Beginner seeking a 'better' Tin Whistle.

[steven00b]

I'm a beginner and have picked up 4 cheap tin whistles in D: Generation, Walton Little Black Whistle, Walton Brass & a Clarke Celtic (Sweetone). I have made all but the Walton Brass D tunable and filled the hollow section of the fipple with Blu Tack (aka Poster Putty). I also purchased a Generation Bb and am very happy with it.

I am currently learning a few tunes and switching between the D whistles. At the

I have just started playing in the upper octave on the D whistles and I find the sound rather ear piercing and really too loud for playing late in the evening, which is when I get the chance to play. I have been looking around for better made whistles online and have seen the Parks Walkabout Ivory C/D Combi with the variable sound hole for volume and sound control and wonder if this would be a good whistle. Unfortunately there are no music shops near me so I will need to buy online.

I am looking for information from anyone who knows of them, the good and the bad.

I appreciate any advice, thanks in advance.

[maki]

There are many fine whistles that are a step up from the cheapies.
Parks is a great one.
I also love Freeman Whistles.

BTW, welcome to the forum!!

[Feadoggie]

I'd agree with Maki. Lot's of good whistles. Parks are good whistles. Cary Parks is a member here.

One thing you will discover, maybe in a year or so, is that the whistles you already own are pretty good whistles. There is a magical phenomenon that occurs with novice whistlers. The cheapies sound bad when they start out. They buy a new, more expensive whistle or two or three or four or five. Nothing wrong with that. They find one they like, settle in with it and learn to play. Then one day they open a drawer and find the old whistle, pick it up, and find it is suddenly improved and is now pleasant sounding. What happened? Must be the little people working the magic.

That Bb Gen should be a good solution.

Welcome to the neighborhood.

Feadoggie

[krystlepye]

It's true... What Feadoggie said.

I've been playing whisle (not ITM though) for a some time... and I just saw this phenomenon happen in a shorter time frame. I got a Low D whistle that I thought didn't sound great in the second octave, and after 5 or 6 days of near constant noodling on the thing, it suddenly improved. I figure each whistle probably deserves a fair shake, in that you spend enough time on it to get to know it. I find now that the second register takes way less air than I thought it did at first.

My other theory, is that beginners aren't as fast (of course), so a high register note we might hear on a well played recording is not nearly as long in duration as our inexperience would necessitate... the notes don't sound so shrill when they are played at full speed. A big long toot on high b while we mentally decide which fingers go where for the next note

[megapop]

I find the sound rather ear piercing and really too loud for playing late in the evening, which is when I get the chance to play.

All whistles are inevitably getting much louder in the second octave as you don't have a vent hole (by default). At your other thread on thesession.org you mentioned that your Walton's plays well in the 2nd octave with a lovely sound... well, Walton's are on the quiet side. So what's wrong with this one? I also agree with Feadoggie that a Gen Bb is a very pleasant sounding whistle particularly for playing at home, but you already have one and are happy with it anyway. So what's wrong with this one?

That your whistles will get better with practice also concurs with what you were told over there at the mustard board, just in a less romantic manner. Few instruments actually sound good in the hands of a beginner, not even the "better" ones. And if you just want to make your whistles quieter, there are various possibilities with simple means like a strip of tape. Just search this site!

[krl66]

As regards the issue with loud/piercing upper octave notes for us beginners, I found that my PVC homemade GG style in A is quieter in the upper octave. Construction is a breeze and you can learn a lot about whistles by going through the process. I added a tone ring copied after the Parks design and between that and the wide bore A it really doesn't wake the kids or anger CINCHOUSE much at all.

Alternatively, the Parks and the Mellowdog are less problematic for me as a newb than the jar full of cheapies I own, though I defer to the experienced folks opinion that they all work with practice.

[pancelticpiper]

In my experience good vintage Generations and Feadogs have the volume of the two octaves balanced about as well as is possible, with really good Generations and Feadogs having extremely easy sweet 2nd octaves.

It's always going to be a tradeoff because of the fixed tone production mechanism of whistles. As far as I know there are two main ways to get a sweeter/softer 2nd octave:

1) use a narrower bore

2) tune the 2nd octave sharper

As for #1, the narrower the bore the more quiet the whistle is overall but also the more the bore favours the 2nd octave over the 1st octave. As the bore gets narrower the 1st octave becomes weaker (narrow enough and it won't sound at all) and the 2nd octave becomes easier to produce and sweeter. A wider bore favours the 1st octave (wide enough and the 2nd octave won't sound at all) and as the bore gets wider the 1st octave becomes stronger, louder, clearer, and more stable.

As for #2, a sharper 2nd octave means that to play the two octaves in tune relative to each other you need to blow the 1st octave more strongly and the 2nd octave more softly, thus somewhat offsetting the always-present volume differential between the two octaves. This factor, in my experience anyhow, shows up more in Low Whistles that ordinary high ones.

Anyhow there seems to me, oftentimes, to be a divide between 'traditional whistles' (as I might dub them, Generations and their ilk) and 'neo-whistles' (as I might dub Susatos and Burkes and their ilk) in this regard, old-school trad whistles having a narrower bore for length and sacrificing some power in the 1st octave to gain sweetness and ease/agility of tone production in the 2nd octave, and neo-whistles having a wider bore for length and emphasising power in the 1st octave and sacrificing sweetness and ease of tone production in the 2nd octave. These wider-bore whistles, seems to me, have a greater volume differential between the octaves than trad whistles, and tend to have 2nd octaves which are quite loud, and more than that slightly harsh in tone, and some lack of agility in production.

There is no perfect whistle! And all makers have to make decisions as to where to place that trade-off line between power in the 1st octave and sweetness and agility in the 2nd octave.

My old trusty whistles, both c1980, a Generation C and a Feadog D, have (to my mind) the best-possible tradeoff between clear round full 1st octaves and amazingly sweet and agile 2nd octaves.

Very like these 'classic' or 'traditional' whistles are Sindts in my opinion. I now have three Sindts and to my mind they retain much of what's great about old Generations, but adding some polish and sophistication. Also the narrow-bore Burke high D whistle in brass comes pretty close to classic/traditional whistles in performance.

There might be many many others! But I'm not a whistle collector. I know a guy who has hundreds of (high) D whistles from every obscure maker there is (but he's not much of a player).

[Peter Duggan]

Alternatively, the Parks and the Mellowdog are less problematic for me as a newb than the jar full of cheapies I own

Mellow Dog's got a larger-than-standard bore. Which may make it more forgiving to blow, but won't make it quieter up high. Likewise the Dixon Trad mentioned in the 'Session' discussion, which has an in-between bore and a very similar 'pressure profile' to the Mellow Dog.

For the interested, my (vintage) Generation will just nuzzle into the bore of my Dixon Trad with no real play, and my Dixon Trad even more neatly into my Mellow Dog.

I appreciate any advice, thanks in advance.

Listen to megapop!

[walrii]

Mack Hooker made a mouthpiece that fit any standard D whistle tube, called the White Cap. I have one on a Walton tube. Very quiet whistle with a nice balance between the octaves but a tendency to clog quickly. It makes a perfect whistle for playing without disturbing others. You can also put a small strip of paper in the windway to mute the whistle during practice. Muting however makes second octave notes sound in the lower octave. Not a perfect fix but great for practicing late at night when you must be very quiet.

Welcome to C&F.

[maki]

Mack Hoover makes great whistles, I have multiples.
My favorite quite whstle is a Susato with a plastic coated paper clip mute.
viewtopic.php?p=676358&highlight=

[steven00b]

Thank you all for the warm welcome and kind advice. Much nicer response than some that I got on the mustard board.

I had a 6 hour practice session switching between all the whistles and by the end I started to find that the ones that seemed impossible to get a decent sound out of before, suddenly sounded the best.

I tried the tape and blu tack tricks but it's still rather loud. You have made me more confident in what I have now, though I may get hold of a parks when pay day comes, just for something to put my my pocket and use at work / down the beach.

[maki]

There are a number number of two part or telescopic whistles.

[thejoecole]

As a beginner myself, I currently have two D whistles. I originally started out with a Feadog in D, but it made hideous screeching noises. Don't know if I had a whistle in dire need of tweaking or it was just me, but after I picked up a Clarke Sweetone I made more manageable noises . Still needing to learn breath control, my daughter got me a Susato Oriole which I found was a lot more forgiving than my Sweetone.


So now, I am practicing with my two D whistles (the Oriole and Sweetone). I like how I can play loud with one and soft with the other. I know my wife appreciates me using the lower/softer Sweetone in the evening - even though I've been banned from practicing after 10pm.


I am suppressing the urge to buy more and better whistles right now. Can't believe how the urge has struck to start a collection though I can't play very well (yet). What I did decide on is that my next whistle will likely be a Susato Oriole in Bb. I like the way the Bb sounds and I can just buy the body and use the same head from my Oriole D.


Thought I'd add my perspective from one beginner to another.

[Anomylous]

I second krystiepie... a big factor in second-octave screechiness is breath control. At first, you just throw a bunch of air at the high notes, and they're screechy and piercing. With practice, you learn to use the right amount of air, at the right pressure, to make those notes more pleasant. Even 3rd octave D is tolerable, at least on some whistles and in some settings.

But I don't actually know how to make the high notes *quiet*. Maybe look for tunes that don't go too much into the higher part of the register?

[s1m0n]

There are no better whistles. Play what you have. It sounds great.