Peter Laban wrote:<Groan>
I was going to walk away from this thread.
This is how a Faedog sounds for me straight out of the box, randomly picked. This one is my son's practice whistle. It's not maybe the greatest whistle I ever played, I am not Feadog's greatest fan and it is a bit hissy in the octave. It does however not by a long shot sound like the soundclip in the advertisement. It may not be perfect, a learner can work away with it for years without a bother.
Traditional players do not accept raspy whistles by the way. Above post strikes me as unbelievably condescending.
Lovely! Certainly proves that a cheapy can sound excellent when the player knows what the heck they are doing.
Once again, the stress needs to be on learning to play, rather than which whistle.
When you learn around a difficulty (for example, my water weasel has a tendancy to be difficult to get the high a and b on without a hideous honk) you are becoming a better player. I have to play it differently than my Burke DBSBT, or my Jerry Tweeked Mellow Dog, or my neighbor's Busman, or my friend's Thin Weasel. All sound best when played well by a good whistler. All sound like crap when played by a crappy one. We're all basically crappy players until we've put in the time and effort to get good.
Beginners can get confused about what it is that is wrong with their playing, and though occaisionally it might be a poor whistle, it is usually just inexperience and lack of skill. Unfortunately for most of us, a teacher is not close at hand. The idea that owning a whistle that is most likely not going to give problems is a really attractive one, as then you can know with reasonable certainty that it is your technique, and then focus on that rather than feel like you are battling something that may not be necessary.
If you can afford a good high end whistle, by all means get one, but do your homework first. Just keep in mind that high end whistles are not necessarily better than a good cheap one.
My serious advice would be to just keep playing and practicing, and listening, and playing and listening, and practicing ... you get the picture. .. get the most out of whatever whistle you have, and don't expect to be as good as the big guys in any small number of years. You get to be as good as *you* can get, and that takes a lifetime.
