Tin Whistles

My blog title mentions tin whistles, but I haven't exactly written a lot about them. But I recently bought a fantastic tin whistle and I think the story is interesting.

Tin whistles generally come in two forms: mass produced for less than $10 each, or hand made for $100 and upwards. The mass produced kind are probably the cheapest "real" instrument you can buy. I know a lot of people probably think it isn't a real instrument, but just listen to some of the samples from Mary Bergin's Feadoga Stain album, or Carmel Gunning's Lakes of Sligo - all recorded on a $5 instrument.

Recently however, a new type of whistle has appeared - the third way! Known as the "tweaked" whistle, this is where someone takes a dirt-cheap mass produced whistle and improves it till it sounds great. Then they sell it on This is a really interesting idea. It reminds me of how Apache started - by tweaking the original NCSA web server. Unfortunately tweaking in the virtual world is instantaneously replicable. Tweaking physical things is harder, but Erik at Vargas Whistles (who made my tweaked whistle) at least documents his tweaks very clearly. Worth a read if you are a budding whistlesmith.