How did the Professional Model Pennywhistle come about?
On the low notes, the old D Flageolette responded well, but the top of the 2nd octave could have been better. Over the years, there were improvements, but no Herculean efforts led to any breakthroughs. Back to the ol’ drawing board. While I was busy designing drum corps fifes, I noticed an analogous problem. I made some that played well on the low notes, but needed a change to the geometry before they played well on the highs (where they’re supposed to play their best). At the same time, I held the opinion that recorders had a ‘bottlelike’ tone quality, favoring the first register at the expense of the second. Starting in the spring of 2002, I changed one of the old flageolette windways, and the whistle now had better control (although my modifications were ugly). The existing design didn’t leave much flexibility for the changes that I thought were necessary, so although I’d found out what to do, I didn’t exactly know how I was going to do it nicely. Meanwhile, I experimented with othe
