels comfortable when closer to the chest, i.e. held down rather than horizontal
• it helps me keeping my head straight up
• the metal tip doesn’t hit my teeth any more
• I find it more comfortable (to me) than the unusual lips attitude the “normal” way calls
• It doesn’t affect loudness at all
• condensation flows down the labium (blade) window, instead of collecting down the fipple plug.
• The “embouchure” is immediately right, with no trace of the breathiness I keep hitting when playing the other way around.
I’ve submitted this idea to a highly reputed Abell whistle player. For his own reasons, he asked me not to quote his name here (so if you guessed, please don’t fill in this intended blank). However, if he doesn’t openly endorse this strange “turnaround”, he replied that he tried my method, liked it, and “would probably use the method for all his whistle playing”.
You folks think what you want, but this wrings Abell to me…
Addendum to the recent newsletter:
Do not drive while whistling on an Abell.
To put it wisely, this is certainly NOT a whistle to play in a car: it’s so sharp the airbag would not only drive it through your brainstem but likely shoot it out through your occipit and make a mess of your upholstery.
See http://www.chiffandfipple.com/cf05-23-03/cf.htm for the original information.
Attention paramedics: learn to spot an Abell whistle: it’s identified by a small bell etched in the silver, see it? Please remove an Abell whistle by pushing it forward like an Injun’s arrow, not back: you could damage the sound-forming labium of a precious instrument with a long waiting list. Worse, you could disengage the tube alone (when there’s usually a spare one somewhere else in the car) while heavy surgery would be needed to save the heads (of both the driver and the whistle).
