I have three Clare whistles in D. One is my favorite. It’s old, the whistle head is differently molded than the new ones now. The new is still good, just different. I took a file to the sides of the window to file off these little tabs thingies, and put poster putty in the mouthpiece. Two is the same as one, but I’ve not tweaked it, and don’t plan to. Three is new, the mouthpiece is different that one and two. It’s also a two piece whistle which breaks down to a 6.5 and 5.75 inch sections. They are very easy to tweak, the whistle heads are not glued on. I like the two piece Clare a lot, it fits in an oversized glasses case.
While they all sounded very similar before any tweaking, I’m sure I could tell you which one was being played if I was blindedfolded and someone else played them. Not just say whether it’s a different whistle or the same one played twice, but tell specifically which one. Similar, but not the same.
As has been pointed out, collecting whistles, at least the mass produced one isn’t going to break the bank. I have a whistles by different manufacturers, and they all have some quality I enjoy about them. There isn’t one I regret buying, at least not yet!
My favorite Clare, Janis, is very much in tune. The lower octave is rock solid, a nice full tone, as the other two Clare’s, but stronger. The upper, more airy than my Feadog or Mellow D, not so bird-like, which is the Clare, old fashioned sound. She’s sweet, but a bit rough around the edges. But I connect with her the best, and really enjoy playing her, and obviously, practice a lot more.
I have a lot of musical instruments, clarinets, saxophones, Native American flutes, recorders, whistles. I play the whistles by far the most, because of the ability to play many songs I know by heart. They’re portable, don’t require reeds, and I feel free to improvise on the whistles, recorders and NA flutes, something I never could get myself to do very well on orchestra instruments. I feel like I should have a musical score in front of me. Not so with the keyless wind instruments. I can play anything on a clarinet by ear, but I don’t know, it’s just not as fun for some reason.
I love to listen to Irish traditional music, but don’t know any songs, yet. But I know plenty of other stuff, church hymns, Elvis, show tunes, tv show theme songs, and it’s just plain fun to play that stuff. I don’t get discouraged. I was busy, embellishing away, practicing grace notes and rolls, and my husband yelled from the other room... that sounds like a fancy version of The Brady Bunch song! I figure I was doing it right, since he could still tell what song I was playing
I too, prefer to play slow airs, and listen to them, too. I am working on a few very simple ones right now, reading music. when I get frustrated, I go back to improvising the show tunes. My biggest problem is having played clarinet for many years. When I read music, I keep reverting back to Bb clarinet fingering and tangling myself up. To me, three fingers down is a C (plus a thumb if there was a thumb hole) I do better playing by ear right now, until I can retrain my brain.
The saying goes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince (Or Princess) I only partially agree, because I don’t think any of my whistles are frogs. They all have something to offer, but for sure, I do have favorites.
But here’s the kicker, the Clare is the first whistle I bought. It took me a while to totally make friends with her, but even before I tweaked her, once I played all these other whistles I had collected, I realized I kept going back to her the most. Go figure. But that isn’t stopping me in the least from buying more whistles!
Lisa