I’m back from town, where my Burke got a “test-drive” by a more experienced whistler. He was impressed with the Burke–like I am–but he, too, had to work at those high notes, especially the high C# and D above it, and I also noticed that the high A and B weren’t always there for him either. He commented that he really had to push to get to those highest notes–he, too, thought it was harder than he expected it to be (and he’s played vastly more whistles than I have).
I will play around with it some more to see if it’s just me needing time to get used to the much higher air demands, but so much of what I’d read about the Burkes talked about how the air requirements were fairly low. I’ll be in Milwaukee for Irish Fest in a couple weeks, and I’m sure I’ll be able to find someone there who has played a Burke before that can tell me if mine is typical or not. In the meantime, I’ll probably contact Michael and pick his brain a bit. I love everything else about this whistle–it really is a beautiful instrument.
And Chuck offered to let me take a selection of his whistles with me to Milwaukee if I want, so I won’t be without a whistle I can actually play in public.
This is really interesting! Since this is the only one I’ve ever had a chance to play, I had nothing to judge by. How many have you gotten to play? If the narrow bore whistles aren’t so tricky, I might just have to look into one, but I’d sure like to have a chance to play one first now that I’ve found this Session whistle so tricky…
So, maybe it IS just me after all–I guess I must be really spoiled by my trusty old rolled tin whistle with the wooden fipple.
Annie
from Minnesota, but too far from the Twin Cities to take advantage of the whistling community there…
I’ve owned and played many Burkes over the years and still play one of Mike’s new DBSBTs as well as an older composite C, and Burkes are among the easiest to play I’ve experienced. And Burkes are well known for their consistency. I agree with Nick that they do take a little extra push on the high end but nothing drastic. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility you may have gotten one out of a thousand that might have an issue that Mike needs to take a look at. And what you’re experiencing may be the reason the seller got rid of it. You’ve already installed new o-rings and had another player give it a go, so about the only things you can do is clean the windway as Doc suggested and look closely at the blade edge to make sure it’s nice and clean with no nicks or obvious imperfections. If the blade edge is clean and the windway is clear and still gives you problems, by all means send it back to Mike. If you get it back and find you still have problems with the high A and B, then you know it’s you!
Even on the best whistles (which certainly includes Burkes) those two notes can be tricky until you get used to the instrument. They often need a tiny bit on tonguing to get them to speak cleanly, rather than a huge huff of air which makes the note sound shrill and/or harsh.
Those notes are also susceptible to problems due to moisture clogging. The old soap solution in the windway and warming the whistle before playing will help these.
The hallmark of a good whistle is an easy transition into the high notes. If the whistle doesn’t achieve that, it’s just not such a good whistle and the maker should spend some time back at the old drawing board.
I own or have owned Burkes in high D, C, A, G, F, and Low D and it never seemed to me that an inordinate amount of blowing was needed for high A and high B.
Are those high notes as sweet on my Burke high D session bore as on my really good old Generation and my really really good c1980 Feadog? No, but no whistle I’ve ever played is as sweet as that Feadog. I accept that bit of extra wind required on the Burke session bore as the price I pay for a bigger overall sound.
I play Low D’s mostly, and I will say that the Burke Low D I played for a few years had a very slighty harsh High B. The best way I can describe it is that the High B was “shout-y”, both somewhat louder and a tiny bit rougher in timbre than the other high notes. It took a bit of extra breath and care to keep it sounding under control. I figured it was the price I had to pay for the Burke’s incredibly huge booming Bottom D, the best of any Low D I’ve played. All that being said, I wouldn’t characterise that Burke Low D’s high B as being “difficult” or “nearly impossible” or anything; the difference in tone between High B and the rest of the upper register was rather subtle. On Low D’s anyway there seems to be an inescapable compromise between power in the lowest notes and sweetness in the highest note usual in Irish trad, high B.
On this particular Burke owned by the Original Poster, I wonder if the blade has been bent or some such damage.
There are quite a few different performance characteristics I’m looking for, and unfortunately no whistle can excel at all of them. Each whistle design represents a bundle of compromises.
(The caveat is that I primarily play Low Ds and that’s where my experience mostly is.)
Burkes are amazingly smooth “over the break”, the “buttery” quality many speak of.
But every Low D I’ve played that went right up to High B with ease and sweetness had wimpy low notes. Every Low D I’ve played that has big fat strong low notes has a High B that requires a bit of a “push”.
Yea…what he, er…I, er…others have said. Every whistle has its own personality and I tend to agree that you may just need to work with it longer and get used to the air requirements. However, it never hurts to have a used whistle gone over and tuned up by the maker. You’d then basically have a new whistle up to Mike’s standards. Best possible approach to your issue…contact Mike. Mike loves to “talk whistle” and I’m sure he can first help you with suggestions how to approach playing the whistle and if that doesn’t help, he can give you an idea what he’d charge to go over it and make it right if there’s a problem. I can’t imagine it costing much and would be worth it.
I had the very great pleasure of meeting Michael Burke at the Milwaukee Irish Fest last Saturday. The week prior to the festival, classes are available through Irish Fest Summer School and I was able to take an intermediate/advanced tin whistle class with Joanie Madden–talk about a great time! Joanie gave my Burke whistle a go, and then told me to contact Michael, who would be attending the festival to see if he had time to meet with me.
Well, the problem was multi-fold. He cleaned it better than I had been able to, he tweaked the windway slightly, and he tweaked my breathing a bit. He also gave me some exercises to practice to help me learn better control of that jump between registers, and he explained that a cheap whistle like the one I was used to was very easy to jump because it has very little tonal range compared to my Burke (he did a great job of demonstrating this to me…). By the time we parted ways, I was jumping to those upper notes without a problem–all the way up to the second high D!
So it was me, and it was the whistle too (more me, I suspect, but his tweaking and cleaning seemed to really help a lot…).
Michael is a really great guy who wants to see folks getting the most out of those beautiful whistles he creates! Hats off to you, Michael Burke! (And Joanie, too! Thank you!)
