Best Penny Whistle?

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Leemac
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Re: Best Penny Whistle?

Post by Leemac »

As others have already said, as a beginner you can't go wrong with a Tony Dixon whistle. I usually recommend his trad nickel whistle to my beginner students.

There are a lot of decent mid range whistles out there at the moment. I mentioned on another thread that I recently picked up a McNeela Wild Whistle and I'm quite happy with that for the price - it's definitely got a nice mellow tone. Brian Hughes (who's a great player) has a review of it that you can see here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytAPFTo4Pn4

Honestly aesthetics aren't the most important thing - when it comes to a whistle it's all about how it plays and how it sounds. I played a cheap dented feadóg for years that just happened to be a gem in regards to tone - one of those rare finds in a batch of mass produced whistles.
Narzog
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Re: Best Penny Whistle?

Post by Narzog »

The good news is most high end whistles also look good. I do understand the wanting your instrument to look nice thing. If you are spending a lot of $ you want it to look good. And if a maker is putting in a lot of effort to make it play amazing, they might aswell make it look the part aswell. Like Mk and Burkes. Some of that money definitely goes into the looks but I think its worth it, assuming its a smaller percent of the instruments cost. I personally wouldn't want my instrument to look like a $10 amazon whistle. But anything after that is fine, extra premium looks are just a bonus when I want how it plays and it also looks amazing.
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Mr.Gumby
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Re: Best Penny Whistle?

Post by Mr.Gumby »

Narzog wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:51 am The good news is most high end whistles also look good.[...] they might aswell make it look the part aswell. Like Mk and Burkes. Some of that money definitely goes into the looks but I think its worth it, assuming its a smaller percent of the instruments cost. I personally wouldn't want my instrument to look like a $10 amazon whistle.
À chacun son goût, as they say, no accounting for that sort of thing and all that. I have always thought Burkes look particularly clunky, possibly best summed up here by someone( was it Bro Steve? Memory is dim..) who said something along the line lines he always thought they look like they were designed by Soviet armament manufacturers.

I suppose if you pay inflated prices you will have to tell yourself what you got looks (and plays) amazing. I like whistles where form follows function, no frills. But first and foremost they need to do the job well.

And as for whistles looking like a cheap whistle, a lot of makers follow the cheap whistle path of a metal tube with a head of some description stuck on it. The design original plastic head was dictated by the injection moulding process and most designs managed to keep things light. There have been exceptioons, Camac comes to mind for making chunky heads and Feadógs were initially particularly clunky looking, whitling away a bit in each following iteration of the design. But Generation set the tone there, in more than one way, that a lot of makers emulate to a degree. Using other materials, wood or a comination of delrin/metal, will, out of necessity, always result in clumsy, heavier heads that may or may not be much a problem if your whistle is a (high) D or Eb but rapidly becomes one as you go lower (my Sindt B ios a fine whistle, even if I only play it when needed and that's very rarely nowadays, but there is some heavy chunk of brass sitting atop of it.

And then you have ofcourse makers who deliberately make very expensive whistles that try to look like $10 Amazon whistles . One called it a stealth option (which was actually a simple nice looking option that didn't need any excuse for the way it looked).
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Narzog
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Re: Best Penny Whistle?

Post by Narzog »

Mr.Gumby wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 9:39 am I suppose if you pay inflated prices you will have to tell yourself what you got looks (and plays) amazing. I like whistles where form follows function, no frills. But first and foremost they need to do the job well.
Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that I haven't wasted $1000, but I'd like to think that the top makers are able to sell at the price they do because their product is excellent. I know that what I hate about one whistle might be why its someone's favorite. I just don't want new players to think they shouldn't bother checking out the pricey ones because "they aren't better". They might not technically be better. But a lot of people who have tried several others end up picking them, and I don't think that's just random chance. The big name makers are apparently doing something right.
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Re: Best Penny Whistle?

Post by fatmac »

...or, perhaps, they may play them because they spent all that money on them.... :oops:

I have bought some more expensive whistles, (mainly pre used), & whilst a couple are good, I would never have spent full price on them - & I do tend to play them more than my cheapies - but I think there is a limit to how much more money buys regards to better playability & tone. :)
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Re: Best Penny Whistle?

Post by bigsciota »

People talk about looks and price as if they have no influence whatsoever on the sound of the whistle, which isn’t quite true. Sure, in a blind test they generally don’t. But anything that gets you more interested in playing the whistle, whether it’s paying more for a “premium” one or just one that you think looks awesome, is well worth it.

If you were to ask me I’d say get a Generation and learn on that for a bit, but if buying a Dixon or a used Killarney (possibly in your price range) or something else you like the look of would get you more interested in playing more often, that will improve your sound. It’s much, much more about the player, especially for beginners.
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Re: Best Penny Whistle?

Post by lovelife82 »

Thank you everyone. I’ve decided to go Dixon Trad D 😊

It looks like a recommended whistle by a lot of people.

Thanks

Amanda
Del
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Re: Best Penny Whistle?

Post by Del »

I’ve tried a dozen whistles and found the Dixon DX006D to be the easiest to play. It feels like cheating compared to my Generation high D.
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