Busted. But, seeing’s how I’m recovering from a high-stress trip today, I seem to be in review mode. Here’s the full review.
Whistles by Jon Swayne
I’ve had D and C whistles by Jon Swayne for four months now. My initial impressions are still pretty much intact, but I do know the whistles better now. Here’s a full review.
Jon Swayne is mostly a pipe maker by trade, but he also makes whistles and flutes. I know very little about him, except that there has been some buzz about how great his low-D whistles are. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to make many.
Appearance and construction
All of Jon’s whistles are made from boxwood and have basically the same construction. He seems to acquire some incredible boxwood – very light color with a nice contrasting grain. The head of one of these has an incredible grain pattern on it. The construction would probably get many cries of recorder from this list. The head has a teardrop shape, like Ralph Sweet’s whistles, and the shaft conical with a slight bell at the end, like a medieval recorder. He makes whistles only out of boxwood.
The whistlesares in two pieces, with brass tuning slide that’s about 1/2"/12 mm long. They have two rings, on either side of the tuning slide. Bore is conical with a slight flare, like a flute. Aside from the slide and rings, the construction is entirely wood, with a pencil-cedar fipple plug. The windway is curved, as is the blade. The angle of the blade is pretty slight, similar to a Weasel.
The workmanship is impeccable. The slide is easy to adjust but not loose. The finish on the finger holes is excellent. There appears to have been some sort of lacquer applied. I prefer a no finish, but this should wear off. The bore of the C is larger than that of the C – Swayne designs each of his keys differently, so there are no one-head-two-body sets.
Sound and playability
Here my first impression has been modified somewhat. Both whistles are great players. The D whistle is incredibly responsive with a sound that’s balanced through two octaves. (Jon says it’s optimized for an octave plus a fifth, but I can easily get up to the G above high D. Well, not really easily, but I can.) The sound is a tad sweet with a little chiff. It does play similarly to an Abell, as I had said before – it has easy octave transitions and doesn’t require too much push to get to the top of the second octave.
I’m having an easier time with the C than I had at the beginning. It still definitely requires a lot more push than I’m used to. It’s not like an Overton, but takes much more than a Weasel. It’s not a stark contrast to the D, but definitely not at all similar to the way the D plays. The C definitely has a bigger sound than the D, plus the sound is more like one of the high-backpressure whistles (Overton, or Harper, e. g.). It has a bit of a growl that I find very rewarding in a C. (Between the Thin Weasel, Swayne, and Harper, I don’t think I’ll ever look for another C. I know, famous last words.)
The only complaint I have with these, especially the D, is it tends to clog frequently. The windways of both whistles are curved and somewhat tapered. This is generally a good thing, focuses the air stream and increases the surface area where the breath is the moistest. Plus the all-wood windway, especially with woods like box and cedar, is usually virtually clog-proof. But somehow this isn’t the case with these – I don’t know if he’s treated the heads (I don’t think so, because I asked him about the Grinter treatment of soaking the head in oil, which he cautioned against and I didn’t do) or what, but they don’t seem to either sheet off nor absorb. I have the same complaint with my Thin Weasel D, which I dearly love, and have just relegated it to mostly summer duty. I may do this with the Swayne D.
These whistles, AFAIK, are only available directly from the maker, whose email addy is on the high-end part of the C&F website. The two whistles cost me about $500. He only takes fund transfers and bank drafts, which is why I ordered two whistles, since it costs so much for us Yanks to do EFT’s. I ordered them in Dec. 2001 and received them in July 2002. He quoted me a 6-month delivery, and it was a scant 7 months.
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