I’ve recently come into the possession of some Mark I Feadogs and some vintage Soodlums (precursors to Waltons) that are rather choice. I’ve gently tweaked them (filled under the windway, worked a subtle radius on the windway floor exit) to bring out their full potential.
I’ll sell them for $20 each plus $5.00 for postage anywhere in the world. My email address for PayPal is:
jerry
the symbol for “at”
freemanwhistles
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com
As you can see, there are eight brass and one nickel Mark I Feadogs,
and there are nine brass and one nickel Soodlums, with two different labels.
Is the Internet cool, or what? Jerry posts his offer at 9:03pm CDT. I see the post pop up as I’ve just logged on to C&F. I send Jerry a PayPal email at 9:10 pm and get a reply thanking me for my order at 9:12. Technology is an amazing thing.
Wow, now that’s cool! The whistle just popped out of the USB port on my computer!
A whistle teacher offered to send me a box of odds and ends from cleaning out his desk. When I received it, among other items, I found these Mark I Feadogs and Soodlums, which years ago he had purchased and kept in stock for his students. When I told him there would be interest in these whistles and I would like to get them in the hands of people who would play them, he gave me the go ahead to sell.
The whistles are all pure drop traditional voicing, in the same range of purity/complexity as a traditional Generation (not edgy like current Feadogs), and about the same loudness as a Generation.
The Soodlums are much like good Generations. These Soodlums are different from current Waltons, although they look the same. The interior geometry of these Soodlums whistleheads is better, and you can hear the difference in that they play more cleanly and the upper register is more even.
The Mark I Feadogs are somehow a little more “velvety” in their voicing. This is a hallmark of Mark I Feadogs, and I don’t know of other whistles that are quite the same.
Glad I got my order in before you posted that! I expect these are going to be gone even more quickly. Thanks so much for making these available, and applying your tweaking skills to them.
Yep I still play the Feadog I bought new back in the late 70’s or maybe around 1980. It’s THE smoothest whistle I’ve ever played. The high notes are incredibly sweet. The only tweaking I did was to pack the head and do some carving on the toneholes, resulting in quite perfect tuning.
Just got my Feadog from Jerry, and … I …
well, I’m speechless. It’s such an incredible
whistle! Why, in the name of all that is holy,
did Feadog stop making these??? I call for
a boycot until the Mk I mold is reinstituted
Anyway, thanks Jerry. As always, you deserve
thrice as much you charge. The Mk I is very
strong in the first octave (and extremely well-
balanced despite that), quite easy to get a
distinctive change between octaves, with
great tone. I need to try it with a mic, but I
have a feeling its balance might do better
onstage than my favorite Sindt.
I got my Feadog on Thursday and found it to be quite interesting. The tone reminded me a lot of the Irvine tweaked Feadog I had several years ago; very warm and soft. This one was a little too “whispy” for my taste, mostly due to the high windway that was common in the Feadogs and Soodlums (still is for Waltons) back then. I noticed myself needing to draw in air more frequently than on my modern Feadog and I could hear the large volume of air movement in the breathy tone as well.
I cut a small piece of plastic (previously used for drone reed tongues) and stuck it to the roof of the windway and that resulted in a much more focused (though still very sweet) whistle that takes less air to play too. Also, I noticed that if I maintained similar breath pressure for the notes GAB that the A dropped significantly compared to the G and B, which were quite strong and on pitch. I carved out the T3 tonehole a bit to bring the A up there with it’s peers. The tuning of the whistle body isn’t perfect but it is close enough now that I can, for the most part, blow it into tune. The C natural is still very sharp, even with different cross-fingerings (I’m not a half-holer) so I’m nost sure what to do about that. It can be blown into tone but it sinks and becomes almost half the volume of the other notes.
Overall I’m pretty happy with it and I’m sure it will get a lot of play time!
Got my Soodlum today… it’s not especially in tune, so, not likely to become my favorite whistle any time soon.
BUT – the Soodlum head (tweaked by Jerry F.) fits on the body of my Blackbird D.
That’s a pretty nice combo!
Don’t know if I’d say it’s “better” than the Blackbird, but it’s different. Seems a little more solid, where the standard Blackbird sound seems more delicate.
Fearfaoin pretty much sums up my feelings about my Mk 1 Feadog
Mine arrived about 10days ago
(I’ve been on mobile internet so posting here isn’t always possible)
and I’ve been playing it every day and at a couple of sessions, where it gets a bit lost
it not being the loudest of whistles.
Its taking a while to get used to but it’s my go to whistle right now.
A big word of thanks to Jerry who when I PMed him about ordering a Mk1
I explaned I couldn’t access hotmail/Paypal for a couple of weeks(mobile internet)
and could he hold on to one for me until I got back from our travels.
Well he PMed back saying not only would he hold on to one but he would
post it and it would be here for when I got back and I could pay then.
Thats what I call great service, thanks again Jerry.
