Just spotted this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khdx9mBMXTI
wiz
It might be more accurate to credit Mr Overton with introducing a downwardly extended range of low whistles and (mass) producing the same. Inventing, I think, might be stretching things a wee bit.
Low whistles are nothing new: Clarke made some rolled brass low whistles in the mid-19th century; and any number of makers / labels of low cylindrical whistles were active in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries, from Barnett Samuel to Hohner. I don’t believe any of them made a low D whistle, so I think we can very safely credit Mr Overton with extending the range of the modern whistle down. But even then, low C/D whistles were not unknown in centuries past. I have a very old low C/D transverse whistle (Potter) that dates to the late 18th or early 19th century.
Fascinating video! Thanks for that link.
I love Bernard’s accent.
I guess it’s a matter of semantics, but for me the modern “Irish Low Whistle” is based around the tonal centre of D, or in other words the same pitch as the usual Irish flute and the concert uilleann chanter, and an octave below the usual Irish whistle in D.
Certainly Overton is the one who got the ball rolling as far as the emergence of Low D whistles taking their place as a standard ITM instrument.
Did anyone make whistles of that style and construction before Overton? From the first time I saw an Overton Low D, back around 1980, it struck me as being a Pipe Organ pipe with fingerholes cut in it.
The curious thing, to me, about the history of the Low Whistle is that sack of enormous Generation-style plastic whistle heads that Joe McKenna picked up in a junk shop, what was it, back around 1970? He took them home and made brass tubing bodies for them, and began playing these new/old Low Whistles on tour.
Injection-moulding implies large production runs, so somebody was making Generation style Low Whistles sometime between injection moulding becoming economically feasible in the 1950s and the time Joe McKenna found that bag of whistle heads.
It was indeed an interesting video, though I think it has been linked here on C&F before. Or perhaps elsewhere, because I know I’ve seen it before.
I guess it’s a matter of semantics, but for me the modern “Irish Low Whistle” is based around the tonal centre of D, or in other words the same pitch as the usual Irish flute and the concert uilleann chanter, and an octave below the usual Irish whistle in D.
Point taken about semantics! But as I see it, there are historical facts to keep in mind, about the instrument itself and quite apart from the musicological facts. Granted that both the flute and the whistle are, in point of fact, instruments used within the ITM community, neither the whistle nor the flute are in any way actually “Irish” instruments! The simple system flute favored by ITM is a direct descendant of the old flutes that Quantz and Frederick would have been familiar with, those of the zero to perhaps four or six key varieties, and they came up from the Continent. The whistle was neither invented in Ireland nor popularised in Ireland nor was it even associated with Ireland until relatively recently, and it too came up from the Continent in the form of the flageolet (originally of wood or ivory and eventually metal).
I can not speak to the choice of tonality in Irish music, though most tunes I’ve seen written in tune books, and no matter what age, seem to be “in D” or “in G” or some modal relative key. The fact that both the old flute and the whistle are quite (though not entirely) flexible when it comes to accidentals, I’m not entirely certain why this should be so. Certainly tunes in C, A, E or B become progressively harder, but are by no means impossible to play. Too much cross fingering I guess!
Probably the solid association of tin whistle with Irish music came in the 20th century. Looking at old – 19th and 20th century – tutors for flageolet and whistle, we see really no particular association of that instrument with Irish music so much as the usual / generic folk / dance / light classical airs popular at the time. Anymore you can hardly pick up a tin whistle book but that it’s filled with jigs and reels of the Irish variety. You can probably speak to this better than I can, but I’d be willing to bet that the association dates back to the folk music movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and that big names in the Irish music world put paid to the notion that the whistle was anything but an Irish traditional instrument! I’ll happily admit to falling in love with the whistle after hearing the instrument played on old Clancy Brothers records!
For what it’s worth, the same basic simple system flute is also found playing Cuban charanga music and the same whistle is very happy playing South African kwela! (And, for that matter, the same violin is just as happy playing Bazzini!) So, it’s not that any particular instrument is only used for any particular kind of music. I think it might be a little more accurate to speak of Irish music adopting available instruments and of favoring whistles in D, and thus that Mr Overton very happily filled a slot very neatly and very timely!
Certainly Overton is the one who got the ball rolling as far as the emergence of Low D whistles taking their place as a standard ITM instrument.
I won’t disagree with that at all! And I think fits with what I said: a low D whistle was, practically speaking, a thing unknown before Mr Overton came along. I’ve personally never seen a low D whistle made by Generation or B&S or any of the other makes of cylindrical whistles, nor made by Clarke or any of the other no-name rolled tin whistles. That he worked with folks in the Irish music scene and that his whistles got used created a perfect confluence of forces. And we can all toot away the happier now that low whistles are established (and plentiful and relatively inexpensive, even at the higher end of the price/quality spectrum)! I personally much prefer the fuller sound at the lower end of the tonal spectrum (whether the instrument type is brass, wind, string or organ) and so much prefer the sound of the low D and low G whistles over the higher iterations.
Did anyone make whistles of that style and construction before Overton?
To be fair, that is a bit of a leading question, that. The answer, of course, is no. No one made an “Overton type whistle” before Mr Overton made the first Overton type whistle! The better question is this: did anyone make a low whistle (doesn’t matter what key or what type) before Overton? The answer there is, of course, yes. In the Clarke thread, we can clearly see early Clarke low whistles (in G as I recall). A number of us have and play old low whistles that were probably made before Mr Overton was even born. Granted, these are almost always low G whistles, rather than low D.
From the first time I saw an Overton Low D, back around 1980, it struck me as being a Pipe Organ pipe with fingerholes cut in it.
Or a sewer pipe! 
But yes, it does remind one of certain kinds of organ pipes. And no one is at all surprised at this: whistles and organ pipes are, in form and function, identical. The only difference, really, being that whistles have finger holes to achieve different notes, while organs have multiple pipes to achieve different notes. Overtons remind me most of the open diapason pipe: broad, cylindrical, good solid tone. The Clarke type whistle reminds me most of the spitzflute pipe: narrow, reverse conical, pleasing tone. (Give a listen here http://www.organstops.org).
Happily, his aluminium tubes are rather stronger than the tin or lead concoctions the organ builders have used!
The curious thing, to me, about the history of the Low Whistle is that sack of enormous Generation-style plastic whistle heads that Joe McKenna picked up in a junk shop, what was it, back around 1970? He took them home and made brass tubing bodies for them, and began playing these new/old Low Whistles on tour.
Interesting indeed! Were they of a size for a low D, or perhaps for a G? I’m guessing they must have been intended for low D whistles, otherwise they wouldn’t be nearly as curious!
I am put in mind now that on Ebay a while back I found an absolutely enormous lead/pot-metal block whistle head. In construction, it reminds very much of the old B&S or Hohner instruments, and clearly very much larger than the Hohner low G. Twas made in India by a C. Ramchunder of Bombay. Looks like it was originally intended for a low D whistle. The o.d. of the body would have been ~1in and the i.d. about 0.85 to 0.9in or thereabouts and as best I can tell. Sadly, the whistle body was long ago removed from the head and lost. The instrument looks like twas designed to be tunable. The Ramchunder family was known to have been making musical instruments back into the 1850s (harmoniums, mostly), but I don’t know if this “C” was related to the “T.S. & Bros” mentioned here: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/books/trn/pdfs/trn_20.pdf. In any event, the whistle head has the appearance of being early to mid 20th century (and yes, I know to be wary of the appearance of things made in India – could be quite new or quite old!). Has a nice sound, though! One of these days I’m going to have to shove a holed tube in there and find out what it will actually sound like played as a whistle!
Injection-moulding implies large production runs, so somebody was making Generation style Low Whistles sometime between injection moulding becoming economically feasible in the 1950s and the time Joe McKenna found that bag of whistle heads.
Very interesting indeed! One can only wonder. Were the whistle heads good matches in style and colour for Generation heads of the time? Or were they just “reminiscent of”? In other words, do you think they wère in fact Generation heads? Has anyone ever contacted Generation to find out if they ever experimented with low D whistles in the 1960s or thereabouts?
In any event, and with all due respect to the great contribution to the whistling world that he did actually make, I still think it’s a bit much to ascribe the actual invention of the low whistle to Mr Overton!