I thought I saw a low whistle maker on the net who specialized in a thin design that had smaller holes for folks with thin fingers. Can’t seem to find it now. Was I imagining things?
Mike Burke makes an EZ reach model. I have one, and love it. I may have the model name wrong, but if you look at his website, you will recognize the name as one which is easy to finger.
Mmmm, well…I’ve gotta be honest here and say that unless Mike has radically changed the spacing and size of the holes on his EZ Reach Low D’s, the reach isn’t that easy. I’ve measure the hole size and spacing on number of Low D’s, including : Copeland, Burke Pro, Burke EZ Reach, Overton Big Hole, Oveton standard, Dixon, Alba, Herbison Laughing, and several others that escape me at the moment. I found two of the whistles to have a substantially easier reach and smaller holes than the others: The Dixon and standard Goldie Overton.
I have small hands and narrowish fingers, and I’d say (based on the numbers as well as playing these whistles) that the Overton and Dixon are the easiest to play, in terms of fingering, of any of the Low D’s I’ve tried.
Loren
Okiedokie, I see what I did. there is a narrow bore “HIGH” D brass whistle on the Burke site; I was assuming it was a low D.
On 2001-11-28 00:57, fiddlerj wrote:
I thought I saw a low whistle maker on the net who specialized in a thin design that had smaller holes for folks with thin fingers. Can’t seem to find it now. Was I imagining things?
Any seconds to the motion?
On 2001-11-28 07:36, Loren wrote:
Mmmm, well…I’ve gotta be honest here and say that unless Mike has radically changed the spacing and size of the holes on his EZ Reach Low D’s, the reach isn’t that easy. I’ve measure the hole size and spacing on number of Low D’s, including : Copeland, Burke Pro, Burke EZ Reach, Overton Big Hole, Oveton standard, Dixon, Alba, Herbison Laughing, and several others that escape me at the moment. I found two of the whistles to have a substantially easier reach and smaller holes than the others: The Dixon and standard Goldie Overton.
I have small hands and narrowish fingers, and I’d say (based on the numbers as well as playing these whistles) that the Overton and Dixon are the easiest to play, in terms of fingering, of any of the Low D’s I’ve tried.Loren
Thinner whistles, short tone hole spacing can be done but there is always a catch.
The catch is that some toneholes are made smaller to bring them in closer. The smaller size lowers a variable that is called “local cutoff frequency”. What this means is that the highest note that the tonehole is capable of playing is lowered - as that value gets closer to the freqency being played, the tonehole gets weaker and weaker in its ability to speak.
The ultimate solution for small hands are keys on the 1st and 4th holes (from the bottom up). If a sliding key were ever developed, it would aid in the use of keys in irish music big time. (sigh) maybe some day.
I’ve an EZ Low D Burke and an Overton Low D. The upper 3 holes (left hand) of Burke are of slightly smaller distance than the Overton (0.5cm?). In the lower 3 holes (right hand) of Burke, the hole distance is slightly greater than Overton by about 0.5 cm too. But overall, the reach is easier on the Burke is easier on the Burke, partly because of the smaller tone holes. I do remember having some adjustments to make when I transitioned to playing Overton because the L1 and L2 holes were slightly further than on Burke. Uncomfortable at first, but that went away after a while.
How old are your Burke and Overton, and who made the Overton?
How about a Hoover, they are thin
My Burkes about 1-1.5 years old, whilst my 3 month old Overton was made by Collin Goldie