Not to clutter up the board with yet ANOTHER newbee question, but I have one.
I’ve only been seriously working on my whistling skills for a couple of weeks, and I currently have:
Clarke Meg D
Clarke Sweetone D
Walton Little Black Whistle D
Walton Irish Whistle D
I can pick up a Freeman Generation D from my local ceili band, and I’m wondering if this would be a good next step up from what I have now. I’d like to save up the $$ to buy a Burke or two if I get serious about this, but I can’t really justify one at my current level.
Learn to play the whistles you have (or even focus on learning the idiosyncrasies of one) before you “step up”. That way you’ll have a better idea of what you want to step up to.
You won’t go wrong with any of Jerry Freeman’s whistles and at ~$30 (not much more than you’d pay for a pipe reed) you won’t be out much if it isn’t what you ultimately want.
It’s hard not getting caught up in collecting whistles.
If you NEED another try the Freeman Mellow Dog, its a winner fo sho.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that you’ll not really need more whistle for a year(s).
(It’s the same advice I give myself every time I get a new one. )
With those and maybe the Freeman, you’ll never “need” another D whistle (as much as a maker of higher end wooden whistle hates to admit it). Given lots of playing time, you can do just about anything that the whistle is called upon to do with any of those whistles. Save your money for a year or so. Wait until you’re a pretty good, confident player. Get comfortable playing in front of others at sessions. Accumulate a repertoire of tunes that you can play at a speed that you like, with appropriate ornamentation.
At that point, you will have a lot better idea of what you want a whistle to sound like and will make a much better decision than you will now. You may well find that you’re perfectly happy with the D whistles that you already are comfortable with, and would rather expand into a few different keys.
I gotta tell you-- as whistle players we’re lucky that even the very top of the line instruments are relatively inexpensive. I play mandolin also, and people over on Mandolincafe.com talk about beginner mandolins in the $400-$1000 price range, with “good” instruments running several/many thousands of dollars.
The sage wisdom you’ve received so far is priceless and exactly spot on. With one exception.
It is without question that, whether you “need” another whistle or not after you’ve become proficient with any of these suggested instruments (huge fan of Freeman’s Mellow Dog myself), you will absolutely “need” to acquire a really fine instrument by a really well known maker. Many of them are on this very board, like brewerpaul, who responded to your inquiry in his own modest way. I proudly own two of his whistles and whether or not I’m any better with them than with my others, who knows? But I feel like playing them is one of the few times where I get to use a work of art to create another work of art that we can all enjoy. So you will definitely “need” more whistles.
In the meantime, play as much as you can with an instrument that is in tune with both itself and everyone else. And have fun.
To answer your question, yes, you should get the Freeman tweaked Gen D. I like mine a lot. It’s definitely a step up from what you already have, it’s very affordable, and it’s a better whistle to learn on. If you buy it, you’ll be glad you did. If you don’t, you’ll wish you had.
Yeah, I think I’m going to pick up the tweaked Generation because
a) I can get it locally
b) It has to be better than the stock whistles I’m playing with now, and a known quality when it comes to learning, and
c) Who doesn’t need another whistle?
Seriously, though, I know that this is NOT the ultimate instrument, but I figure it’s a step up for relatively little investment (My main intrument is the Great Highland Bagpipe, so I KNOW how expensive some of these instruments can be). I’ll take the good advice here and try to stop buying whistles for a while until I have a firmer grasp of the essentials…
Well, they didn’t have the Mellow Dog like they thought, so it looks like I’ll be getting the Generation after all! Hey, it’s still a Freeman, so I’m sure I’ll be happy with it, along with the Bluebird I’m going to get from Jerry himself. Now if I could only learn to PLAY the dang things…
Got my Generation D last night, and this is one SWEET whistle! Very stable across octaves, much easier on the breath than my other whistles, and a MUCH sweeter sound! This will serve me well, methinks, at least until I scrape together the $$$ for a higher-end whistle at some point in my future (or at least until my Bluebird arrives! )
