In the short time that I’ve been learning the penny whistle, I’ve had experience with whistles made of a variety of different materials - tin, brass, nickel, aluminum, copper, wood, plastic, etc. However, I have yet to play a silver whistle. I do note that there are a few whistle makers who work in silver. Can anyone tell me what the characteristics of a silver whistle are that make it different/desirable in comparison to whistles made of other materials?
saintninian,
First off, welcome to the world of whistling !
I started playing about 15 years ago and have had a ball !
I’ve also made a few whistles myself. It’s not nearly as simple as physics-101 might indicate.
Along the way, I read all the papers and books I could get my hands on. I must say, the ILL (Inter-Library-Loan) service offered by libraries is a wonderful thing.
Basically, what I’ve found is that the design of the whistle is much more important than the materials used. The shaping of the mouthpiece (fipple) and the design (shape+placement) of the holes+bore are a much bigger factors for sound than the materials used.
It’s true, a maker will usually be much more careful about the quality of the finished product if it’s made of silver than of PVC.
But, if sound quality is what you’re after, it’s not necessary to hunt for a “precious-metal” item. There are plenty of fine-sounding instruments available made of injection-molded plastic, aluminum, brass, or wood. Some of my personal favorites are Susato, Sweet (Ralph or Walt), MK, Reyburn, and Whorfin.
It’s true, a precious-metal whistle can be a fine work-of-art and sound lovely. I played a Nickel whistle (by Copeland, I think) that was amazing. It played sweetly up into the the 3rd octave.
But, to my understanding, the design+quality make a much bigger difference than the material.
Just one guy’s opinion . . .
trill
Can anyone tell me what the characteristics of a silver whistle are that make it different/desirable in comparison to whistles made of other materials?
The magpie factor.
Yep! I like shiny things. 
The issue of materials for wind instruments is an old debate.
Scientists do studies and say there’s no difference, yet musicians can perceive clear differences, at least when they’re the one playing the instrument, in other words musicians can feel differences in the way the instrument responds and functions, though to a 3rd party the instruments might sound alike.
With flutes, ones made of silver, gold, and nickel feel different to the player, though they might sound the same to somebody listening.
I’ll bet if you had absolutely identical whistles in brass, alloy, and silver that any good player could tell them apart blindfolded by playing them. (Say, weighted to have the same weight in the hands.)
I know with wooden flute headjoints played on the same silver flute body I was easily able to distinguish which wood (I tried headjoints of identical cut of five or six different woods).
Make that two guys’ opinions. I’ve been making wooden whistles for 15 years ( ! ) and I feel the same way. It goes beyond the actual design too. Tiny variations in the hand crafting can make big differences in the sound of a whistle. Each of the dimensions of the sound producing region is critical and variations of a couple of thousandths of an inch will change the sound. This is a mixed blessing/curse. It gives the whistle maker some ability to adjust the tone to a player’s preferences, but it can make it frustrating to achieve consistency. As I’ve said here, I’ve frequently made 2 or 3 whistles cut from the same 2x2 of wood,making them as nearly identical as I can, and ended up with whistles with distinctively different personalities.
Got it in one!
Silver is a beautiful metal. When not tarnished, yet not polished into a mirror, it is lovely indeed.
Humans do one thing exceedingly well: they perceive patterns where no patterns actually exist. Like seeing ships and whales in the clouds. I think it much more a matter of the individual, perhaps having forked out several hundred dollars extra for that sterling silver flute / whistle / trumpet bell / whatever, has simply convinced himself that there is a difference, when there is really no difference at all.
As a matter of fact, they did the experiment recently, comparing Stradivarius fiddles against someone else’s fiddles. http://www.thestrad.com/cpt-latests/blind-tested-soloists-unable-to-tell-stradivarius-violins-from-modern-instruments/ I’d put a penny to a pound that, all other things being equal, you couldn’t get the twelve top whistle players in the world to pass such a test any more reliably! And if there’s one bunch of musicians that go on and on about the supposedly inherent qualities of certain insturments, it’s classical violinists!
There is another factor too.
Buying an expensive silver whistle forced me to justify the expense by playing it almost exclusively. That improved my playing more than any other technique that I have tried. Not that the whistle is any hugely better than the same in brass, though they are different. One is slightly biased to the top of the range and one slightly biased to the lower end. I put this down to manufacturing variations and history - the brass one has had a harder life and it shows.
Buy an expensive whistle and you have to believe it is better. Then whistle monogamy becomes easier.
Hmmm. That’s what the headline says, but the article says there is a difference detected and they prefer the newer ones.
Not sure if that means Stradivarii are overrated, or that modern classical violinists have had their senses dulled by the modern world.
About whistles and violins I don’t know. Well, about whistles Burke offers identical whistles (and they probably ARE identical given his amazing consistency) in alloy and brass, and it seems like most everyone who owns both says they play a bit differently.
But about flutes I know from personal experience that this “it’s all in your head” claim is hogwash.
Top Boehm-flute headjoint makers are very exacting about their “cut”. The customer can choose between a variety of cuts, and a maker can make any number of headjoints with the same cut. Yes there will very small unique differences with every embouchure cut, but the various cuts are very very close, the differences being very subtle things that probably only a very good player could perceive.
So, at a booth at the National Flute Society convention I tried several headjoints on the same silver body. The headjoints all at the same cut, however there were around three headjoints each of a half-dozen different woods. I have the catalogue somewhere and I could look up the woods, but they included boxwood, granadilla, cocobolo, a type or two of rosewood, I can’t remember what all.
I spent quite a bit of time playing them, and each wood had very specific playing characteristics, things to do with voicing, resistance, response, and so forth. Yes they had different timbres but these weren’t as distinct as the things only the player would perceive. I could quite easily have sorted the headjoints blindfolded by wood. No scientist or non-flutist can tell me otherwise.
Yeah .. I have dreamed of making a silver whistle.
I’ll do one some day - I already have sources for the tubes, but no one will be able to afford it.
It would be like a Faberge Egg that can be played. Something for a collector - not a player.
If I got leave to do such a thing, then the trim would be 24 karat gold and have diamonds inset around the terminators - foot, tennon-rings and beak.
Maybe a filigree of platinum threading along it in a Celtic-vine..
Just imagine!!??
Which has been in fashion fer quite some time.
I was trying to search for that image of fully engraved whistle from a couple years ago. Whistle had a wooden box too. I can’t find it and it’s not a Harper, Susato, nor EthnicWind… none of those. This was high end collector’s item/whistle. I was new to the forum then but remember the image well. I think Denny found it in the archives.
Anyway… Why?
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/whistle-reviews/5543/1
I really have to responda bout the playing character of whistles and flutes:
The materials are chosen for durability and utility.
If the utility involves a degree of cosmetic presentation, then it is appropriate.
Regarding the actual sound of whistles and flutes:
The physics of it involves a complex quadratic mix of ultra-sensitive exponential dynamics.
In other words, it is a crap-bag of “Butterfly-effects”.
Microscopic differences in the geometry make significant results in how the thing plays.
So I defy anyone to make any 2 whistles exactly the same.
At best, we can aim to achieve within an acceptable range.
With experience, we can navigate between the bands of chaos inherent in such wildly non-linear parameters.
Then, on top of that, the player will have an even more bazaar range of sensitivities.
So you get a half-dynamic and another half-dynamic - and matching those is a dark art.
All I can say is that you can hear an almost subterranean “click” when the right player meets the right whistle. And that whistle might be a diamond-studded gold masterpiece, or it might be an off-the-shelf Generation throw-away.
What makes that “click” .. can’t say.
I can speculate though:
It seems to me that adaptive self-organising systems such as human beings are perfectly apt to deal with complex chaotic environments to achieve positive results -
simply stated - we know what we like.
There is no rule for “like”.
Just trust yourself - what you like is your way forward regardless of what others like.
At the end of the day, it works for you or not.
And when it works, you have something to give.
It’s nice to have something to give - specially a good tune 
Was this thread the one you were thinking of?
When people have a sport or hobby they love, they like to celebrate it.
As a personal anecdote, my dad was an avid skeet-shooter. Over the years he tried a number of different guns. Ultimately, he settled on a particular model that had beautiful silver inlays in the breech housing. Of course, the silver inlays had nothing to do with the gun’s shooting ability. But, it was a fine piece of skilled-workmanship to behold. It was simply a beautiful object.
It was a testament to, and celebration of, his love of the sport.
Of course, there’s no harm in that.
trill
Yes, that’s the thread. Thank you.
I think I’m going to faint all over again! Why? Why not! I want the box. 
Yes, Mitch I can imagine and can’t wait to see the Oz Legacy Edition!
Hmmmmmm…….. Ok, That would be me.
Why a silver whistle?
Well, sorry I’m not able to be philosophical, theoretical, technical, or deductive on the subject, but I do have a nice conical sterling silver whistle that I bought from its maker a couple decades ago. It’s the only silver whistle I’ve ever owned and I can only comment on it relative to the other whistles I’ve owned and/or played. To my ear the silver has the cleanest, purest sound of at least any whistles I’ve had. Clean and pure, but not sterile, and enough complexity of tone to keep me fond of it. Maybe it doesn’t have quite the type of tonal color or heaviness that its brass counterpart has, but it has a unique beauty that’s pleasing to my ears.
I do still generally like my brass whistles for their particular characteristics, although some days brass falls out of favor. And while I don’t own an aluminum whistle, the few I have played were high end and had that purity of tone that I seem to be naturally drawn to. Still, the pureness of tone in the silver was different than that of the aluminum --but not better or worse. I like both. I’d really like to try a silver whistle with a traditional style bore someday, but that probably wont happen. The next whistle I acquire will most likely need to be aluminum.
I wonder – are you blindly given two otherwise identical flutes to play; or are you opening the case of a well loved, well treasured flute that you’ve played for years and years and have many fond memories of? In other words, how much emotion are you investing in the choice? Is it not possible that you are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy here? I know – I’ve heard the same argument for the twenty years I’ve been hanging around musical instrument forums on line (and usually the same exact line regarding silver vs. everything else). How much of this is actually perception and (happy!) self-delusion, and how much of this is actual science?
Top Boehm-flute headjoint makers are very exacting about their “cut”. The customer can choose between a variety of cuts, and a maker can make any number of headjoints with the same cut. Yes there will very small unique differences with every embouchure cut, but the various cuts are very very close, the differences being very subtle things that probably only a very good player could perceive.
Of course – and therein lies one flaw in the experiment. If you try out this maker’s sterling flute, and it doesn’t quite sit right; then try his gold flute (with the same “cut”) and it’s like being inside Music – how much of that emotional connection is really due to the properties of the material itself – the gold vs. the silver – and how much of that is due to some slight variance in maker’s technique and how much is due to you, perhaps due to some (terribly minor!) error in setting your lip to the flute that now gets transfered to a distaste for the silver flute and a preference for the gold.
Nope – this is not an experiment that can be successfully run with a human involved. Too many emotional factors – too many “human factors” involved.
So, at a booth at the National Flute Society convention I tried several headjoints on the same silver body. The headjoints all at the same cut, however there were around three headjoints each of a half-dozen different woods. I have the catalogue somewhere and I could look up the woods, but they included boxwood, granadilla, cocobolo, a type or two of rosewood, I can’t remember what all.
I spent quite a bit of time playing them, and each wood had very specific playing characteristics, things to do with voicing, resistance, response, and so forth. Yes they had different timbres but these weren’t as distinct as the things only the player would perceive. I could quite easily have sorted the headjoints blindfolded by wood. No scientist or non-flutist can tell me otherwise.
I don’t doubt you at all! – but I do wonder how many of these “very specific playing characteristics” are dependent on that actual material and how much they are dependent on your own experience, your own pre-conceived notions, your own expectations and your own impossible-to-repeat experience in that moment. You are not the first musician I’ve ever met who has said basically the same exact thing. Now, if every single flute player in the world described exactly and precisely the same things with the same exact flutes; I’d be much more satisfied. But as well all know, everyone’s experience and results vary greatly when it comes to musical instruments!
The human mind + body + musical instrument system is an extremely complex mechanism and it is prone to seeing exactly what it wants to see, contrary to all evidence to the contrary.
I don’t think a satisfactory humanless experiment has been done with flutes or whistles; so I think the question remains unanswered. Though the wager still stands – I still think it’s basically psychology rather than metallurgy & chemistry!