Short Review of O'Brien's Stowaway Whistle

Whistle
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I got David O’Brien’s Stowaway Telescoping whistle on the current tour last week. The tour also includes one of David’s low D whistles but I haven’t really started working on the low D, so will leave that one for others to review.

I have one of David’s Rovers, a three-piece copper whistle that I really like. My only complaint about the Rover is its weight. Being made of copper plumbing tubing, the Rover is very heavy for a D whistle. The weight took some getting used to while playing and it takes a while to warm it up to playing temperature. If the Rover gets cold, it clogs easier that most, due, I think, to the heat sink created by all that copper. However, the Rover comes apart into three pieces, the longest of which is only 5.5" (14cm) long and the whole whistle stows in a nice tweed pouch David supplies with the whistle. The Rover has a nice pure tone with good intonation and minimal breath changes across its entire range. I loved it the first time I played it. I was interested to see if David had made an equally portable whistle in a lighter weight with the new Stowaway.

The two D whistles I play the most are the Rover and several Feadogs. I’ll use those whistles as references.

The Stowaway is a brass whistle with a delrin head and a two-piece tube. The lower tube slides into the upper one and they telescope together to reduce the whistle’s length. David has pictures on his website. The Stowaway is 11.25" (25.3cm) long when playing and 7.25" (18.4cm) when telescoped. If you take the head off and telescope the tubes you can make the whistle only 5.5" (14cm) long, so it is still a bit longer than the Rover (the disassembled Rover is wider, however, due to the three pieces). The Stowaway weighs 45g (1.6 oz). In comparison, my standard Feadog weighs 37g (1.3oz). The slight extra weight appears to be in the Stowaway’s somewhat larger head; the tube sizes and wall thicknesses appear about the same. The Rover comes in at a whopping 115g (4.0oz). The weights were taken on a cheap kitchen food scale, so I make no claim to absolute accuracy.

The Stowaway’s two tubes overlap at the G holes; each tube has a G hole and you line the two holes up when you extend the sections. Friction holds the two tubes in place and I had no trouble with the tubes moving in relation to each other while playing. The delrin head also slides on the upper tube making the whistle tuneable. The whistle is in tune with the head extended about halfway, so you’ve got some adjustment room either way.

Once extended, the Stowaway feels and plays like a brass-tube whistle. The holes are in about the same places as any other D whistle so reach and finger placement are normal. To my ear, the Stowaway has a bit purer tone than the Feadog but not nearly as pure as the Rover. This was confirmed on an electronic tuner - the Rover has one large spike while the Feadog and Stowaway both have several harmonic spikes above the main one. Volume is about the same as the Feadog; the Rover is a bit quieter than the other two.

I’m still a relative newbie, but I’ll give you my impressions. The Stowaway is in tune up through high A except for low F#, which was about 20 cents flat. I could blow low F# into tune but it took a puff to get it there. Cnat was a little sharp with oxx ooo and in tune with oxx xxo. Like most cylindrical bore whistles, the high octave tends a bit sharper than the low octave. Air requirements were about the same as the Feadog in the low octave and a bit more in the high octave. I had a hard time getting an in-tune high B on the Stowaway - if I pushed hard enough to get a stable tone, high B was quite sharp; if I backed off to lower the pitch, it would sometimes break back into the lower octave. I only know one tune with a high B so I didn’t work on mastering that note very much. I’ll leave others to comment on the Stowaway’s responsiveness and ability to handle ornaments and high speed, but it handled my playing well.

All in all, I liked the Stowaway but decided not to get one. Once you get used to the weight, the Rover is about as compact and is an easier playing whistle with a purer tone which I like. If light weight in a stowable whistle is important to you and you like a more traditional sound, then the Stowaway might be the ticket.

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This is true of a great many whistles. You put it perfectly. Drives me crazy.

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Glad to hear that you got the tour whistles.

I sent my impressions on both whistles to David privately but haven’t posted here in part because I don’t know what the etiquitte is for whistle tours and partly so as to not plant any preconcieved notions amongst those “downstream” in the tour. But since you started this…

My points of reference are Syn (aluminum) and Susato, one of David’s earlier copper whistles and a just-acquired Dixon ABS/aluminum whistle. I came to similar conclusions about the tuning especially on the notes you point out specifically. I was using only an inexpensive electronic instrument tuner for reference, not one that could show me harmonics. The overall tendency toward a sharper second octave you cite for cylindrical bore whistles, for me, was greater in the Rover than in the other instruments I mentioned. Perhaps it’s me, though, as I’m still pretty new to whistles generally.

I very much like the collapsible idea and in fact carried it in a shirt pocket for at least a week while I had it. I even used it a couple of times in church where I play recorders and whistles as part of a small ensemble, where it did OK, really.

I certainly found it responsive to anything my relatively limited skills could throw at it - it’s as nimble as anything I’ve played in that regard except possibly the Dixon.

I think you captured the character of the tone well. Pure, but not “too pure”. Certainly very likable to my ear.

It will be interesting to see others’ impressions of it.