Back about 1978, a friend gave me a couple of Aulos rcrd*rs–a white plastic C and a black plastic F (sopranino). At the same time, he gave me a wooden one–black, with no name on it. They’ve been buried away for years, but I finally found them again yesterday, and I kinda think that the wooden one is actually a whistle. (It’s in D.)
It’s probably at least 30 years old. The guy who gave it to me had lived in Japan for several decades at that point, and may have purchased it over there. I plan to clean it up and oil it, but thought I’d shoot some pics first.
Here are some photos. I’d be interested in knowing just what it is.
It definitely has a rcrd*r-like shape, but only six finger holes, and plays just like my other whistles. The sound is a lot like my other wooden whistles, too–very nice.
The mouthpiece is pretty fat.
The part of the body that slides into the head seems to have been wrapped in red thread and heavily waxed.
It’s definitely got a conical bore. This shows both ends of the body:
Might want to ask Ralph Sweet..He’s been making them about that long.. http://www.sweetheartflute.com/
"We play what we sell, and we stand by our work as we have done for 30 years. "
the tuning slide and mouthpiece look an awful lot like a maple Sweetheart whistle I used to have, down to the red thread on the slide.
I’ve got a Sweetheart flageolet that looks very much like the one pictured, which I bought about 10 years ago. Don’t know much of anything about the distinctions between flageolets, whistles, etc., but I do know that this wooden flageolet is played like a whistle and sounds a whole lot better than the actual tin whistles I purchased for Civil War reenacting. Both have only six holes, all on top, which is good for me, since I’m not sophisticated enough a musician to figure out what to do with more holes.
(I know a fifer who can play the entire William Tell Overture on the fife, with only six holes, so my philosophy has sort of become: If he can do concert pieces with only six holes, why would I need more?)
Normally, in academic writing, the term flageolet is used for an instrument which was a fipple flute with a pipe for the mouthpiece, and a sponge to absorb moisture and provide backpressure. It derived from the tabor pipe, and had two finger holes and a thumb hole for each hand. They often were keyed. An English flageolet was developed that had the six fingerholes on the front, thus tinwhistles are sometimes called flageolets.
Some schools of thought would see flageolets, whistles, and pipes as different forms of the same thing. Generation, one of the classic makers of tinwhistles, produces its whistles in both 3-hole pipe form, and in 6-hole flageolet form.
As for wooden whistles being called flageolets, I think it is a matter of they are obviously more expensively made than to easily be thought of as penny whistles, and not made of tin, so hard to call them the alternative, tin whistle. That’s probably why Generation uses the word flageolet, as well, as their whistles are neither of tinplate nor a penny (Clarke sometimes claims the only true right to be called a penny whistle, because they are supposedly the only brand to have ever sold for one penny).
The first Clarke “original” that i bought (black with diamonds) came with a piece of paper where they claimed that the name pennywhistle didn’t come from them costing a penny, but from beggar boys who used to play whistle on the street for pennies from passersby.
