Treasured Whistles

-Generation Bb - The second one I bought and I have no need to purchase a third. When I’m playing alone it’s the whistle of choice for its smooth and mellow (yet crisp) tone.

-Cillian O’Briain tweaked Feadóg - This is my main D whistle and I play it even more than my Sindt due to it’s volume. I go back and forth between nickel and brass Feadóg tubes depending on what mood I’m in but both are very enjoyable for me. The brass is a bit softer and the nickel is bright and crisp as can be.

Oh, Yeah, another whistle I’ll never get rid of: An old Burke wide-bore brass that I got from Loren many years ago. Mike’s whistles may have progressed since the old WBB, but they haven’t improved. I’ve had two or three other D’s he’s made since, but IMO this was the pinnacle of his whistle making.

I didn’t mean to insinuate that older Burkes are better. It just happens to be the one I own. (…vintage, schmintage, it plays good…) :laughing:

I have a Hoover low A made of juniper wood that I cut up the mountain from here. I was going to make a longbow out of it, but it had too many knots. So I sent it to Mack, figuring he would make an interesting whistle stand out of it or something. A month or two later, I got back one of the most beautiful looking and playing whistles I have ever owned.

(the wood was cut at a spot shown just to the left of the top finger hole :slight_smile: )

If the house is burning, I will grab my Burke Brass Pro Session D. I got it years ago when you could get a Burke for $90, now they’re $190 :astonished: ! I have an O’Braian improved whistle which I love also, and a Freeman-tweaked Shaw low A. I have a love/hate relationship with Susatos, some of which I love and some not so much. I have a couple of Sweetones and a Generation or two I enjoy, though most of the Gens I’ve bought have tuning issues. I might try a Freeman-tweaked one.

Maybe one day I can afford another Burke :wink:

I love everything I have, but if I have to narrow it down I’d choose:

Brass Copeland Low D

Abell high D

Burke Low F

Just bury me with these and I bet I won’t mind being dead nearly as much.

Bought whistles can be replaced, so if I could only save one whistle from a house fire, it would be one of my home-made ones. The more amateurish a whistlemaker you are, the more unrepeatable each whistle is.
The one home-made whistle I would keep is the crumwhistle (left).

My nephew was fetching stuff down from my sister’s loft, and dropped a two-foot length of copper pipe with a right-angle bend near the middle. I picked it up, trying to gauge whether either of the two straights was long enough for a whistle. My wife said: ‘You’re not going to make a whistle out of that!’

You’d think she’d know better by now.

I decided to make an A whistle incorporating part of the bend, but the curvature made it difficult to judge length, so I ended up with a B flat. Equally I kept misjudging where to drill the holes, so they ended up rather big. The result was quite a powerful whistle with a distinctive tone.