Tell us something.: You just slip out the back, Jack Make a new plan, Stan You don't need to be coy, Roy Just get yourself free Hop on the bus, Gus You don't need to discuss much Just drop off the key, Lee And get yourself free
RoberTunes wrote:Whistles once used as to serenade mammoths? The imagination runs wild.
Eric The Flutemaker is offering a whistle based on
flute/whistles found from Ice Age Europe, about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago.
Mammoth bones found at the same dig.
RoberTunes wrote:Whistles once used as to serenade mammoths? The imagination runs wild.
Eric The Flutemaker is offering a whistle based on
flute/whistles found from Ice Age Europe, about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago.
Mammoth bones found at the same dig.
Wow, what amazing marketing malarkey: His ice age flute bears as much resemblance to the original as a paper airplane does to an Eagle.
Thank goodness someone else noticed this.
Completely different and unrelated material, much bigger bore, no measurement of the instrument so who knows about the holes (one of which he moved around the back), and a guess at how long the instrument is to make a "scale." Oh, and the original has two grooves in the top, this just one.
He also makes what he calls an Arabian flute or whistle. Something that bears no resemblance to any Arabian flute-type instrument in it's tuning. It would be like making a whistle in Dorian scale and calling it a traditional English whistle. Ridiculous and a little insulting to the culture in my opinion.
Tell us something.: Playing Scottish and Irish music in California for 45 years. These days many discussions are migrating to Facebook but I prefer the online chat forum format.
is a bit different and probably more complicated than you make it sound. Colin Goldie went ahead under his own name after being lcienced to use the Overton design and name for years, not sure you can say he 'took over'.
I don't exactly know the specifics, but as I understand it both Goldie and Phil Hardy studied with Overton and had a license to make whistles in his name. Then, due to philosophical differences, Hardy split off and moved away from the Overton/Goldie orbit, focusing on techniques that allowed him to mass-produce whistles before hand-finishing. That's probably fairly oversimplified but the gist is that both Goldie and Hardy come out of the Overton "family tree" of whistlemaking, and at some point in time (I believe the early to mid 90s) one could potentially buy an "Overton" whistle made from any of the three.
bigsciota wrote:
I don't exactly know the specifics, but as I understand it both Goldie and Phil Hardy studied with Overton and had a license to make whistles in his name. Then, due to philosophical differences, Hardy split off and moved away from the Overton/Goldie orbit, focusing on techniques that allowed him to mass-produce whistles before hand-finishing. That's probably fairly oversimplified but the gist is that both Goldie and Hardy come out of the Overton "family tree" of whistlemaking, and at some point in time (I believe the early to mid 90s) one could potentially buy an "Overton" whistle made from any of the three.
I don't know the finer points of it either, just what I have read here over the years. Both Phil Hardy and Colin Goldie were licensed to use the Overton name. Phil dropped out, Colin continued on until Bernard's death. There were issues over the licensing fees the family required then and he went ahead under his own steam/name, that's my recollection anyway. And that's the reason I suggested he didn't 'take over' but rather went out on his own, effectively parting company with the Overton name. It's probably worth searching what he he posted here about the situation at the time, if you're into that sort of detail.
Tell us something.: Playing Scottish and Irish music in California for 45 years. These days many discussions are migrating to Facebook but I prefer the online chat forum format.
Bernard and I, over the Summer of 1970, designed and manufactured the first of the Overton flutes...the Overton flute, or nowadays it's called a Low Whistle.
Phil Hardy says that from around the mid-1970s Bernard Overton was making the Davey Spillane style, or big-hole, Low Whistle, with a short beak and a very tight windway which Phil says gave "huge backpressure, massive sound."
Phil says that he and Colin Goldie collaborated on a design with longer beak and wider windway, and that in 1990 Colin made a whistle like this for him, which he still has.
Colin Goldie's site states that he "began making whistles" in 1993, and also that his whistles were stamped Overton from 1993 to August 2009.
I don't know the dates that Phil Hardie was making whistles with the Overton stamp.
Richard Cook c1980 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle
An obvious thought occurs to me that old videos would show many whistles being played in decades past, which could be identified. Tommy Makem, Dubliners, and the anthology DVD Come West Along the Road for example.
My source was a presentation given by John Skelton. I assume it's true but it might not be. It's also possible I'm not remembering it correctly.
It is true they were available in C only for a long time, a D was (re)introduced some time during the eighties (? I remember them coming in but not quite when, I wasn't paying too much attention at the time to be honest). But there is enopugh evidence to suggest they were originally available in a number of keys. I can see where he was coming from saying that anyway.
Clarke were not making Ds in the 1970s and early 1980s. Around that time Dave Shaw started making Clarke-type whistles in a variety of keys, and one of the strong reasons to buy one was that - unlike Clarke - he made high D models. I bought a couple of them in 1985 - I know the date because it was after my return to GB from Australia. Clarke Ds appeared - or re-appeared, I don't know - very shortly after that. So I think we have Shaw to thank for putting a rocket up the Clarke company's proverbial.
You have to scroll all the way down to get to the timeline. Being of Norman Irish descent myself, I was tickled to learn there that one of the bone flutes discovered was made by Normans.
"In whistlemaking, attention to detail is what separates the pros from the cons."
It's a bit of a random selection with enourmous holes in it isn't it? And then there's the silly mistakes that eat away at the credibility of this 'history':
His consistently referring to 'Island' when he means 'Ireland' and stuff like this :
19th Century -Many new makers-
Generation, Feadog and others start producing high whistles
19th Century -Great players popularised the Tin Whistle
Mary Bergin, Micho Russell, Sean Potts, Brian Finnegan and others.
that makes you, well, wishing he at least got a proofreader in.
LI Whistler wrote: ↑Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:26 pm
An obvious thought occurs to me that old videos would show many whistles being played in decades past, which could be identified. Tommy Makem, Dubliners, and the anthology DVD Come West Along the Road for example.
8 or 9 times out of 10 they seem to be Generations. But Oaks and Clarkes are decently well-represented; many of the videos on YouTube of Micho Russell he seems to be playing an Oak, for example.
.
