Yes, thank you, that could very well be. Because the second whistle, I now only have the three, that I play okay is my recently-acquired Dixon DX001. Their very basic plastic high D. But it to requires a little different handling from the Susato and I managed that transition well enough.
But maybe that advice was said a different way when some have said to get one whistle and work on skills with that. But I took most of that to mean mechanical playing skills.
However, that’s why I started the other specific thread about needing help with the Mellow Dog. My thought being that if it did require a different or particular style or technique then somebody could mention that. Or maybe it would not occur to somebody to mention that if all they have played is, as you said, Generation style whistles with a plastic mouthpiece and metal body.
But the mellow dog, being tweaked, is modified in that part of the cavity of the mouthpiece is filled with putty that, I should imagine, would affect airflow or breath requirements and maybe in a way that I have not thought of that somebody could point out.
But I have been experimenting with it on a daily basis and I just can’t seem to get it right.
Anyway, thank you for your thoughts
I don’t think the filler will alter the breath requirement in any drastic way, it will eliminate some turbulence but not the demands on what you put into it. The wider bore may be a more important factor than the tweaks done to the head. As I said : learn to play with well supported, even and controlled breath, hitting the sweet spot of each note and you’ll be flying.
Do realise the Blackbird requires a light touch and a fair amount of breath control to make it sing. You’ll have to wonder if it’s the best choice for a beginner who hasn’t developed either.
Recently I was talking to someone who was close to Willie Clancy, who was arguably the finest whistleplayer of his generation. He said Willie had told him anyone starting on the whistle would be best served by spending at least six months developing a good tone and intonation on the whistle. Not play tunes : work on tone and intonation. Food for thought, I would think.
In other words at an early stage working on breathcontrol is probably the most useful thing you can do. Find a voice and make the instrument, eventually, sing. I have said it before, and so have others, get one average whistle and work on the basics.
On another thread I referred at my wonderment each time I spent with Micho Russell at the clarity of his tone, the beautiful roundness of his notes. I still sometimes marvel at it when I listen to recordings of his. That’s not something that came in on the wind. He worked at it when he was young. There was a field below the house with a little hollow behind a wall where you could sit in relative shelter and it’s thee bot himself and his brother Gussie sat and played and played for hours on end to get their music the way they wanted it. When they were feeling down or needed thinking time, when there was nothing else to do and the world was bleak, they’d be there practicing away. Skill doesn’t come overnight, these men spent thousands of hours working at their craft.
I’ll leave it at that, best of luck and a Happy New Year.
I’m finding wider bores require more push/wind to go into the second octave, compared to normal whistles such as Gens/Feadog, so each whistle requiring slightly different technique.
I think you just need to learn how it wants to be played, as long as all the notes are there, then it is just down to technique.
I totally second this. My Susatos are WAAAAAY more loud and clear than my MellowDog. But the MD is its own animal and has great usefulness. Please read what i posted about this in the other (frustratingly near identical) thread: https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/mellow-dog-help-needed/99796/13
Also, a comment was made here about the Blackbird possibly being not good for beginners. I found the OPPOSITE to be true. After struggling a bit with a few mid priced respected whistles, when I first played my Blackbird it was such a huge relief to immediately get sweet notes and be able to ‘warble’ without running out of breath, squeaking, or sounding out of tune. I think they are GREAT for beginners! My Blackbird helped keep me from giving up pennywhistle, in fact. It remains one of the whistles I most often reach for, when I want to play something nimble, clear, and sweet.
It takes time and a lot while playing the whistle. The myth is the whistle is easy to play… well it is after you’ve played for awhile discovering the quirks and ease of a particular whistle. It takes work.
Thank you for your viewpoint, it was exceedingly helpful.
Sorry you were frustrated about the similar threads. I feel the same way when I get answers to questions or topics I don’t even ask about.
I’m glad you found it helpful!
I’m afraid that open online forums are a little like cocktail parties… you get varied responses that aren’t all containing the info you wanted for your questions. When this happens to me I just take what is useful from them and ignore what I don’t think applies to me. Sometimes people don’t understand precisely what i am asking, yet most of the folks who post are just trying to be helpful. Sometimes I learn other stuff from their posts that I was very glad to know about, even if it wasn’t exactly the info I was asking for.
Peter’s description that the Blackbird requires less air than the Mellow Dog is important.
I don’t find beginners especially have trouble with Blackbirds, but they have to learn how to handle the gentle air needed to keep the lowest notes from breaking into the upper register.
Some people have trouble with blackbirds because they tend to blow too hard on the bottom notes. And some people have trouble with Mellow Dogs because they tend not to blow hard enough on the top notes of the upper register. The Mellow Dog is a wide-bore whistle (same tonebody diameter as a standard-bore C). That’s the reason they take that extra push at the very top notes. The same Mellow Dog mouthpiece on a C tonebody plays exactly like a key of C Blackbird (and in fact, a C Blackbird and a C Mellow Dog are the same whistle except the Blackbird has a nickel-plated tonebody and the Mellow Dog has a brass one).
At events when people ask which whistle they should start with, I ask if they’ve played other instruments. If they’ve played Great Highland Bagpipes or trombone, I hand them a Mellow Dog. If they’ve played recorder, I hand them a Blackbird. If I hand someone a Blackbird and they start by blowing it into the third register I take it from them and hand them a Mellow Dog. If I hand them a Mellow Dog and they struggle to bring the top notes into the upper register, I take it from them and hand them a Blackbird.
Here’s Kathleen Conneely playing a C Blackbird (same mouthpiece as a D Mellow Dog):
Well, I intend to order a Blackbird anyway and see how that does for me.
It’s probably just my skill level, but having to do that extra air push in the upper half of the 2nd octave with the Mellow Dog just kind of throws me off. To me It just feels much less natural than the usual amount of increase in air to play up in that range. And so far, if it’s a tune where I have to return there frequently or stay up there, it has yet to work for me.
Of course those mass-produced whistles (as they come from the factory) will be all over the map. With the same make you’ll encounter everything from lovely clear clean high notes to breathy raspy harsh high notes, making generalisations more or less meaningless.
I have several of Jerry’s whistles and they vary too. Some have sweet easy high notes (my preference) and some have dirty gravelly high notes. This range happens in pairs of whistles of the same make and size, like two Freeman Generation D’s and two Freeman Generation Bb’s.
Was that really what you meant or should there be a D somewhere?
You might refine the question by asking which recorder: I was rather surprised that a friend of mine, who plays the whole quartet with an emphasis on the bigger ones (alto to bass) was not able to get a nice sound out of my whistles (untweaked Féadog to Killarney) - the only one that came close to working for her was a Clarke Original (untweaked and needing too much air for my taste). Every time I switch from recorder to whistle I’m again surprised by how little air a high whistle needs…
I was/am surprised that the difference between the metals is so big that it warrants a different model name. I prefer brass myself, because I feel it sounds “softer”, but I always thought that a good part of that was my imagination, or because my very first whistle was a brass one…
I don’t sell a key of C Mellow Dog. I sell a Mellow Dog D/C set, which is one whistlehead and two (wide-bore D and standard-bore C) tonebodies for $6.45 more than the D Mellow Dog alone. In that context, “C Mellow Dog” comes up, but I don’t sell a C Mellow Dog as a stand-alone whistle.
But the point here is, the mouthpiece on a Mellow Dog is the same as the mouthpiece on a C Blackbird. When you put it on a standard-bore tonebody it behaves like a Blackbird and doesn’t take the same extra push at the top as the same whistlehead on a wide-bore D tonebody.
Two days ago I received my Mellow Dog C/D set and I have to say that I’m really impressed! Especially with the D version (which seems to be better in tune than the C tonebody, at least the tuner says so) - I love the powerful low notes and the ease of playing in the upper octave. It’s so much easier to play than my untweaked standard Feadog that it’s well worth the price difference, and I like the sound better than that of my Dixon Trad in aluminium. Looks good, too, with the brass ring on the mouthpiece.
Just one question: I find it very hard to switch the head from one tube to the other - would adding a little grease help or does it risk attacking the plastic? I have a choice of: plastic recorder joint grease, olive oil, WD40, 3 in one precision machinery oil, and I could probably find a few others…
As fatmac says, a little cork grease will do it. The good thing though, about Jerry Freeman whistles is that they don’t need a whole lot of tuning. It really is amazing how Jerry gets them so well tuned. My Mellow Dog is also one of my favorites.
I really should get a blackbird.
On the Mellowdog / Susato front, I really love having both. My much-loved and twice-repaired mellowdog feels so responsive and sweet, but not sine-wavey. The susato is just a beast, resistant to wind, weather, and spilled beer.
But thirty years of saxophone playing makes me want to move some air. Really delicate (low air, low back pressure) tooters are tougher for me. My third octave on the flute really sucks, but fun to work on.
You might like like a modern Burke. The most recent one I played had a pretty high backpressure, more than I prefer. It was surprising as I had another from a decade earlier that was perfect. Sweet, low back pressure. I regret selling that one.
