Watch this wonderful RTE show with LOF and fiddler Paddy Glackin: http://www.rte.ie/tv/thefullset/ep1.html
Now the mystery: At around 18 min into the show, Liam plays an air on what looks like a heavily dented and altered Gen whistle: You can see duct tape around the (most probably split) mouthpiece. The fipple blade seems to have been altered. What puzzles me most are two brass sleeves around the body. Has the placement of the holes been altered? And look at the length of the tube and the extra hole at the bottom! I haven't checked the tuning of the whistle but I don't recall seeing Liam play this Frankenwhistle. What do you think?

Here's the thing,
This whistle started out life as a Bb whistle but it is now a B whistle.
Part of the conversion process involves cutting a measured piece off each end and then tuning some of the holes. This can be done by putting some tape partially over the holes.
It looks like a much more permanent job was done by placing larger diameter brass bands over the holes and drilling the new size tone holes.

The tape on the head of the whistle is probably covering a crack. Red topped generations will eventually crack. My Bb is from the late 80's is the same. A little PTFE tape under the head and some kind of sticky tape over it will seal it up nicely.

Tommy

Wow, I'd sure love to see the video, but it's not working for me. I click on either link (full video or "exclusive performance") and all I get is the Simpsons trailer.

After the trailer, it just freezes on Homer and never moves on to the video. I let it sit for over five minutes. I've tried both Firefox and IE.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jason

I think you need to have real player installed to view it.

This, my friends, is thrift.

Back in the day, there were no unfrankenfluted whistles that could play in B. Generation made six keys (at least two of them unplayable*), and Clarke made one, then two.

And that was it. Anything else you wanted, you were on your own.

*an odd decision from a commercial basis, but presumably an indication that Gens were conceived of as toys for children, not musical instruments in their own right.

Well... the clientele was a bit limited back then.

Funny how some folks still prefer the Generations. Although I've heard that Mary Bergin has finally retired he Generations and is playing modern, higher quality whistles. Sindts I think?

I think to say that she has retired the Gens may be a bit of exaggeration. How many whistle players do you know that play one and only one whistle? She certainly has taken a liking to John's whistles though... and I'm sure that's helped his business out plenty

I'm a proud Sindt owner but I still play my Gen red top and green top D's just as much.

Different strokes...personally I never like Generations. Back when them and Clarkes were the only ones you could get, I never really played the whistle much. I've found I play whistle more often now that I've got much better whistles, as it's a lot easier and sometimes more relaxing to pull out a Bb whistle for some tunes. Than a flute or pipes.

I made a B Generation out of a B flat, and a C sharp Generation out of a C, and you don't have to weld on pieces and use duct tape. You simply cut enough off the top of the tube so that the upper hand notes are in tune to the new key. You find that now the lowest three notes are flat, and you fix them by cutting a bit off the bottom of the tube and enlarging the two lowest tone holes. My B natural and C sharp whistles are right in tune and play better than they started out!