Surprising impressions of various whistles

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Wed Nov 06, 2002 1:09 pm

On 2002-11-06 12:00, JessieK wrote:
On 2002-11-06 11:23, Chuck_Clark wrote:
Ya shouldn't have dissed the Susatos. The mob will get ya for that.
Not necessarily, after Kelhorn Mike showed his horns. If he doesn't care what people on the message board post about Susatos, why should we?

I dunno, Jessie. Last time I made the mistake of criticizing their self-described 'world's most popular whistle' from the number of Susato faithful who piled on, you'd have thought I'd criticized God and Mom in the same post. And I didn't even say they weren't wonderful - merely what I personally disliked about short-beaked whistles SUCH AS the Su.... and Ch....... .

srt19170 · Post by **srt19170** » Wed Nov 06, 2002 1:11 pm

Let's all meet at HMT someday and start fiddling with various whistles and then "spontaneously" all break into a tune together.

Well, it would crack me up.

A little off-topic, but last time I was there I bought a Yamaha plastic fife in D. It was only $8 or so, and pretty good quality. I was hoping the fingering would be the same, but it's enough different that I didn't really bother to master it.

-- Scott

psychih · Post by **psychih** » Wed Nov 06, 2002 1:46 pm

On 2002-11-06 14:11, srt19170 wrote:
A little off-topic, but last time I was there I bought a Yamaha plastic fife in D. It was only $8 or so, and pretty good quality. I was hoping the fingering would be the same, but it's enough different that I didn't really bother to master it.
-- Scott

I bought the same plastic fife, but I think it's in the key of C rather than D. Couldn't get it to work at all...but it's probably me, so it's sitting in the drawer...but the piece of cloth bag that came along with it found some use looking after whistles.

JessieK · Post by **JessieK** » Wed Nov 06, 2002 2:05 pm

It is recorder fingering, people. Ignore the bottom hole (don't cover it. Cover the thumb hole at the back. When you cover all the holes except the bottom one, it's a d. Next one up, e. For f#, it gets a little tricky. The rest (up to b) is the same. I'm sure you can look up recorder fingering online and be tooting in no time.

Jessie

Whitmores75087 · Post by **Whitmores75087** » Wed Nov 06, 2002 6:16 pm

Susato's tweak up good..eh, well. To get rid of the recorder sound or squeekiness, cut back the blade and replace it with a straight sliver of plastic. My VSB was my all time un-favorite whistle until I did that (in desperation). It's now my favorite when I need something that's very in-tune, such as learing new stuff by ear.

PhilO · Post by **PhilO** » Wed Nov 06, 2002 6:34 pm

I find the Walton Golden Tone C to be one of the best whistles around and probably best bang for buck there is.

I have a very old Susato set - black PVC D, C, Bflat with one head that I'm attached to because I learned on that set along with Gens and Clarkes and Waltons. It also sounds pretty good, esp the D.

Loren - You should have been a major league shortstop - you never miss anything!

Regards,

Philo

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Wed Nov 06, 2002 8:40 pm

On 2002-11-06 19:34, PhilO wrote:

Loren - You should have been a major league shortstop - you never miss anything!

It's a talent and curse, believe me.

Loren

Kelhorn Mike · Post by **Kelhorn Mike** » Thu Nov 07, 2002 8:15 am

Jessie,
Appreciate the fact you like one of our whistles
despite your feelings about me. If I didn't
care why would I have ever bothered here........think
about that!
Chuck,
Dislike is one thing, but you have a prejudice
against Susato that borders on a vendetta. But
that's your problem.... A lot of prejudice, vendettas,
and egomania around this board lately and I
sincerely regret my part in it and have and
will freely admit that again. This is it for me for
a long time.

Kelhorn Mike

murrfinn · Post by **murrfinn** » Thu Nov 07, 2002 8:34 am

Hi all! Next time you're in HMT, come introduce yourself (I'm the redheaded whistle player who works there). I'd love to say hi!

S.

mvhplank · Post by **mvhplank** » Thu Nov 07, 2002 8:48 am

On 2002-11-06 10:02, Loren wrote:
On 2002-11-06 09:52, mvhplank wrote:
Was Wendy (a.k.a. Wendina) there? (HMT is her employer.) I would value her opinion. The for-sale whistles she brought up to the workshop were hand-picked to weed out klunkers.
Makes you wonder who gets stuck with HMT's "Klunkers" doesn't it?

Loren

Hmmm... I never meant to imply that HMT would sell "klunkers." I should have written that Wendy had tested all the whistles on hand to assure they were the most playable of the less expensive (most affordable?) whistles that HMT offers.

Marguerite

Edited to add: Susanna, I'd love to stop in and say "hello"!

[ This Message was edited by: mvhplank on 2002-11-07 09:50 ]

klezmusic · Post by **klezmusic** » Sat Nov 23, 2002 10:58 pm

On 2002-11-07 09:48, mvhplank wrote:
On 2002-11-06 10:02, Loren wrote:
On 2002-11-06 09:52, mvhplank wrote:
Was Wendy (a.k.a. Wendina) there? (HMT is her employer.) I would value her opinion. The for-sale whistles she brought up to the workshop were hand-picked to weed out klunkers.
Makes you wonder who gets stuck with HMT's "Klunkers" doesn't it?

Loren

Hmmm... I never meant to imply that HMT would sell "klunkers." I should have written that Wendy had tested all the whistles on hand to assure they were the most playable of the less expensive (most affordable?) whistles that HMT offers.

Marguerite

I missed this post when it first aired, and I feel the need to reply.

Loren, you assign the responsibility for the "klunkers" to HMT. And now I'm going to substitute Marguerite's definition and call them "less/least playable" whistles (LPW's).

First, they are not HMT's LPW's, they are the manufacturers LPW's, as is well known by anyone who ever bought a Generation or a SweeTone or a Guinness or a Feadog or a Feadan or a Clare or an Oak at any music store anywhere and had to tweak it or return it or give it away or stick another mouthpiece on it. If there weren't LPW's all over the place, not just at the House of Musical Traditions, then why do we have 7,485 posts discussing them in this forum?

If you think that a retail music store such as ours can afford to pay an expert player to test every single cheap whistle when it comes into the store, and then send back every one that is an LPW, and furthermore if you think that the wholesale companies that sell these retailers those LPW's will take them all back and send handpicked replacements, then you don't know very much about the music business. I've already made reference in another post to the economics of running a small customer service intensive acoustic folk music business in our very limited market, where the majority of the customers tend not to be all that well-heeled.

There aren't that many music stores to begin with that have whistle experts on staff, and I can say without exaggeration that I'm more qualified than most to test whistles, which is why I made the extra effort to do so for my whistle workshop, in order that my students would have the pick of the litter. Incidentally, I did so on my own time - HMT didn't pay me to do the workshop or to pull the stock I brought with me, and the only whistles I sold were one Generation and my own Dixon low A. I didn't make any profit on the workshop, and HMT made a buck or two at most.

An order of 6 dozen Generations or 40 Hohner harmonicas is not quite the same as a Gabbanelli accordion or an African djembe or an Alvarez guitar - we DO check out larger/more expensive instruments as they come in and return those that don't meet our standards. A while back we stopped carrying Saga's Kentucky mandolin line entirely and deleted them from our catalog, because every single one we got in had a problem.

I refuse to carry the cheap Chinese and Russian-made concertinas except by special order because they are junk, no matter that there is a demand for them based on price alone. If somebody wants to buy junk, I tell them it's junk, try to get them to see the illogic of buying it when for a reasonable investment they could get something decent, and then if they insist, I give them what they ask for. Maybe they want it for a stage prop, or to put on the mantelpiece, or they just really don't care if it doesn't last out the week - it's not for me to judge - my job is to provide my customers with what they want, after informing them as best I can.

Cheap whistles are a different matter.

A few years ago we stopped ordering Feadog whistles because there was a serious quality control or design problem with several entire shipments in a row, but if we stopped carrying all cheap whistles just because some of them don't play as well as others, we'd be cutting off a large source of our sales income and depriving people desiring to learn the whistle of an inexpensive means of doing so. I used to love the Little Black Whistle, but their quality control seems to have gone way down and the latest batch I got only had a few good ones in the whole bucket - all of which I took to my workshop. I haven't changed the web page yet, because I'm overextended with my accordion duties, and I'm still hoping by the time I get around to doing it, we'll get in a better batch.

The fact is, we, and the other good stores like us who do have expert staff, often go out of our way to test a whistle UPON REQUEST for a mail order customer - within reason. There are limits, however. I'm not going to spend several minutes each doing a comparison test with all 24 Generation C's in stock to find the one that "plays the best". We are not going to test every single one of the 4 dozen whistles you might order for your upcoming beginners' whistle class, and it might not be a fair thing to expect the red carpet treatment during the Xmas rush if you expect to receive the whistle the day after tomorrow and our best whistle tester is off on the day of your order. It just so happens that the guy that fills our mail orders does not play whistle. Also, being a whistle player and a whistle tester are two very different things. I can put a cheap whistle through its paces in about 5 minutes and tell you exactly what I think its strong points and weak points are, but we have several other players who aren't quite as analytical, or whose playing is not at my level, and who might accept or reject a whistle that I would not.

Furthermore, we ALWAYS want our customers to be satisfied and we ALWAYS give the customer the benefit of the doubt, and if you feel that your $5.90 whistle is defective, we will exchange it for the whistle of your choice, which we will then hand-pick for you. I leave it to your business sense to figure out how much profit we just made on that transaction.

Who ends up with the LPW's? Children, beginning players, people who are buying gifts for others, people who are just curious to try a new cheap instrument, people who order in bulk for their students, people who are not as discerning as you, mail order customers who just want an assortment of cheap whistles and don't request that they be vetted by our experts...

Got a problem with that?

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Sun Nov 24, 2002 5:50 am

Well said, Wendina!

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Sun Nov 24, 2002 6:16 am

Actually Wendy, I do (as you put it) have a problem with a good bit of that, however I don't have the time to reply in detail, and I've come to understand that it's hardly worth the effort. Smart shoppers will have gotten my point and seen the logic in my post. They will, if they have been around for any length of time, also be aware of HMT's well deserved dismal mail order reputation. And, for our usual crowd of Pollyannas, a well written rebuttal will simply be wasted on them.

Loren

mike.r · Post by **mike.r** » Sun Nov 24, 2002 7:18 am

Who ends up with the LPW's? Children, beginning players, people who are buying gifts for others, people who are just curious to try a new cheap instrument, people who order in bulk for their students, people who are not as discerning as you, mail order customers who just want an assortment of cheap whistles and don't request that they be vetted by our experts...

Got a problem with that?

Maybe you should include/////////////BRK.

////

no, no, no--that's over the line--Dale Wisely

[ This Message was edited by: DaleWisely on 2002-11-24 17:35 ]

klezmusic · Post by **klezmusic** » Sun Nov 24, 2002 10:02 am

[snipped vile implication that does not bear repeating] . Mike

Maybe I should include those whose taste in whistles differs from mine.

I don't know what you conjure up in your imagination as to what goes into the average walk-in whistle sale, but not everybody tries out the whistle they are buying. Many of them, especially in the categories I cited, just grab one and walk up to the front counter with it, proferring their credit card. Even if I am working as the cashier at that particular moment, it is not appropriate nor advisable (for many reasons) for me to take the whistle from them, stick it in my mouth, and proceed to test it on their behalf. "Oh, here, please allow me to slobber all over the whistle you are buying as a gift for your 10-year old daughter -- by the way, all that coughiing I'm doing? It's just allergies, not a cold". (Yes, we have commercial mouthpiece sanitation spray, I doubt its effectiveness against viruses, but it makes me feel better to use it).

BTW, we are one of the few places that even ALLOWS walk-ins to test whistles before purchase. Who ends up with the LPW's at those other stores? My first batch ever of Generations (I had to have one in every key and both colors) was bought from a little Irish shop in Old Town Alexandria where testing was not allowed. I bought some LPW's among them, but I didn't hold it against the shop.

As to Loren's reference to our mail order problems:

1) We aren't discussing mail order fulfillment and communications problems, we are discussing LPW's.

2) When was the last time you ordered from HMT? I thought so. We have a lovely person in the shipping position now, who is even more concerned about pleasing customers than I am.

3) We operate on a shoestring and have a shipping department of ONE. How many customer service personnel were at the corporation you worked for?

4) The complaints you have so vociferously and repeatedly made stemmed from a period in late summer of 2001 when we were having an awful time filling Olwell orders and keeping up with customer emails, and things in mail orders in general were not going well due to turnover and training problems. My boss Dave Eisner responded to the complaints quite thoroughly, and invited those who had experienced problems to speak with him directly. You ignored his response and continued your slander of HMT at your every opportunity. Anyone who wishes to verify these facts need only do a search for your posts during that time period.

An analysis of the posts reveals that all of the complaining was being done by the same by 5 people (including yourself) who had poor experiences with our mail order service, and who kept repeating their complaints over and over. I have dealt in a separate post with people who jump to conclusions regarding our honesty (to sum up, sometimes a well-informed trained person doesn't answer your phone call). I relinquished control over the ordering and customer service in the whistle department a couple of years ago, and yes, it has suffered at the expense of the accordion department, which has flourished.

5) For every customer that had an unfortunate experience, there are hundreds who have had great experiences. I have archived email testimonials to that effect, and thank-you notes posted in my office, if anyone is curious. It's a DURN SHAME that most of these people are not on this forum to answer you.

If good people like HMT are driven out of business, what will you have left over? Give us half a chance to correct our mistakes and we will. Don't only send an email - email can get lost. Phone our boss or our store manager if you have a problem that was not properly handled by other personnel -- heck, phone me if you want. You will be taken seriously.

Loren -- In the interest of fairness and your own integrity, It is time to cease and desist.

_________________
Wendina

--
B sharp, C?

[ This Message was edited by: klezmusic on 2002-11-24 11:51 ]

[ This Message was edited by: klezmusic on 2002-11-24 12:02 ]