On our way back to st louis, Judy and I stopped at
the Whistle Shop in Bloomington/normal Ill.
Thom is the loveliest guy and I played virtually
everything he had. I love orgies, don’t you?
This guy has lovely stuff, knows and loves
whistles and deserves our support, IMO.
I bought one of Jerry Freeman’s tweaked gen Ds,
which is really lovely, in fact. Very impressed
with the sweetness and stability he achieves.
I tried a Burke D in aluminum, the narrow bore.
It was very good but I have some questions.
What is the difference soundwise tween the
narrow and the session bore? I know the
latter is louder, but what about the
quality of sound?
What is the difference soundwise
tween brass and allow in Burkes?
Thom had a burke narrow bore brass C
which had a lovely warm sound. Too bad
I don’t need a C.
For sure, Thom is a true Kalyana-Mitra (to invoke a term from another tradition I know you to be familiar with) to our community of players.
I will defer to those who are better equipped to comment on the technical query you raise in your post, but want to second your obsevation about Thom L. To be sure, he is a ‘square dealer’ who has gotten a lot of us ‘up and running’ with the whistle. I got my first few whistles from him, including a fine Ralph Sweet [“Sweetheart” (# 9350)], which I will always cherish–not to mention play.
You post also reminds me that I have neither visited his site nor referred anyone to him in a while. That will soon be corrected.
I have both, an alpro and a narrow bore alum Ds.. I purchased the narrow bore hoping for a more responsive whistle but it’s not. It’s more closed while the Session has a more open and what seems to be larger sound. If I had to choose it would always be the Pro.
I have a session D aluminum and a narrow D brass. The brass is much warmer sounding, but being a narrow bore, I find it a little fussy about air. It’s very easy for me to overblow and get squeaky. The AL is very bright and pure and can handle a lot of air. I play it every day. The narrow is only a little quieter. My next whistle will be one of Mike’s Brass D session whistles.
Several months ago I was thinking about which of the Burke models to get. Finally I decided to just pick one because they’re all good in one way or another. I picked the DAN model and I now use it every day.
I have a narrow-bore brass black-tip and an old-style wide-bore brass. I also had an aluminum session. I find the biggest differences between the narrow-bore and session to be that the narrow-bore is sweeter and requires the OXX XXO C-natural. I do find it a little more responsive and don’t find the air requirements significantly different. I found the aluminum a little lacking in richness.
I find the old-style WBB to be a much better whistle than any of the others. It has a less pure sound (not by a whole lot) that’s more traditional, is incredibly easy to play, all the way up to the third-octave A, and has a heftier feel. It’s a whistle I’ll be taking to the grave, simply the finest non-wood D whistle in my stable.