Mad Max's Generation

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Cran Dubh
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Mad Max's Generation

Post by Cran Dubh »

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As seen 4 1/2 minutes into the 1979 movie Mad Max, first in the series. Dunno if Mel plays, or it was just the prop department at work. Braveheart notoriously showed Highland pipes on the screen with Irish pipes on the soundtrack, so there's another kind of connection.
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Tunborough »

It's come up before, viewtopic.php?f=1&t=108663&p=1218608#p1218608, with a report that Mel plays the whistle, but no more backstory on how it got into the movie.
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by RoberTunes »

Apart from pro musicians, who back in 1979 had any idea that whistles existed in brands other than what toy stores and musical instrument store chains (mainly selling guitars, keyboards and live stage supplies, most commonly) supplied in little cardboard boxes, for next to a few dollars? Most of my friends in the 1970's were either musicians or were big music fans, and nobody anywhere, played a whistle.
Anyone remember how it was in North America back then?
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Terry McGee »

Somehow a Generation whistle in good condition doesn't quite fit with my preconceptions of post-apocalyptic society. I'd have been holding out for something more along the lines of a Clarke whistle, hammered out from rusted steel cut from the roof a burnt-out Mini Cooper, ideally one crashed and burned in a previous scene. The Mini Cooper gear lever would probably make a good tapered mandrel, and you could use it later in the pub fight scene to bring uppity tenor-banjo players to heel....

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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Nanohedron »

RoberTunes wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 4:59 pmAnyone remember how it was in North America back then?
That's a rhetorical question, right? Because: No. And I was there.

Seriously, though: Now that you mention it, the only whistle I remember back then was in my possession. It was a Clarke, the silvery kind with the wood block, I got it at a novelty store, and I hated its guts because it had less voice than wheeze, the blade in a sad state and the block wobbly. The times being pre-internet, for all I knew it was state-of-the-art, because there was nothing else to compare it to - like a Gen, say. Rather, if anyone wanted to tootle around hippie-fashion, it was typically on *gasp* cheap recorders instead.
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Steve Bliven »

Late 70s I was at a folk festival and Andy's Front Hall was selling Generations in that cardboard display that showed all the options from Bb up to dog whistle. I bought a Bb. C and a D, not knowing anything about Irish music but thinking that they looked like they were easy to play. Still have the Bb and the D. Gave the C to a coworker who had played piccolo in her high school band and wanted something to play to her infant. Should have included a sympathy card...

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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by sfmans »

Tunborough wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 3:35 pm It's come up before, viewtopic.php?f=1&t=108663&p=1218608#p1218608, with a report that Mel plays the whistle, but no more backstory on how it got into the movie.
Could be a continuity snafu - Mel was playing some tunes between takes, stuck it on the dashboard, and it got in the movie.

Nowadays the Internet explodes if there's, say, a Starbucks cup on a table in Game Of Thrones, but in those days they got away with all sorts!
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Terry McGee »

It was similar (maybe even worse?) here in regional Australia (I think the major centres like Sydney and Melbourne all had Gaelic clubs that provided some exposure to Irish culture), but we had nothing. Getting involved in the folk scene in the late sixties made the start for me, but just served to remind me how little I knew and how much I wanted to know more! And so in 1974 I spat the dummy, took a year off work, and spent 7 months researching the folk scenes in England, Scotland and Ireland. Whistle lessons from Mary Bergin. Interviewing Breandan Breathnach. Visiting all the instrument collections. Buying a wooden flute that worked. By the middle of next year I was back home making flutes and teaching whistle. So much for a promising career in research electronics!

Now, riddle me this. I've spent a lot of time in musical instrument collections around the world, and seen (and measured) an awful lot of flutes. But I can't draw to mind any public collection of tin whistles. Perhaps they were there and I just ignored them in the mad rush to gather more flute info? So where is the International Repository of Discarded Flageolets located?

And going back to Mad Max's whistle, wouldn't it be fun to be charged with coming up with a full set of instruments suitable for a post-apocalyptic Irish session. The Mini Cooper whistle I described earlier. The dustbin lid tenor banjo. The concertina with bellows torn from flexible air conditioner ducting. The once-galvanised water pipe flute. Maybe we should be starting soon.....
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Steve Bliven »

Terry McGee wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 6:10 pm IAnd going back to Mad Max's whistle, wouldn't it be fun to be charged with coming up with a full set of instruments suitable for a post-apocalyptic Irish session. The Mini Cooper whistle I described earlier. The dustbin lid tenor banjo. The concertina with bellows torn from flexible air conditioner ducting. The once-galvanised water pipe flute. Maybe we should be starting soon.....
There's Vincent Broderick winning the All Irelands competition on a flute he made from a copper pipe when his wooden flute broke...

Best wishes.

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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by stringbed »

Terry McGee wrote: I've spent a lot of time in musical instrument collections around the world, and seen (and measured) an awful lot of flutes. But I can't draw to mind any public collection of tin whistles. Perhaps they were there and I just ignored them in the mad rush to gather more flute info? So where is the International Repository of Discarded Flageolets located?
I spent 20 years as the curator of the Swedish national collections of musical instruments (now operating as the Swedish Performing Arts Agency). They include a fair number of flageolets and tin whistles, together with the related native Swedish block-and-duct flutes. All receive the same physical care and are equally accessible to visitors to the storerooms. As is the case at every comparable institution of which I am aware, the exposure given to any segment of a museum collection is determined by demonstrable or anticipated public interest. From the proactive perspective, cultivating the understanding of the indigenous whistles is a higher priority in Sweden than is focus on tin whistles.

My tenure spanned the resurgence of interest in ITM during the 70s, which hit Sweden with noticeable force. However, this was never reflected in the slightest increase in requests for access to, or information about, the whistles in our storerooms. (This can easily have changed in the meanwhile without my knowing about it.) Such facilities do contain discarded objects of no museological value but a lot of effort goes into limiting their extent. The IRDF is unlikely ever to have been amassed, having instead been distributed continuously among the specialized waste disposal facilities of the world.
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Mr.Gumby »

I wouldn't call it museums with collections of whistles but I have come across whistles held in the collections of museums in The Netherlands, Belgium and France. The Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels comes to mind, for one. I remember various shop bought instruments in celluloid, metal and wood as well as locally made ones. The French made Mathieus come up at times, including a Mathieu walking stick whistle.

The Mimo project could provide an entry point.

I seem to remember having a photo of some whistles from a Belgian collection sitting on my hard drive somewhere. I may insert thst here, if I get back on the computer.

I imagine this won't throw up instruments you will want to copy but they give an indication of what was out there, being played by people.
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Terry McGee »

Oh well, it's good to know there are at least some whistles in captivity, so that when the Martians come to investigate the conflagration of the third planet, they will be able to identify the source of those annoying high pitched noises that somehow manage to carry even through the vacuum of space....

It is a reminder (once again!) that we folkies, though obsessed with keeping alive all those old songs and tunes, are not at all good at keeping alive our own history. Where can I look up a detailed history of the development of the modern tin whistle? Who did what to whom, when and why?

(Aren't I going to be embarrassed when someone points me to that document, freely available, perhaps even on this forum? And am I not looking forward wholeheartedly to being thus embarrassed!)
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by stringbed »

Terry wrote: Where can I look up a detailed history of the development of the modern tin whistle? Who did what to whom, when and why?
The organological study of the tin whistle generally treats it as an offshoot of the English flageolet — precisely as it was initially touted (and tooted). That approach deserves an appropriately labeled discussion thread of its own, which I’ll start when I get a chance if nobody beats me to it. Douglas MacMillan’s recent monograph The Flageolet in England, 1660–1914 doesn’t go quite into the kind of detail that I suspect Terry is looking for but is a good starting point nonetheless: https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781783275489/
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Terry McGee »

Interesting, stringbed. I was thinking of a much more recent period, starting perhaps with Clarke in 1843(?), covering the development of the tin whistle, bringing in the wooden and poly versions and coming up-to-date with the rash of recent snazzy looking aluminium whistles (or have I blinked and there have been further developments?). But the great thing about that flageolet monograph is that such a history could reference it, absolving us of the need to research matters beyond our ken!

I wouldn't see pulling this together as a hard task, as I imagine there is a fair amount of info out there already to be harvested. And hopefully we could call on living makers (or their admirers!) to give us a paragraph on their contributions. I think it would be a great group project, with people taking on responsibility for different topics, at least in the first sweep.

A few minutes thought yielded some topic headings for starters:

Whistles in antiquity - bone fragments, etc
Predecessors - French and English flageolets
Tin Whistles, Penny Whistles (Clarke)
Later metal whistles (Wallis, Hohner, etc)
Plastic headed whistles (Generation)
Low whistles (Overton?)
Copeland?
Warmer Whistles (Mellow D)
Revival of wooden whistle making
Sindt Whistle
Louder whistles (Susato, etc)
Democratisation of whistle making
Whistle Tweaking
Anodised Aluminium whistles (MK, etc)
More recent developments....

I may have not got those developments in the correct chronological order, but that only goes to illustrate the need for a more authoritative document! And I wouldn't expect us to finish it overnight, or perhaps ever.

So I guess the question arising - is anybody interested in participating in such a project, even if such participation is limited to pointing out where we got that bit totally wrong? If so, we should probably start a new topic devoted to the subject, and let Mad Max career on his merry way unimpeded. Thoughts?
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Re: Mad Max's Generation

Post by Mr.Gumby »

Perhaps loose the notion Clarke 'invented' the tin whistle. They invented one particular type of tin whistle but there's ample evidence there was a wide selection of brass and nickel silver whistles around during the 19th century. Sold through catalogues, hardware shops and what have you (I have seen a whistle in a snazzy wooden box come up for sale originally sold through Harrod's during the earlier 20th century)
Also, metal (and wooden, celluloid etc) whistles were common in western and central Europe. These are part of the picture. Whistles were not unique or limited to the anglosphere.

I don't think anyone has looked into this end of available whistles. Seeing Generation stating on their website they started in 1967, despite Generation whistles in evidence from at least the late 19th century, should give some indication what you are up sgsinst, if you want to tackle this thoroughly.
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