Chiff and Fipple Forums

What is the purpose of the the dimple on the sound blade on the Clarke Original? Is it a positive? Jerry Freeman flattens it out. What does that achieve?

I have one, sadly. I only use it for finger practice, never to make sound with. Tried to sell it; no responses.

The dimple in the tube is what may have passed for a whistle blade back in 1843 (as originally made by a blacksmith's buddy and total newbie whistle designer Robert Clarke in England). When there are no other whistles, better tools, better metals, experienced people or designs on the market, who'd a thunk something was a bad design? There were no references, no competition, no sessions with whistle players, no Chiff and Fipple discussions.

As it is, this first attempt at a blade design, the dimple, assures that at least 50% of the air going through the ginormous windway (which can also be used to test jet wings at Jet Propulsion Laboratories test facilities), isn't used to make a sound on the whistle, and is a waste of breath. It's extremely inefficient as a design, possibly the worst of any whistle sold. In some businesses, "not knowing any better" is a tradition. The Clarke Original was designed 179 years ago! As we're now in 2022, 179 years ago means Beethoven had been dead for only 15 years when Robert Clarke must have thought "good enough".

Professional whistle tweekers can and have straightened the blade and reduced the volume of the windway (that's not a simple thing without appropriate tools and expertise) to try to make this circus toy shift towards being a genuine musical instrument. I have an original version, not a tweeked one. I've never played a tweeked one, try YouTube for any possible reviews or demonstrations.

There's another major problem; the wood block on this instrument is made of a soft and absorbent glued-in-place wood (self-destructs and is unsanitary!) that is not ideally fitted to the thin metal tube, which is simply stamped into another shape around the wood block, some rounded version of a rectangle. It's not near maple, it's more like plywood in softness and absorbency. It leaks air on one side, and if the block swells, there's going to be a lot more air leaking on the sides. I've seen reviewers and buyer comments online saying that the block swells, changes shape, can rot and falls out fairly quickly. Right out of the box new, the whistle block has a slight gap along the left side.

I suggest not getting trapped in this quagmire.

this first attempt at a blade design, the dimple,

I am not so sure this is a first attempt at blade design or merely a product of how the current makers of Clarke whistles are tooled up. I have at least one old Clarke and several other of the type by old makers that have a much better design and execution. I'd say the arched windway is perhaps as much of of a problem as the design of the blade when it comes to air efficiency.

D and E whistles:

Well formed windway and blade :

It's not near maple, it's more like plywood in softness and absorbency

I can't speak to the current production but cedar was the wood of choice for much of the time of Clarke's production.

Clarke was hardly the only maker of whistles during the 19th century, no matter how much they declare to have invented the whistle. Invented their particular design and method of production, perhaps.

Here's a catalogue page, reproduced in one of their own publications (note the design of the Clark whistle, if the engraving is anything to go by):





I do agree the current output is badly set up, inefficient and generally not worth the effort. That said, well functioning whistles of the type have been known to produce very satifying music.

My sense is, the dimple in the soundblade is a more recent development of the design, probably to make the geometry consistent throughout mass production. Even in the factory, there was a lot of handwork involved in making Clarke Original whistles until the last ten years or so. I daresay there are still some manual operations but the soundblade placement would be more consistent with that dimple to shape it and make it more rigid so as to reduce the amount of tinkering needed to produce each finished whistle. It is not my sense that it improves the voicing or playing characteristics of the whistle in any way.

Oh, interesting.

Looking more closely at the catalog page, I see "Clark Flageolets" (not Clarke) available in "English style" (presumably tinplate), brass and nickel.

I thought, "Oh, I would love to have a brass Clarke. Then I remembered Peter Maguire's brass Eb CLARK (not Clarke) I tweaked for him about ten years ago. It turned out wonderful, one of the best whistles he'd ever played, he said.

But that wasn't a CLARKE, it was a CLARK. It appears that some other manufacturer was trading on Clarke's reputation.

Best wishes,
Jerry

But that wasn't a CLARKE, it was a CLARK. It appears that some other manufacturer was trading on Clarke's reputation.

Not necessarily, several branches of the family made and sold whistles over time. Spellings (and literacy) may have varied over the years.

And on top of that, the page was reproduced in Dannatt's book as an example of Clark(e)s for sale in the US. So the company didn't see a problem reproducing it in their 'official ' corporate history.

We will never know for certain. Why would someone in the Clarke family change the spelling of their name if they were really Clarkes? Was there a family dispute? It's all very mysterious (and very interesting).

The brass Clarke I encountered was definitely from a different source than the Clarkes I have handled, regardless of the vintage. The brass Clark had the emblem, name and key embossed in raised letters in the metal. I've never seen a Clarke like that.

Oh, and it occurs to me, I have a dozen or so Clarkes, some very old, most in the key of C, that Bill Ochs sent me long ago when he cleaned out his overloaded whistle drawer. These do not have the dimple, they have the traditional straight-across flat soundblacde.

See Dannatt, pp 27-28

I don't doubt your word about what's in Dannatt's account. Family legends tend to be pliable over time depending on memory and on what the teller is trying to convey. I know this first hand from my experiences researching my own family history. As I said, we'll never know for certain. It may be exactly as Dannatt said or there may be more to the story or even a completely different story.

Best wishes,
Jerry

Why not look it up. He clearly explains who was licensed to make G.Clark whistles.

Because I don't have the time. Thanks for the information. Why don't you just post the account and let me get my work done? (Mortgage due today and I'm $140 short.)

RoberTunes wrote: ↑Mon May 09, 2022 1:57 am

The dimple in the tube is what may have passed for a whistle blade back in 1843 (as originally made by a blacksmith's buddy and total newbie whistle designer Robert Clarke in England). When there are no other whistles, better tools, better metals, experienced people or designs on the market, who'd a thunk something was a bad design? There were no references, no competition, no sessions with whistle players, no Chiff and Fipple discussions.

But there had been fipple flutes as far back as, well the recorder goes back to about the 15th century, and I'm sure that in the time up to the point where Mr Clarke supposedly invented the tin whistle, there would have been plenty of other whistles and similar fipple flutes. I reckon he just thought, hmm I wonder what would happen if...

Here's the eBay listing for my tweaked Clarke Original. They are getting very positive reviews:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275344163021

Here's how I modify the beak to create a more comfortable embochure:



Here are YouTube videos of the tweaked Clarke Original:

Gareth Laffely demonstrates a Freeman tweaked Clarke Original key of D whistle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0jjZWJGB6A

Freeman tweaked Clarke Original tin whistle vs. untweaked compared and showing how I tweak them. (The tweaked whistle in this video doesn’t show the reshaped beak.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g_6dvegBTg

Jerry Freeman wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:20 pm … Freeman tweaked Clarke Original tin whistle vs. untweaked compared and showing how I tweak them. (The tweaked whistle in this video doesn’t show the reshaped beak.)

This is an extraordinarily informative video and thank you for posting the link to it. In it you say that Shaw whistles have the same basic design as the Clarkes do. I acquired a number of Shaw whistles a fair while ago (but new at the time) and all have flat windways and edges. This is the way Clarke whistles used to be made. Did the Shaw design also change somewhere along the way?

To the best of my knowledge, Shaw whistles have not changed. I used to tweak them, have tweaked a few hundred. They can be stellar. I found the higher keys (A and above) tweak very nicely following the same approach as I've described for Clarkes. Below about the key of A I found they don't respond predictably to tweaking and I didn't feel I could improve those lower keys reliably enough to justify trying to tweak them. However, if you already have a Shaw of any key, including the lower keys, by all means give it a go. A nice thing about these thin metal whistles is, the tweaks are infinitely adjustable and reversible.