low air requirement whistles????

[IDAwHOa]

Overtons get the balance about right I think.

Yeah - especially once you get past the eye-popping backpressure in the upper octave......

Chuck, I do not know for what you speak regarding this. Yes, my Overton low d DOES have higher back pressure than most of the rest of my whistles, but nothing near "eye-popping" proportions. I kind of like having to lean into it a little bit as that allows me to control the sound with much more affect than if I was blowing through something that amounted to nothing more than an open tube!!! My Susato seems like that, so does my Jubilee.

Oh, they are playable, but really require breath planning. Kind of like the low air whistles require.

[nashradus]

Overtons get the balance about right I think.

Yeah - especially once you get past the eye-popping backpressure in the upper octave......

For low air requirements, nothing I've seen comes even close to Hoover. The untimate are the narrow bore brass whstles, but the PVC and whitecaps come close.

For cheap, though, nothing comes even close to putting a $20 Whitecap on whatever old brass tube you have lying about. (OK, or you can also buy a $5 cheapie to put it on if you don't have a bunch lying around already)

Mack made me a Generation D with his $20.00 whitecap on it. I asked him to open it up a bit and now this is my favorite. Just tell him to allow alittle more air and he will adjust it. He is a Customer focused guy and nice to know as well. These are not session whistles however. Fantastic for practice.

Thought I'd pitch in for the Whitecap. I bought one from Mack last month because I ruined the original cap on the Feadog that I had. I found the bore to be just a bit wider than it should've been for the wc. I sent the whistle and cap to Mack and got it fitted by him at no extra cost and now I have this amazingly quiet and sweet whistle that allows me to play in my apartment in the dead of the night without having my neighbors asking me to pipe it down. And I agree with the breathing into the whistle thing - you don't blow into the whistle, you breathe into it.

~nash

[IDAwHOa]

And I agree with the breathing into the whistle thing - you don't blow into the whistle, you breathe into it.

~nash

Yeah, just pretend it is your bestest girlfriend and you are whispering sweet nothings into her ear. That should about do it!

[Leel]

My Dixon soprano D almost plays itself.

Not so the Dixon Low D, however. It takes quite a bit of wind, but is spectacular in going between octaves when "breathed" properly.

[DCrom]

My Dixon soprano D almost plays itself.

Not so the Dixon Low D, however. It takes quite a bit of wind, but is spectacular in going between octaves when "breathed" properly.

"Quite a bit of wind?"

That isn't the first thing that would spring to mind describing the Dixon Low D. My only problem with it is that it's a very quiet whistle - I find I prefer whistles with a more solid bell note. But the Dixon is easy to play, has a nice (if quiet) voice, and requires remarkably little wind.

Not terribly responsive, as Low D's go, but a very nice whistle for slow airs (and any tune, really, played a moderate pace - just don't try to do your Mary Bergin imitation!). I'll admit that I play mine, mostly, with the flute head in place, but it's still quite satisfactory as a low whistle - certainly a lot more to my taste than the Susato Low D, if not quite up to the Reyburn or the Overtons I've had chances to borrow.

But it takes less air than any other Low D I've tried.

[Chuck_Clark]

Overtons get the balance about right I think.

Yeah - especially once you get past the eye-popping backpressure in the upper octave......

Chuck, I do not know for what you speak regarding this. Yes, my Overton low d DOES have higher back pressure than most of the rest of my whistles, but nothing near "eye-popping" proportions. I kind of like having to lean into it a little bit as that allows me to control the sound with much more affect than if I was blowing through something that amounted to nothing more than an open tube!!! My Susato seems like that, so does my Jubilee.

Oh, they are playable, but really require breath planning. Kind of like the low air whistles require.

I really can't play an Overton 'cold' (meaning preparation and not whistle temperature). Especially if coming from another whistle, I find that I need to really take a few minutes and visualize the playing, meaning bearing down once I hit the second octave E or above. Otherwise I don't force the airstream enough and the note flops horribly, essentiallly a first octave note with a breaking waver.

In some ways, its the exact opposite of going from a normal volume whistle to one of Mack Hoover's narrow bore brass jobs. In that case, I tend to overbow the lower D-E-F.

Admittedly the Overton compensation is simpler, requiring visualization and a few deep-breathing exercises. I haven't yet found a reliable way of avoiding overblowing the narrow whistles.

[goldthorpe]

I'll probably shock everyone with this,but...Shaw sop D has very low
air requirments.

[BoneQuint]

I'll probably shock everyone with this,but...Shaw sop D has very low
air requirments.

Hm! My tweaked Shaw (by Jerry Freeman) doesn't use much air. But it's no Whitecap either. I've tried many "stock" Shaws at Lark in the Morning, they're fairly variable -- I shoulda grabbed that C that seemed nice and tried tweaking it! Some use less air, some more, but all I tried used significantly more air than a Generation. Not nearly as much as a stock Clarke Original, though.

[Brian Lee]

See, I'd say the Shaw was consistantly a much higher air whistle than the Clarke - by quite a noticeable bit. The Clarkes are also noticeably quieter than the Shaws as well. The "improved Feadóg" was mentioned earlier and this one probably ranks quite close to Mack's narrow bores in terms of air. I think the improved requires a finer degree of breath control than Mack's whistle do too.

[McHaffie]

This may have been already gone over since I mainly skimmed through this thread, but I noted that some had stated it took some getting used to playing a low-wind/air requirement whistle because of oxygen deprivation ...

I took this approach... when I turn my whistle all the way down where it's very quiet, it takes so little air, that if I try and play it 'sealed' or that is to say my mouth sealed around the mouthpiece, my lungs start burning for oxygen pretty quick due to the fact I run out of oxygen before needing to take a breath!

So I simply let a bunch of air escape around the mouthpiece, that is to say I basically breathe into it instead of so much forcing air through it, also letting some air out through my nose if necessary, and find a happy medium that mimics the requirements it would take if I were playing at a normal volume level... requiring me to take a breath at all the same places in a tune I would normally have to.

Just some ideas.

Hopefully that made sense (and wasn't too much of a duplication somewhere). If not, then sorry about the lengthy post.

Take care,
John