I noticed that on the recent “How bad is your addiction?” thread that several of you listed whistles below low D.
While there’s lots of information/reviews/sound clips on this forum and elsewhere regarding whistles from low D and up, it’s my impression that the “low, low” whistles are still something of a rarity and there’s not much current information about them. Since I’ve been interested in these for some time, I thought I would start a new thread to address the “current state of the art” regarding them.
I have a few questions to start. Are low, low whistles merely curiosities in your collection or, do you actually play them regularly? How “playable” are they really? What type of music do you use them for? Anyone have recent sound clips? Do we gotta have em or, is it just another leg in the never-ending downward spiral of WhOA?
I have an Overton Bass A and am currently looking for a Bass Bb.
Do I play my Bass A, you bet I do. I use it for slower songs mostly, since the spread is pretty big. One thing it does for me is streches my finger spread and makes my Low D seem like a very small whistle. My Overton Low D becames a LOT easier to play when I spend time on the Bass A.
The volume is better than I expected as well. I used it in a trio at church a few weeks ago (Bass A, Irish flute and guitar) and got nice comments for a person in the back of the room.
Oh, since I don’t play much Irish genre music, the original reason I got it was for playing songs that have those nasty little notes below D in key of D songs.
Yes, spending time with a low whistle makes playing your other whistles seem so easy… definitely works out the fingers in a different way.
If you go to the Kerry Whistles website you can see and hear Phil Hardy playing his Chieftain and Kerry low D’s.
I had an Alba low C here on a tour. I found it easier to play than many of the low Ds I have tried. The stretch was not as bad as many low Ds. You can play the same music on it as you can on a low D. A very nice whistle.
I got the Dixon Low C in a bulk clearing-house sale from a fellow C&F’er. It is nice but the soft breath requirements for it doesnt fit me so it gets very little play.
On the other hand, the Dixon tunable high D gets huuuge play time.
My Overton Low D becames a LOT easier to play when I spend time on the Bass A.