Yes, good whistles ARE worth it!

There was a young man at my daughter’s school who added a very nice touch to her school’s production of “Brigadoon” by playing a little dirge that he made up on his “Guinness” brand plastic high D whistle (actually, I think its a “Walton’s” brand.)

As long as he was “free playing” it was OK. Well, he got tons of positive feedback so tonight he tried to play a verse of a song in concert with the choir and piano (which has been tuned quite recently)(The piano that is.. the choir… -eh-)

Didn’t work. He took a pocket knife to a gun fight.

HOPEFULLY he’ll spend the $37 (USD) for a Susato and not give up.

I would never use an untweaked Walton to play with others.
He doesn’t even need to shell out that much, just changing to
a different cheapie would probably help tremendously.

Was it that he was out of tune or just not loud enough? Playing any unamplified whistle against a piano and choir is a battle I wouldn’t want to fight.

The biggest problem was being out of tune. Microphones and a PA system can address the problem of not being loud enough but if instrument sounds bad, there’s nothing you can do.

We own a few of the well known cheapies (yes, “tweaked.”) They would not have solved the problem. Fine for around here, OK for casual sessions, but not onstage.

The reality is that nowadays all of those darn guitar, fiddle and mando (and cittern and bass and cello…etc) players all have dawgone electronic tuning meters… they get all cranky when you try to get them to all retune to your favorite [fill in the blank with name of whistle]

Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but I’m afraid I don’t quite understand the explanation then. :confused:

If the whistle was out of tune to concert pitch or whatever the choir was using, why not just adjust the whistle? Most cheapies can be tuned around A440 by adjusting the mouthpice, and most (though not all!) cheapies are fairly well in tune with themselves. That includes the Guinness/Waltons Little Black D. As with all whistles, they require some breath control for good intonation. I’ve tried several tweaked whistles, and they were also well in tune.

(Full disclosure: my one Guinness whistle had a slightly short barrel and sharp bell tone, but an end-choke fixed that. I have seen some iffy Waltons, though.)

As for electronic tuners, they’re not for string instruments only! Why shouldn’t the other players get cranky if they’re asked to retune to an out of tune whistle? Tune the whistle to concert pitch with one of those nifty tuners, and everyone’s happy.

Playing with a choir or vocals can be tricky, because choirs often sing intuitively in just intonation, even when accompanied by an equal tempered piano. Playing in tune in just intonation may take some experience on the part of the player, but you can hardly blame the whistle for that.

And a Susato or other more expensive whistles won’t solve that problem. They may be worth it, but that seems to have little to do with the situation described. It sounds more a matter of an inexperienced young player, or possibly his getting stuck with one really bum whistle.