Exploring the Negative Generation Urban Legend

[Jerry Freeman]

Generation changed their tooling in the early to mid-1980's, so that whistle is 25-plus years old.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[narrowdog]

Generation changed their tooling in the early to mid-1980's, so that whistle is 25-plus years old.

Best wishes,
Jerry

Blimey, that was a bit of a shock
I've since found out that it came from a music shop
so it must have been it a cupboard for a few years.
I hope this doesn't add to the myth of older Gens being any
better (for want of putting it another way) than newer ones
but this is a nice whistle with no mods at all.

[benhall.1]

I hope this doesn't add to the myth of older Gens being any
better (for want of putting it another way) than newer ones
but this is a nice whistle with no mods at all.

But how could that be?

[Jerry Freeman]

I've been through quite a few of these vintage Generations, some of them "new old stock."

The ones I've encountered have been about as variable as the new ones, as reported by other posters to this thread. Bill Ochs gave me six or eight of his reject vintage Generations awhile back, and none of them was particularly notable (the pun is accidental). However, a really good one is extremely special, in my opinion.

At last year's CCE convention where I met L.E. McCullough, Larry brought me a vintage, and very beat up, bluetop D Generation and asked what I thought of it.

I looked it over, saw the windway was pretty well coated with debris from decades of playing and asked if he would mind if I cleaned it up without making any alterations. He said OK, so I got all the sludge out and tried the whistle.

I found it had an astonishingly sweet voice but required the gentlest of breath to keep the bottom notes from breaking. I pointed that out and asked if it was any trouble for him. He played a bit and said, "Nah."

He said, "Glove compartment whistle. Never know when you might get stranded somewhere without any cash. You can always busk."

Best wishes,
Jerry

[mickey66]

i just received a gen brass D whistle from Hobgoblin and it sounds very good but the fripple/head is more of a pink color and has a paint smell to it......???? odd




www.tuxedomusic.com

[Feadoggie]

i just received a gen brass D whistle from Hobgoblin and it sounds very good but the fripple/head is more of a pink color and has a paint smell to it......???? odd

Is the plastic a uniform color? Or does it vary from side to side? It may not be odd at all. What you describe sounds like your "new" Gen may be a wee bit shopworn from UV/sunlight exposure. The red tops can turn a pink or salmon color with extended exposure to sunlight. The blue tops get lighter too with the same exposure. They usually play fine. Many plastics are susceptible to effects from UV exposure. The smell may just be from the solvents in the plastic or the glue used to afix the head. It is that "new whistle smell". That should go away in time although some of us are more sensitive to such things than others.

Feadoggie

[mickey66]

i just received a gen brass D whistle from Hobgoblin and it sounds very good but the fripple/head is more of a pink color and has a paint smell to it......???? odd

Is the plastic a uniform color? Or does it vary from side to side? It may not be odd at all. What you describe sounds like your "new" Gen may be a wee bit shopworn from UV/sunlight exposure. The red tops can turn a pink or salmon color with extended exposure to sunlight. The blue tops get lighter too with the same exposure. They usually play fine. Many plastics are susceptible to effects from UV exposure. The smell may just be from the solvents in the plastic or the glue used to afix the head. It is that "new whistle smell". That should go away in time although some of us are more sensitive to such things than others.

Feadoggie

It is hard to tell cause i just had eye surgery but the plastic is a uniform color of red/pink. Next to a Freeman tweaked gen red top it really looks pink.


www.tuxedomusic.com



www.tuxedomusic.com

[mickey66]

i just received a gen brass D whistle from Hobgoblin and it sounds very good but the fripple/head is more of a pink color and has a paint smell to it......???? odd

Is the plastic a uniform color? Or does it vary from side to side? It may not be odd at all. What you describe sounds like your "new" Gen may be a wee bit shopworn from UV/sunlight exposure. The red tops can turn a pink or salmon color with extended exposure to sunlight. The blue tops get lighter too with the same exposure. They usually play fine. Many plastics are susceptible to effects from UV exposure. The smell may just be from the solvents in the plastic or the glue used to afix the head. It is that "new whistle smell". That should go away in time although some of us are more sensitive to such things than others.

Feadoggie

It is hard to tell cause i just had eye surgery but the plastic is a uniform color of red/pink. Next to a Freeman tweaked gen red top it really looks pink.


http://www.tuxedomusic.com



htt

[GordonH]

I had a "pink" generation whistle that was this colour because it had spent a few years in the window of a music shop.

[Kypfer]

My "ridge and dimple" (very old) brass Eb has a distinctly "pink" head, compared to my recently purchased Generations (in other keys) ... it's spent most of it's life unloved and un-noticed in a drawer, so maybe a "pink" head is just a sign of old age

[Hotblack]

I too have a pink Gen. A 'D' that I purchased in the early-mid 80s (the newer design. Not ridge-and-dimple). It languished in a drawer for 25 years before I re-discovered whistling. My ridge-and-dimple G has faded almost as much whilst the ridge-and-dimple C has faded slightly less than the other two. They were all kept together in the same place for those 25 years.

[killthemessenger]

I've got a generation high G which is silly and fun. I have a C which is frankly awful. But given they cost 8 euros each, I suppose I shouldn't complain - and that's what the generation company is banking on. To be fair, the C makes a good tea stirrer when I haven't got anything else to hand.

If you consider that about the cheapest recorders you can buy are the Yamaha 300 series (at 20 euro for a soprano and 30 for an alto), which are absolutely excellent instruments, at least as good as wooden recorders costing 500 euros or more, it seems a bit shabby of Generation to produce these awful whistles.

It's all very well to go on about the special one you found after an afternoon's hunting through Rumpelstiltskin's old stock at the back end of Tipperary, but if 99% of them are crap, then you can't take 'em seriously.

The thing about urban legends - apart from the fact that they are widespread in the general populace, which opinions about whistles are not - is that they are false. But generations really are awful whistles.

[Mr.Gumby]

What exactly do you find so 'awful'? You have come so far, you may as well explain.

FWIW, I have three Cs and they are all quite nice. Micho Russell made a point of borrowing one of them repeatedly for concerts. All three were bought off the shelf, without selecting.

[killthemessenger]

What exactly do you find so 'awful'?

Just the awfulness of them, really.

See, I know it goes against the grass-stalk-chewing aesthetic, but I like instruments which are responsive and tuneful, which will do what you want, rather than forcing you to do what they want. But on the other hand I can't play the Rumpelstiltskin Jig at 400 bpm.

Oy, but kudos for the Micho Russell reference! Gwalt!

[Mr.Gumby]

I like instruments which are responsive and tuneful

So do I. Please continue explaining, so far you're a bit short on a sound argument.

'I don't like it' 'Why not?' 'Because I don't'