Clarke's Tin Whistle

[ohiopiper]

Does anyone versed in whistles know if one can be or is made with bagpipe fingering? I wuld sincerely hate to have to learn new fingering at my age. I cannot get a tune out of my nieces' recorders from elementary school, so something familiar to me would be a good introduction to the whistle. nd give me another instrument, other than smallpipes and GHB.

[NSpiper]

This company offers a whistle with bagpipe fingering. http://elfsongwhistles.com/index.htm
I have never played one but have been thinking about giving it a try.

[robbiethepiper]

used to make my living playing one. Must be in "D". Best sounding model is "sweetone". Conical bores give lot better tone, particularly at high end where cylindrical types can sound shrill. Be aware that, although cheap and simple, these are serious instruments and like any other, you will not suceed without the self discipline of practicing EVERY day, no matter how little. frequency of practice matters more than overall amount.....

[ohiopiper]

Two things. First, thanks to NSpiper for the link to Elfsong whistles. I might give the whistle a try here shortly. Secondly, Robbie the piper is exactly right. Piping for five minutes a day gives me more yield than piping for an hour once a week. Although it is very hard to pipe for five minutes. Always seems to turn into thirty or forty.

[OC Richard]

I've played whistle for over 30 years and have some input about these various topics...

About Clarke whistles: Back when I started playing there were really only two types of whistle available, and all the traditional players used one or the other: the Clarke (only made in C at that time) and the Generation. Clarke Cs were highly respected among traditional players. Thing is, they're crudely made with little quality control so that to get one that plays great you either have to try dozens or hundreds of them or modify the one you have to make it play great. With the Clarke it's very easy, with pliers etc, to change the height and shape of the winday and the position and shape of the blade.

A friend who was an excellent whistle player lived in Ireland for a couple years in the mid-70s and his Clarke C was called by some traditional players over there who tried it "the best whistle they'd ever played". He loaned it to me for a few days and I spent many hours modifying my Clarke to sound like his. I never got that magic tone entirely, but I got 95% of the way there.

About Generations and other inexpensive whistles: The quality control tends to be spotty or nonexistant and you might have to try dozens of Gens to find one that plays great. But there is nothing like a really good Gen! The Gen C I've been playing since the 70s is the best whistle at any price that I've ever played, better than the $700 sterling silver Copeland or any of the hundreds of other high-end whistles that I've owned or tried.

When I started playing Generation Ds were the only Ds available and every serious whistle player tried every one he could get his hands on, in a lifelong Quest for the best Gen D possible.

About modifying Generations: The upper octave tends to be flat and this can be helped or cured by packing something in the head cavity.

Also you can turn a mediocre Gen into a great Gen by sawing the head in two right in the middle of the windway, filing both sides, and gluing the head back together with plastic model cement. When you glue it back together the glue remains pliable for a bit and you can get the orientation of the blade vis-a-vis the windway just right. For my taste it's a rather small opening visible at the bottom. The filing brings the blade closer to the windway which helps raise the flat second octave.

Many Gens have certain out of tune notes, for example most Ds and Ebs need to have the 5th hole (the Major 3rd) carved out to raise the pitch of that note.

Just yesterday I cut and glued a Bb Gen head and the result was fantastic. It improved the tuning and voicing without changing that great Gen sound.

About Jerry Freeman whistles: Jerry takes off-the-shelf Gens (and other "cheapies") and modifies them. His "tweaking" of Gens consists of making an extension of the blade to 1) reduce the distance and 2) lower the blade. He takes all the quesswork and trial and error and Questlike aspect out of cheapie purchasing because you know you'll get a whistle that plays well. His tweak corrects the flat 2nd octave seen in most cheapies.

I own two Freemans, a Gen Eb and a Gen Bb. I used the Bb every day on my recent tour and it plays excellently with perfect intonation. However I must say that his modification takes away some of that magic old-school Generation tone. I've tried all the various Freeman whistles and they tend to blandness of tone, different from the round ringing fullness of a really good Gen.

About high-end whistles: I own several Burkes (from lowest to highest low F, G, A, and ordinary D) and they perform wonderfully. Sindts are terrific. Both Burkes and Sindts, to me, capture that old-school Genlike tone but are completely consistent and reliable.

Overtons, now called Goldies, have been for many years the choice of top pros and have a very special tone all their own.

About whistles with Scottish bagpipe fingering: My advice is that if you want to play whistle get an ordinary whistle and learn it. The fingering is completely simple and will pose no problem to any piper.

Trouble is, to get a whistle to play with GHB fingering a couple of the holes have to be placed far from their acoustically correct positions to get the low octave to play in tune, and the 2nd octave doesn't play right. So I regard such whistles as little more than novelties. The fact is that whistles don't work correctly with partially closed fingerings such as GHB fingerings.

If a whistle player were to want to learn the GHB properly I would tell them to learn the correct GHB fingerings rather than modify a GHB chanter to play with whistle fingerings, and it goes the other way too. Each instrument requires different fingerings and technique.