Chiff and Fipple Forums

Hello there everyone! I need a little help. I am brand new here and know nothing of tin whistles except I love their sound and want to get my friend one for Christmas. We have been listening to Robin Williamson a lot lately and I was wondering if anyone could tell me what type(?)(key?) of whistle he plays on such songs as "Whistle Tune" and "Empty Pocket Blues" on the eponymous album 'The Incredible String Band'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcn2LmXQSHg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m83Wba_24Ew
(Do links work here? I have no idea...)
This would be the kind of whistle I want to get. Also, if you could perhaps recommend a decent lower-end whistle good for a beginner that would be awesome!

Generation, Clarkes, Faedog, Waltons, Tony Dixon are some of the makers whistles that I have in high D, which is the most often recommended key for folk tunes, including ITM.

Without a photo, there's little to go on. The whistle in a recording will have been put through EQ and compression. It sounds like a basic model, a somewhat familiar tone to it, but I'm guessing. That narrows it down to a list of about 35 possibilities.

Beginner level, or lower priced whistles I would be OK with, being a musician already, would include:
Oak, Tony Dixon DX001 (or similar), Walton's Mellow D model or the Little Black D, Becker, Timothy J Potter, Goldfinch, Feadog Pro. The Clarke Celtic model (the green one), may be acceptable to some, but it's too quiet for my liking.

You might get a million different answers for your questions. Read all you can, this site is a gold mine of info.

Marnie Kringles and a Half a New Ear.

At the time when these recordings were made (1970ies), virtually the only whistles available were Generation and Clarke.
Since Clarkes were only produced in C and these recordings were played on a Bb whistle, I'm 99.9% sure it was a Generation.

That particular album was made in the mid-late 60s, so yes, it's most likely a GenBb. But I saw them a couple of years later, and Robin was also playing Indian bamboo whistles.

Oh my! Thanks for all the help! I just wung it, went ahead and bought a couple so they would get here in time for Christmas. Going off of a bit of info I could glean from YouTube. I ordered a Clarke Sweetone D and a Faedog Nickel in C. I hope they are good ones! We are COMPLETE beginners but very excited to be entering this world of worlds!

Just wondering, what is ITM?

I would have LOVED to have seen them back in the day! Jealous.

Thanks for all the help! I am glad to have found this lovely community and can't wait to dive in! I'm sure I'll be spending hours on here. It's a bit overwhelming

emptypockets wrote:Just wondering, what is ITM?

ITM is a sad, life-long affliction. It's an abbreviation for Irish Traditional Music.

There is another affliction—WhOAD—that, while you haven't experienced it yet, you will. [And I note that the formal definition of WhOAD is missing from the Forum as "The Book" seems to have gone missing from the web site. Perhaps a sticky is needed..]

Best wishes.

Steve

emptypockets wrote:Just wondering, what is ITM?

1. An irritating abbreviation for Irish Traditional Music.
2. An eBay item as part of an ebay URL.

(Cross-post with Steve!)

Here's a live performance on German TV which wasn't broadcasted - for good reason IMO...
To be fair, most of their other performances were a lot better

MichaelLoos wrote:Here's a live performance on German TV which wasn't broadcasted - for good reason IMO...
To be fair, most of their other performances were a lot better

Is its not being broadcast the reason there's no link?

Steve Bliven wrote:

emptypockets wrote:Just wondering, what is ITM?

ITM is a sad, life-long affliction. It's an abbreviation for Irish Traditional Music.
There is another affliction—WhOAD—that, while you haven't experienced it yet, you will. [And I note that the formal definition of WhOAD is missing from the Forum as "The Book" seems to have gone missing from the web site. Perhaps a sticky is needed..]
Best wishes.
Steve

I've been presuming WhoaD means something like "Whistle Owner Acquisition Disorder", a debilitating obsession with owning every type of whistle made, buying all whistles that you can physically reach with your fingers, special ordering those you can't, and probably spending so much time searching for whistles that you don't play them very well, and never play 95% of the whistles you own. It might mean something else. Is there a whistle player psychiatric hospital that can give us a definitive answer?

Jerry Freeman Bb whistles are available on eBay. I think that they are very good whistles. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Freeman-Whistl ... SwR0JUPHYb

RoberTunes wrote:

Steve Bliven wrote:[And I note that the formal definition of WhOAD is missing from the Forum as "The Book" seems to have gone missing from the web site. Perhaps a sticky is needed..]

I've been presuming WhoaD means something like "Whistle Owner Acquisition Disorder" ...

Ever since the loss of the original Main Page, WhOAD's standard definition is presumed lost along with it. So, just like any other cultural artifact that goes unmoored, there's going to be some room for interpretation. I think the original meaning was Whistle Obsessive Acquisition Disorder, but yours is as good as any.

The fluters have their pathology, too: FARDS. Sometimes it means Flute Acquisition Resistance Deficit Syndrome, but like WhOAD, it's been rendered in other ways that work just as well. That's the questionable beauty of it all. What could be more Poststructural?

RoberTunes wrote:Is there a whistle player psychiatric hospital ... ?

And if not, why not?

Wiki says the Incredible String Band was "active" 1966-1974 so as Michael says the only whistles readily available then were

Clarke: key of C only.

Generation: keys (from lowest to highest) Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G

If it's a Bb then yes it was a Generation, or one of those cheap Indian bamboo whistles. I have a B (natural) Indian bamboo whistle that I bought around 1980 that plays great.

Yes if that's what you're after then a Jerry Freeman modified Generation Bb would be your most reliable option, to re-create that Incredible String Band sound.

Not sure why somebody would want to, actually, because there are far better recordings of whistle available, for example the fantastic album Feadoga Stain by Mary Bergin.

Big ISB fan myself and have listened to that album many many times. I would bet money that it's a bamboo whistle he uses, those recordings sound nothing like a Generation. Plus, a bamboo whistle just seems more like Robin's style in that era.