hi all
I am looking to buy a couple of wood whistles (in D and C). I will use them to play traditional Italian music, not Irish music, so the closer the sound it’s to a recorder, the better it is for my purposes.
Any reccomendation besides Jon Swayne?
thks in advance
Michel
Try Phil Bleazey’s whistles, http://www.bleazey.co.uk/.
They’re far too much like a recorder tone for me (not anything wrong with that per se, but if I wanted recorder tone I’d play my recorders) … so they should be just what you’re after!
Having owned a couple of Bleazeys, a couple of Swaynes, and a Rose, the Rose is by far the most recorder like. Among the Bleazeys and Swaynes, one of each was kind of recordery and one of each was definitely very chiffy. Fred Rose has a reputation for consistently very pure-sounding whistles. Once for fun I had my wife listen out of sight outside the room I was playing in, and played the same tune on the Rose whistle and a Moeck recorder. She said the recorder sounded more like a whistle.
Thank you for the tip. I had in the past a little G flute made by Bleazey and it wasn’t bad at all!
I understand what you mean but I’d just like to have the sound of a recorder and the fingering of a whistle.
How would you compare it to a Swayne whistle?
Hi Chas, just noticed now your post. Very useful bit of information, thanks. Does Rose have a waiting list? And does he make other pitches (C?).
Thanks beforehand
m
Buy a recorder.
Well, a recorder has a different fingering which won’t work for me as I can’t use the same finger work that I use with a whistle, so it’s not an option for me.
Anyway I appreciate your no-nonsense way of thinking 
Fred Rose’s website is http://www.fredrose.co.uk/ , and it has an email link.
Just an update on Fred Rose whistles. I contacted him about a month back and he has about a 6 month waiting list and more importantly his price has increased substantially from what’s shown on his website. Current price is in the neighborhood of 287 pounds sterling making his whistles comparable in price and current wait time to a Chris Abell whistle. So someone considering one of Fred’s whistles would be well-advised to contact him to get his current price and wait time.
You might want to try and find another one like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antique-Rosewood-Johannes-Adler-Recorder-11-5-/301064337652?pt=UK_Woodwind_Instruments&hash=item4618d538f4
I bought a plastic version and it’s great, really “recorder-like” but with six-hole-whistle fingering 
‘Plays and sounds lovely - the rosewood sound really shines through.’
Probably stained pear!
You’re welcome
Surely learning slightly different fingering won’t be that much of a problem?
For a player of Michel’s caliber, I’m sure you’re right. But reproducing the touch and ornamentation of his well-oiled simple system finger habits with the twisty cross-fingerings of a recorder is an exercise in frustration, perhaps terminal, for player and listner alike. Not to mention the different register crossover. So the request makes sense to me.
Hi Michel,
Get a D whistle, and fill the sound-window with some kind of putty to make the window about 7 to 7.5 mm wide.
It will then sound a bit like a recorder.
Hope this helps!
I recently bought an older Ronaldo Reyburn Low D whistle which has a big maple-wood head on a brass body, and it has a remarkable wonderful dark full tone, perhaps more like the tone of a Recorder than any other Low D which I’ve tried.
So I don’t think you need an all-wood whistle to get that sort of sound.
It has the ordinary six holes of Irish whistles and uses ordinary Irish whistle fingering.
I used to have a Ralph Sweet high D whistle back around 1980 that was all-wood, Rosewood, and it sounded very much like a Renaissance Recorder.
Good luck! Richard
If you go to this site
http://www.kerrywhistles.com/movie.php?groupID=46
and scroll down to the Chieftan V-4 video, at 6:34 he plays the Reyburn Low D with the big maple head and brass body. You can hear how lovely it sounds. However note that he’s intentionally making high B break on that whistle and on the MK he plays afterward; in fact the Chieftan V-4 breaks exactly like that too (I know, because I had the Cheiftan V-4 AND a Reyburn like that AND an MK like that and was able to compare them). Any Low D’s high B will fall to the low octave if you want it to.
Not to hijack Michel’s original query, but here’s a related question:
To my ear, whistles generally get shriller in the second octave, whereas a well-played recorder takes on a clear, almost liquid, tone in the high register. Is this a design function? Is it possible for the chirp of a whistle to be combined with the roundness of a recorder? And are there any whistles out there that meet that description?
Weren’t the Silberton model instruments from Foky Gruber something along those lines? I’ve never played one and only read about them (and it was quite some time ago, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about), but I was curious about this.
And I think the difference in the upper notes of a recorder is largely due to the thumbhole in the back being pinched in the second octave. I once read of somebody who included that on a whistle, which might meet the description you have given, if such a hole were placed on one of the aforementioned “recorder-sounding” whistles.
I’m not a good source of information on such things, so hopefully someone with more recorder knowledge will chime in. I would really like a hybrid instrument as well, for non ITM playing. I think it would be interesting to have a whistle with a big round recorder sound in the lower octave, with a recorder-like high end as well, like you have mentioned, yet with whistle fingering and a double-holed low C#/C . Is anyone making such a thing? Wasn’t there at one time a non-baroque recorder that’s pretty much like this? I actually began woodwinds with the recorder, and haven’t picked up recorder since I got into whistle. Such an instrument might get me back into recorder again!
Them sounds like fighting words on this here forum to me 
To my ear, whistles generally get shriller in the second octave, whereas a well-played recorder takes on a clear, almost liquid, tone in the high register. Is this a design function? Is it possible for the chirp of a whistle to be combined with the roundness of a recorder?
From my experience (drilling recorder-like thumb-holes in whistles), pinching the thumb-hole to access the second octave does cause a “clearer” or “purer” tone which I assumed was due to a loss of low harmonics. Not using the thumb-hole retains any “chirpiness” or “chiff” that the original had. That is to say, using a thumb-hole on a conventional six-hole whistle is optional, use it for a slightly different tone, ease of access (to the second octave) or reduced volume in the second octave, keep the hole covered for “normal” whistle functionality … the effects may be more noticeable on a tapered-bore whistle rather than a parallel-bore tube (ie a Clarke rather than a Generation)
YMMV
Maybe… But it’s not that easy to make a whistle sound like a recorder either.