review: Greenwood/Boisvert boxwood whistle(s)

[chas]

Review: David Boisvert (Greenwood pipes) soprano D whistle in boxwood

I bought one of the first batch of whistles from David Boisvert (aka Davey). I had one minor complaint (see below), so David sent me a replacement, the notorious whistle that spent three weeks in limbo thanks to UPS. I’ll both.

David Boisvert has been making uillean pipes for a few years. He put his first batch of whistles on the market in late May. He’s also very recently delved into flute making. He has had a "regular" job, but is going to give full-time instrument making a shot.

Appearance

Both whistles are lovely. I believe the first one is the white whistle pictured here:

http://www.greenwoodpipes.com/juneswhistleorder.jpg

It’s boxwood, which is an almost white wood with a faint but dark grain. It darkens as it ages (the flute on David’s website is boxwood, but about 100 years old) to a light caramel color, or it can be oxidized using an acid treatment. The box is complemented by brass fittings that look almost like they belong on a fife. They’re about 1/2" long, and they’re thin-walled. This is as opposed to flute or whistle rings or ferrules that are heavier-walled and very short. The fittings have some grooves turned into them for a visual accent. I think they have some black paint or something in the grooves – I had mistaken this for dirt and cleaned most of it out before I realized. The mouthpiece is also brass with turned groove accents.

The first whistle seems to have a fairly shiny finish on it, probably laquer(?). The second is finished in some way, but it’s much more of a satin finish. I think this is really more appropriate for boxwood.

Feel:

The whistle is BIG. It has about a 9/16 bore (the same as a Burke wide-bore brass), but more importantly, about a 3/4 outer diameter, almost as big as a Water Weasel A, and the same as a Harper G. This makes it quite a hefty whistle – if a Serpent Village Smithy seems heavy, this will, too; and if a Copeland seems hefty, don’t even think about a Greenwood. I personally love a substantial-feeling whistle, and I feel like I could defend myself with this one.

Design

The two whistles differ greatly in design, despite having substantially the same appearance and feel. The first has a curved windway, with a curved (similar to, say, an Abell or Weasel) blade. The window is long and narrow, and the windway is formed by the brass on the outside and the boxwood fipple on the inside. The later model has a window that is shorter and broader. The windway is D-shaped and strongly tapered, and has a wooden lining inside the brass and a white plastic fipple plug. The blade is square, with a pretty steep pitch; probably 45-50 degrees.

As I said before, the walls are heavy. Also, the tuning slide is very long – something like 2"/50 mm; it plays in tune with the slide out 1/2"/12 mm. In this sense, it’s quite like an O’Riordan Concert Whistle. I think the bodies have an ever-so-slight curve to them; I haven’t held a straightedge up to them, but they have a slight pot belly relative to each other.

Sound and playability:

This is where the two whistles diverge. The first has a very sweet sound, reasonably pure, not too chiffy. This really appeals to me; it’s vaguely reminiscent of a Weasel, but not to the point of a Rose. My complaint, though, was an extreme sensitivity to breath pressure. The notes could be bent at least a half-step. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the only way to play two octaves in tune was to barely blow in the first octave and to REALLY lean into the second octave. This, of course, leads to a very unbalanced sound. David and I exchanged some emails discussing this. I was stating it more as an observation than as a complaint, but he volunteered to send me another whistle, and I could keep whichever one I preferred.

The second whistle has a very different sound, presumably due to the redesign of the mouthpiece. The sound is much more mellow, more chiffy, and has no sweetness at all. (This is really taking advantage of boxwood’s intrinsic sound – I find that it gives an instrument a mellower, warmer sound than blackwood. I don’t know if David voices his whistles to take advantage of this or not.) It’s much closer to the "classic" tinwhistle timbre, but it has a lot more volume, and what I call a "big" sound. The big doesn’t refer to the volume per se, but to a presence, and the sound of a bigger whistle. People, just hearing it, might think it was a low-G or A whistle rather than a high-D. It’s still sensitive to breath pressure, and you can bend a note plenty – probably +/- 25 or even 50 cents. When I just play scales on it, it seems that I have to overblow the second octave a bit. But when I’m playing a tune, it’s not a problem at all. Either I correct on the fly (unlikely) or I’m a little more enthusiastic. It’s still pretty unbalanced – the first octave has plenty of volume, but the second is downright loud. It offers moderate backpressure and takes maybe a little more air than your average whistle. So it requires plenty of push to play.

Summary

These are high-quality handmade whistles. I certainly could have lived with the first-generation whistle, but the second is a great leap forward. (If David continues to progress on the same curve, he’ll soon be revered as one of the great whistlewrights.) His whistles are powerful, and not for the faint of heart, nor for playing in rooms that are small or bright.

The whistles are available from Greenwood Pipes:

www.greenwoodpipes.com

The prices are as follows:

cocobolo/ebony: $125
blackwood: $150
boxwood: $200