I am thinking of getting a bamboo whistle but haven’t been able to find much information about them in general or by searching the board.
Can those who have had some experience with them give me some advice?
What are the breath requirements like? I’m familiar with the Clark, Overton, and Burke. How do they compare?
Which makers do you recommend? What are your opinions about Erik the Flutemaker’s whistles? What’s the difference between his Dublin whistles and the pennywhistles? (I’ve emailed Erik and hope to hear from him, but I thought I’d ask here, too.)
How do they sound? Level of chiff, sweet, pure, etc. etc. compared to other whistles?
I have one of Erik’s bamboo blues whistles, and while I like it, I will say it’s unlike the other whistles I’ve played. It’s got a plastic head (I think a Susato head) on a bamboo body. The bamboo smells nice and feels good, and the holes are easy to cover; on his blues whistle, the hole placement is different from a regular whistle (in order to get the blues scale)–there’s five holes on the front and a thumbhole in back. I think the normal scale whistles have standard hole placement.
The whistle is quite quiet in the first octave, and the bell note is extremely tempermental, meaning that, for me, it switches too easily between the first & second octaves. However, the good news is that the second octave is very easy to get, and sounds GREAT. I would describe the breath requirements as pretty low; you need breath control more than sheer volume. There’s some chiff. I like the whistle, but don’t play it all that often because, being a blues scale, is really just for improvising fun stuff. I would say this whistle would not be good for a beginner, but fun for a more experienced player.
I also have a double whistle from Erik, and this one is GREAT. I love it! Two Susatos bound together with the first three holes covered on one. It’s a lot of fun to play, because there’s so much you can do. Also, it impresses and delights others when they see or hear it. Very very easy to play and hard to sound “bad” on. I highly recommend these.
I have one of Erik’s bamboo flutes, an Arabic in “medium” size which I am exchanging for a “small,” because the hand span is too great for me, but then again, I have very small hands. I had never played a flute before, and I was able to get a sound from it within about two minutes of trying, so they seem easy to play. The tone was very nice, even from such a beginner as me.
Once at a local music festival I happened upon a merchant who was selling bamboo whistles made in some asian country. They were very cheap, so i thought I would have a go at one and if I liked maybe I would buy one. out of a lot of 9 I believe, only two made agreeable sounds. One of them I thought had a very nice sound, it had alot of character. The only problem with these better sounding ones is that they were terribly out of tune. I think what I am trying to say is stay away from the cheap ones, they’ll either sound like crap, or be WAY out of tune with both itself and all other instruments.
i bought a set of bamboos from high to low G for 30 euro’s, and tuned them myself, hole for hole. there’s handy to find out in wich key a tune is played in. it would be a waist of money to buy a high end C sharp or an F sharp just for this purpose. but i agree, there fairly rough in sound and playing.
Thanks, lixnaw, for the website. There are apparently more types of bamboo whistles than I’d ever imagined. Interesting stuff.
Kar–I appreciate your feedback about your Erik blues whistle. It sounds like a solid instrument, not one of the low quality ones that hb skunk warned against (love your Bert avatar, btw). The double whistle sounds amazing. I’ll have to try one of those out eventually.
