Clarke's Celtic Tinwhistle

VullNoid · Post by **VullNoid** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:36 pm

I'm planning on buying my first tinwhistle soon, and I'm going to be teaching myself. I want to buy the Celtic Tinwhistle by Clarke, but I can't find anything that says whether it's tunable or not. It's the only thing holding me back from buying right now, because if I ended up with a tunable one I wouldn't have any clue how to do it. I do have a bass tuner (somewhere), but I don't know if that's how it works.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Unseen122 · Post by **Unseen122** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:44 pm

The Celtic whistle straight from the factory is NOT tunable. The Celtic whistle is esencially a Sweetone painted a certain shade of green, has a celtic logo where it would say sweetone, and comes in a green boxe with a fingering chart and simple tunes. This was my first whistle it is one of the best low priced Whistles. Get it, you won't regret it. I just made that up and it is amazing.

lixnaw · Post by **lixnaw** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:47 pm

hi there, you're very welcome

the celtic whistle is the same whistle as a clarke sweetone, just a different colour.

you're better of to get an improved one alltogether, and they are tunable:
http://www.thewhistleshop.com/catalog/w ... weaked.htm

VullNoid · Post by **VullNoid** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:53 pm

Wow, I got replies so quickly! Thank you both very very much.

Unseen122, I'm glad to hear about it from someone else's own experience. I've decided that I will be getting a Celtic. Thank you for your help!

lixnaw, I was wondering about the similarities of the Celtic to the Sweetone. I would get an improved one, but we're a bit limited moneywise at the moment and this'll be my first time, so I figure I'll get a good cheap one to start and get something better if I want to later. Thank you for the link, though, it'll be helpful later.

bjs · Post by **bjs** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:56 pm

This was my first whistle it is one of the best low priced Whistles. Get it, you won't regret it.

Me too. I stumbled into whistleing by accident and bought a Sweetone. It lasted me for a long time. Apart from the weak Cnat I was well satisfied. I may have been lucky ie can't comment on variability of production as I only bought one

Brian

stratochicnic · Post by **stratochicnic** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 3:37 pm

Thanks for all the info guys, I'm thinking about getting a Celtic whistle as well.

Does it make a big difference if you don't buy the tweaked whistle?

Unseen122 · Post by **Unseen122** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 6:53 pm

Well the tweaked one is better because it is closer to one of the handmade expensive whistles but the sweetone is a nice whistle I started on it and have not had any problems playing and now I am on to the more expensive whistles.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:33 pm

"tratochicnic
PostPosted: 21 Feb 2005 21:37 Post subject:
Thanks for all the info guys, I'm thinking about getting a Celtic whistle as well.

Does it make a big difference if you don't buy the tweaked whistle?"

I don't think I could find the heart to 'tweak' an innocent TW, maybe I am tone deaf?

I have played around with several over the years and besides a solid scrubbing off of dirt, haven't had to do anything else.

The sound you get from them is mostly how you blow them. I am listening to Mary Bergin, on CD, just now and she sounds as good and better than I recall her playing almost 40 years ago live on Radio Eireann - as it was then called - the point being it was she who popularised the Generation and often you'd hear people say how good a whistle it was as opposed to others ,for example the Clarke-

But OC neither of them cost more than a couple of packets of fags or a few pints of Guinness AND the Clarks were all in C where-as the Generation could be got in D - which was regarded as almost sin, in those days. Quite why I never did find out.

Anyhow the lesson here is that if you cannot take it out of a 5 dollar TW. buying a 5000 dollar model wouldn't be much help to you.

Se la vie!

:0)