Philosophically, I believe in The One True Whistle.
The One True Whistle is the one that is the most fun to play, is in tune with itself, can be tuned to other instruments within reason, and wouldn’t send you to the therapist or the poor house if it got lost, broken, or stolen.
The One True Whistle is the one that travels and can survive suitcase, luggage handler, backpack, and hip pocket.
The One True Whistle is the one you’d take with you to the bomb shelter if the nukes started falling.
The One True Whistle is the one they stick in your cold, dead hand for your funeral photo.
There was also a time not too long ago when, for most of us common folk, The One True Whistle was the one you had. Having one decent whistle was a blessing no matter what its provenance or cost. From that point of view, multiple whistles seem extravagant and self indulgent.
That being said…I’m a diagnosed and chronic sufferer of Whistle Acquisition Disorder.
How do I reconcile my acquisitiveness with my belief in The One True Whistle?
As my grandma used to say, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a real prince.”
Be happy in the knowledge that, as long as you take reasonable care of them, you can eventually sell all your NON-OTWs here in the forum, thus regaining your perceived Zen state of minimalist perfection.
If you believe that somewhere out there is The One True Whistle, then it follows that you are searching for it. Can you do this search without acquisition? Of course not. So, there is nothing here to reconcile. Now, if you have so many whistles that you no longer have a place to sit, then maybe you have something to reconcile.
Let’s say you already have The One True Whistle; there still is no conflict in collecting others if you like. Call it research. Call it a whistle library. Or better yet, call it what it most likely is: Doubt. Aaaaand you’re back to where you started.
The One True Whistle is not to be found. It is to be shown.
Since The One True Whistle varies according to The One True Whistle Tune and The One True Whistle Context (including Occasion, Company, Acoustic etc.), there is no One True Whistle. There may, and perhaps should, be few, but not one.
This strikes me as an oxymoron. A thing being readily replaceable is the opposite of it being unique, which is what calling it The One implies. Well, unless we mean “the one true brand”. But in my experience whistles vary too much from whistle to whistle within the same brand.
As your Grandma points out, the two things are not in opposition as long as you move on from the frogs (or whistles) that don’t measure up.
I’ve owned a couple dozen Low D whistles over the last ten years. I have one now. I don’t see the point of keeping whistles that aren’t as good as my best one. They’re not collectibles, they’re not knick-knacks, they are tools to do a specific job.
Been a couple of years now and I still have one whistle, a Feadóg D, and it seems its The One. I wouldn’t mind trying a different type of whistle tho, one with a wooden block (Clarke C maybe-I don’t see the necessity of having another D)
Of course I have a dozen other instruments of all kinds…so the question for me would seem which one is the One True Instrument…?
I will offer that your budget will reconcile your acquisitiveness to some extent. Those individuals that limit their stable to the initial one whistle as The One miss out on oh so much… fun… its about the journey as well about the playing. There are woods, metals, plastics, and now 3-D printed whistles available that limiting to just one seems an outrage. Think of the colors that add to the aesthetic! There are so many whistle makers with the peculiarities of each whistle to be experienced and enjoyed or rejected. Oh, the power! My princely WHOAD is kicking in just thinking about this thread.
economists sometimes speak of a law of diminishing marginal utility, meaning that the first unit of consumption of a good or service yields more utility than the second and subsequent units, with a continuing reduction for greater amounts
That’s precisely true, concerning musical instruments, for myself and many musicians I know.
One example is reeds. In every Highland piper’s case there’s a reed in his chanter and a number of extra chanter reeds in boxes. As the saying goes “the only good reed is the one in the chanter”.
Same with instruments. I know loads of sax players and brass players and pipers and they do all their gigs on their best horn.
Why? Because musicians want optimal sound and performance whenever they play. There’s never a time when they say to themselves “today I want to sound poorer than I usually sound”.
If you have two cars, one extremely reliable and one which doesn’t run very well, which will you take on your next trip? When will you say to yourself “today I’d rather take the chance of not getting where I’m going”?
I have a friend who has the car he drives and several other broken-down cars on his property. That’s not me. I have the car I drive and no others. Same with instruments, for me.
(I do know a piper who is an exception to this. He maintains three sets of pipes and has them set up to play nearly identically and he regularly rotates playing all three. It’s a rarity in piping because the expense and maintenance-time is tripled to keep three sets in playing condition, and you can only play one set at a time anyway.)
Several equivalent instruments may not a requirement, but as each one sounds a little bit different, they are fun to have! And I figure sometimes they even might be necessary - if Susato whistles really are as loud as I’ve read, I wouldn’t want to play on in an apartment with neighbours.
It would also make perfect sense for me to have a small car in addition to my VW Transporter for when I don’t need the volume - but I can’t afford it. But in comparison to cars even expensive whistles are really cheap! And they need neither insurance nor fuel…
I’ve tried what Richard has done, but to no avail. I began to miss the whistles I had sold or had given away. I started thinking, “You mean you’re never going to play that whistle again?” At the same time, having too many whistles became something of a distraction from really getting to know each whistle, but having too few felt wrong as well. Therefore, I now have no more than two or three whistles each in the keys of high D, C, Bb, Mezzo A, G. I can’t go lower than the mezzo G because of an old left thumb injury, which deprives me of keys, but in a way, makes it easier to concentrate on what I already have.
There are times too, when nothing but my Susato Oriole D would dare survive the environmental conditions I subject it to, even though I have another D whose voice I like better. But on some occasions, the Susato Oriole D is just the one to play for no other reason than that I feel like it. As long as you actually like the sound and ergonomics of a whistle, can afford it, and actually like playing it, I see no harm in owning many whistles. Of course, this has nothing to do with the price of the whistle.
To quote Grandma again: “If you’re going to eat a frog (sell a whistle), don’t think about it too long. If you’re gonna eat several frogs, eat the big one first.”
But the difference in whistles goes beyond just good or bad, it encompasses “different”. Of my three low whistles I consider high end, Goldie, MK pro, and Onyx, each will play beautifully. But not the same.
So with whistles, it is not just about whether it pays well but whether it is appropriate for the music being played. Personally, I enjoy the differences.
I play bass and guitar and after searching for the perfect guitar I eventually learned to make them myself (mostly electrics) and now I have to one i play, after four prototypes, is exactly what i want. It took forty years to figure this out though, and also actually knowing how to play the instrument well. What the guitar can’t do is the stuff I’m not interested in doing, and what it CAN do is all the stuff I like to do.
I’m just discovering the exciting world of whistle seeking. I have a walton (meh) a Faedog (stinks) a Generation (good) and an Oak (the best), all in D. Cheap and fun to play. It’s amazing how different brass tubes with plastic fipples can be, even for rank beginner like me.
I have a Dixon low D that I kind of love the sound of but which is frustrating for reasons that could be my lack of playing skill but could be the whistle. Only way to find out is to try other whistles..
You perhaps are suggesting that one maintain an arsenal of Low D whistles, using each one for a certain genre (or even a specific tune).
I just can’t imagine myself having such a mindset. Thinking “for Carolan I prefer an MK Low D, for Sean Nos airs I prefer a Reyburn Low D, for jigs I prefer a Reviol Low D, for reels I prefer a Goldie Low D” is foreign to the way I approach instruments and music.
