Other impressions: The whistles are both very balanced, it's easy to switch in and out of second octave, and when going up in the second octave there are no surprises as to how much breath pressure you have to apply, until the top note where I, at least, have to push a bit more. They are both easy players in that respect. Good for me, as I haven't been playing that long.
These whistles are both huge compared to what I'm used to (mostly C and D), the A I could play the 'normal' way after some minutes of practice, the G I had to work a bit more with - incidentally I was using too much thumb pressure on both of them initially, but when I noticed this (thumb muscles got painful..) I was able to let off the pressure and now (the day after) I don't have any such issues. In the beginning I wondered if I would have to use that famous 'super easy piper's ez grip' (or what it's called..) to play it, so I tried that for a while, it looks like it'll work and it's not too difficult - it's just a question of managing to hit correctly all the time so that holes are fully covered. But now I find that I can as well play 'normal' on the G too, because now, on the second day, it feels as normal as with the smaller whistles. So it was just a question of getting used to the size. Or maybe I will do both, just to get practice with that piper's variant - I have no plans about going "low whistle" at this time but if I did maybe it would be useful to practice a bit in advance.
I'm definitely very happy with these whistles. Good sound, and that slightly haunting presence - and I can feel the whistles vibrate when I play them. They lend themselves naturally to play different types of tunes than what I've been playing so far on the high whistles. I don't play ITM (except for some slow stuff) obviously, but there's lots of music around which will fit these whistles. Their sound is good for improvisations too. Lullabys come out automatically!
The only problem now is the size, even the A is too big to carry easily in my backpack, and as they're made of thin brass they really need some kind of protection when travelling. I keep my smaller whistles in Bigwhistle's "Telescopic Carriers", but the A and G are too big.. so for now I have no safe way to carry them around! And I want to do just that..
-Tor
