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The world needs an affordable, GREAT penny whistle

I still need your help! In 10 years, I've tweaked 20K whistles. Help me tool up for mass production!

The world needs an affordable, GREAT penny whistle

I still need your help! In 10 years, I've tweaked 20K whistles. Help me tool up for mass production!

1 Campaign |

Coventry, United States

$6,455 USD by 236 backers

$5,975 USD by 216 backers on Aug 13, 2015

Story

FAQ

Updates 13

Comments 12

I still need your contributions, and here's why:

We've funded the work with the University of Connecticut to computerize my tweaked whistle designs, but there's another crucial part that still needs support.

We've taken care of the whistleheads, but I still have to manufacture the tonebodies.

It will take around $3,400 more to set up a relationship with the company that will fabricate the brass tubing. I’ve developed my own punch and die system to make the toneholes, but the tubing, I'll need made to order.

Again, thank you SO much for your encouragement and support. You're a treasure.

Best wishes,
Jerry

The problem

WHISTLE IS THE ENTRY INSTRUMENT into Irish music. But sadly, instead of a doorway opening in, the poor quality of available whistles is a roadblock that holds many people back.

After starting to learn on the whistle, players decide whether to continue on into other instruments. If they’ve struggled with a less quality whistle, they may give up. Then a lifetime of music making is lost and Irish music is that much poorer as a result.

That, I must say, is a tragedy.

I’m the only person in the world doing this work. If I don’t make it happen, who will?

I’ve heard the same story many times:

Long ago, someone took an interest in Irish music, bought a whistle and began learning to play. After a short time, frustrated and unsure whether the problem was their playing or the whistle itself, they gave up.

A partial solution

Ten or so years ago, I began "tweaking" these inexpensive, mass produced whistles to make them into great playing, professional quality instruments.

People have told me, “If I’d gotten one of your whistles twenty years ago instead of the [name of brand] I did buy, I would have been playing twenty years by now."

Whistle teachers all over the world recommend my instruments. Every year, the Mid-Atlantic chapter of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (Irish Arts Association) asks me to bring my whistles to their events so students can get a good start, as do the instructors at Swananoa Gathering's Celtic Week. (CCÉ organizes the Irish music and dance competitions worldwide that culminate in the All Ireland Fleadh every year.)

You can purchase my tweaked whistles, btw, at www.freemanwhistles.com or order directly from me by emailing jerry@freemanwhistles.com.

And now they're winning championships!

Freeman tweaked whistles are starting to show up at the All Ireland Fleadh world championship competitions, played by students who developed their skills on them.

In fact, the 2014 under twelve All Ireland whistle champion, Iarla McMahon, age 10, of County Down, played a Freeman tweaked key of D Bluebird in his winning performance. His mother wrote, “The adjudicators commented how sweet the whistle sounded.”

Another brilliant young performer of Irish traditional music, Keegan Loesel, age 15, has been winning the Mid-Atlantic regional championships playing my whistles for several years running . (I'll tell you more about Keegan further down the page.)

I’m also proud to say there are now quite a few established All Ireland Champions who’ve performed or recorded with my instruments, including 1976 All Ireland New Tune Composition Champion L.E. McCullough. When he heard about Iarla's triumph, L.E. composed a double jig, "Freeman's Tweaked Bluebird," which he plays here on his own Freeman tweaked Bluebird:

So far so good, but this is too slow!

I can't make enough of these one at a time by hand to make a real difference, so I'm asking for your help:

I believe getting my whistles into mass production and making them available everywhere will make a difference in how many people stay with the music and go on to become lifelong players. That is a significant thing:

It will strengthen Irish music everywhere.
It will put more music in the world.
It will give more people the joy of making their own music.

That’s the vision that’s kept me going all these years tweaking tens of thousands of whistles one at a time, trudging along toward this goal.

The big breakthrough

On January 23, 2015,I met with Drs. Richard Bass (music theory) and Sina Shahbazmohamadi (engineering) of the University of Connecticut Digital Musicology Group.

They, together with Dr. Robert Howe, are famous for using advanced CT imaging to create exact replicas of rare historic instruments, including saxophone mouthpieces made by Adolphe Sax himself. UConn is the only place in North America doing this. As it happens, the University of Connecticut is seven miles from my house.

AP: UConn makes 3-D copies of antique instrument parts

"An original 19th-century saxophone mouthpiece made by Adolphe Sax (black, on left) sits among 3D copies at the University of Connecticut in Mansfield, Conn. UConn researchers are using CT scans and 3D printing to help study and restore antique musical instruments. (AP Photo/Pat Eaton-Robb/July 17, 2014)"

Both gentlemen were extremely gracious and offered UConn’s help to replicate the tweaked whistles I’ve spent the past ten years perfecting. CT scanning my tweaked whistleheads to create CAD computer files I can work with is the next step toward mass production, which has been my goal since I began this work.

UConn's Chase lab Center for Hardware Assurance, Security, and Engineering

ZEISS Xradia 510 Versa precision CT scanner resolves one micron (.00004 inches) in 3D

The next step

To accomplish this next stage, of CT scanning and creating workable CAD computer files of the whistlehead designs, I’ll need to raise some money. The entire project, which includes scanning all the whistleheads, purchasing 3D modeling software and computer hardware, and 3D printing prototypes as I develop the designs will total around $4,400.

How the funding fits together

$3,000 to complete the precision CT scanning at the University of Connecticut. (I’ve already raised and paid the first $1,000, which leaves $2,000 still to be paid.)
$1,700 to purchase 3D modeling software and a used CAD workstation
$700 for prototyping costs

Fundraising goal: $4,400 ($5,400 minus $1,000 already raised = $4,400)

That will be enough to

Convert my current whistlehead designs to computer 3D modeling files (key of D, Eb and C Blackbirds; Eb and D Bluebirds; D Mellow Dog; and hi G, hi F, Eb, D, C, Bb, alto A and tenor G tweaked Generations)
Make refinements that can’t be achieved by modifying existing manufactured whistleheads
Create new keys to fill in all the intervals from high G down to low D
Print 3D prototypes for field testing to finalize the designs

How will this lead to affordable, GREAT whistles for everyone?

For mass production, I will not be using the old injection molding technology. Most of the problems with mass produced whistleheads are due to compromises that must be made so the finished part can release from the mold or so the plastic doesn’t shrink and distort when cooled.

New technologies are emerging that will provide high quality finished parts with geometries that were impossible before. I will complete the first designs for mass production just as the most promising of these comes on line. (It’s called “continuous liquid interface production,” a new kind of 3D printing with better resolution, 25 to 100 times faster production speed and wider materials selection than current methods.)

TED talk: What if 3D printing was 100X faster?

In addition to the improvements in quality, this approach goes directly to production from the 3D modeling files I create. It eliminates the need for injection molding tooling, which would require an outside tooling company, consume time, cost around $8,000 for each mold and leave little room for adjustment if it didn’t work perfectly on the first try.

After the fundraising goal's met, then what?

Money raised above and beyond the original goal will be used for other elements of the project, especially preparation for mass producing the tonebodies for all the different keys of whistles. After the original goal is reached, I'll continue the fundraising campaign to help fund the next stages.

There are two main aspects I will need to accomplish:

I'll need brass tubing made to my specifications. The initial order will cost around $5,000.
The best way to make toneholes is to punch them. It's faster and easier than drilling, and it embosses the edges so the holes are slightly rounded in, which is perfect for a whistle.
I'll need to build punch and die sets to make the toneholes for the whistle tubes. The materials for these will cost around $450 for each different tonebody. I’ll build them one at a time as each whistlehead becomes ready for production, so this cost will spread out over time.
(However, that first batch of tubing, I will need to purchase all at once. The first additional $5,000 is an important number I will hope to achieve more quickly.)

About those punch and die sets ...

Some years ago, I asked a tooling shop for a quotation to build a punch and die set to make key of D Mellow Dog tonebodies. They quoted $9,000. I researched the cost of punch and die set parts and found I could make one myself for a few hundred.

I figured, because brass is soft and the tubing is thin, I wouldn’t need a factory punch press, which would cost a thousand or so dollars for a basic, very old one. It should be possible to use a simple arbor press, which cost $40.

It took a week or so between other tasks to build the punch and die set, which I’ve used the last eight or nine years. It works perfectly.

What whistle teachers say

Renowned whistle performer, recording artist and teacher Kathleen Conneely on teaching students with Freeman tweaked whistles

Kathleen with a Freeman tweaked C Blackbird

Irish music professor, recording artist and performer Damien Connolly on teaching with Freeman tweaked whistles

Keegan's story

Keegan Loesel at age 13, in a treetop with his Freeman Mellow Dog.

Keegan at age seven or eight, in his first concert with teacher Mary Kay Mann

Keegan in May, 2015 with his Uilleann piping instructor, Patrick Hutchinson and an armload of trophies

Keegan's first Freeman whistle was a Bb tweaked Generation. He got it because a piper told him it was closest in size to a pipes chanter and he was dying to know when his hands were big enough for the pipes.

Then he got his Freeman C Blackbird in September of 2010. At this point he was still playing his eight dollar D Feadóg most of the time. He's playing it in the picture of his first concert.

He got his Freeman D Mellow Dog in December, 2010. You can see and hear him playing it in the "Treetop Tune" video,

After he got the Mellow Dog, he played it at the Mid-Atlantic CCÉ Fleadh (music festival and competition) and qualified to compete in the All Ireland Competition in Cavan.

"The difference when I got the Mellow Dog is that the pressure didn't affect the tuning nearly as much. You get nice clear notes where you want them. And the sound is a nice balance between chiffy and smooth. It sounds like I want a whistle to sound, with some edge, not like a flute.
If I had the Mellow Dog from the beginning, I could have spent more time on tunes and technique and less time worrying about getting each note to sound good.
Last year (2014), I played my Mellow Dog in the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh and qualified for Ireland again. I watched the rest of the competitors and noticed I was the only one in the room without an expensive whistle."

Keegan has never played another C whistle than his Freeman C Blackbird, and he's not looking to replace it.

"It's my favorite Freeman tweaked whistle, and there are seven of them in this house! I always use it for slow airs, plus some tunes and songs I do with the group Méara Meara. It has such a great tone, and it does just what I ask it to do."

Keegan qualified to compete at the All Ireland Fleadh in whistle slow airs each of the last three years with his Freeman C Blackbird. At the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh (the qualifying competition), the first two years he finished second and first in the 12 - 15 age group and then won first place again last year when he advanced to the under 18 age group.

(You can hear Kathleen Conneely playing a Freeman C Blackbird in two of the videos above.)

In 2014 at age 15, Keegan went to Sligo and competed in the All Ireland competition in seven categories on whistle and Uilleann pipes.

Keegan performs regularly with the acclaimed young Irish band, Méara Meara, They are Haley Richardson, 13, All Ireland champion in both solo fiddle and fiddle slow airs; her brother Dylan, 17, on guitar, banjo, mandolin, and Irish bouzouki; and Keegan Loesel on whistle and Uilleann pipes.

Keegan's band, Méara Meara

Méara Meara performing at The Burren Backroom Series, Somerville, Massachusetts, April 2015

Not just Irish music

American Old Time whistle performer and instructor Kirsten Erwin playing a Freeman tweaked D Blackbird
Jonathan Danforth - fiddle, Kenneth Sweeney - guitar
The tunes are: June Apple, Benton's Dream and Elzic's Farewell
Recorded April 26, 2015 at the New England Folk Festival, Mansfield Massachusetts

Questions & Answers

How long will it take before there are mass produced Freeman whistles?

My goal is to introduce the first mass produced Freeman tweaked whistles (key of D Mellow Dogs or Bluebirds, most likely) in 12 to 18 months. It may take longer; I won't release them until they're truly right. One thing I've learned doing this is, great musical instruments have a life and soul of their own. You can't hurry them.

After that, I will work on all of the different models and keys, releasing each one into mass production as it becomes ready. Eventually, I expect there will be twenty or thirty different Freeman whistles.

Will they be the same quality as my tweaked whistles?

No. They will be higher quality, more consistent and more durable. And there will be a greater selection of voicings and keys.

Working in 3D modeling software and using advanced production technology (e.g., Continuous Liquid Interface Production) I'll be able to make refinements to the internal geometry that cannot be achieved in a molded part.

The development and production methods will allow easier prototyping and field testing, so I'll be able to test details that were beyond control before, including the ability to scale designs up or down for lower or higher keys.

How will they be distributed?

I want to make affordable, GREAT whistles available everywhere. That means in music stores worldwide and everywhere online where people might look for them.

To do that, I have to produce enough of the instruments inexpensively enough to fill the normal distribution streams. This campaign will help make that possible.

I will be able to produce better quality whistles at a low enough cost to sell to mainstream musical instrument distributors, who will sell to retailers, who will sell to the public.

How much will they cost?

About the same as now. A key of D whistle will cost around $30.00.

How will I create prototypes?

In 2007 and 2008, I worked with two different product development consultants to convert one whistlehead design (the Mellow Dog) to 3D modeling files from which tooling could be made for mass production.

The computer files they created, I sent to a 3D printing company. I paid $250 for the first high resolution 3D printed prototype. It was a complete failure.

I negotiated the price down to $90 for each 3D printed prototype and went through another ten or so rounds of explaining to the engineers what they'd gotten wrong, waiting one or two weeks for them to make a few small corrections, then getting the prototypes printed, etc. before I determined two things:

The only way to get precise copies of my designs would be to scan them. Measuring and then trying to incorporate the measurements into freehand 3D computer models could never come close enough to the exact geometry.
I would have to get my own 3D printer and print the prototypes myself.

In general, I learned, to get things to work within a reasonable time frame and budget, I have to control as many details of of the process as possible.

Three years ago, from a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, I purchased one of the first 3D printers to become available at low enough cost, with high enough resolution, to make functional 3D printed prototypes of my whistleheads. I have stored the printer, waiting for the chance to get my whistleheads scanned into 3D modeling files.

In the meantime, I've tracked the development of lower cost 3D printers. The one I purchased is still the best in the world for my purpose. By catching the initial Kickstarter campaign when the printer was introduced, I saved about $1000 below what they're selling for today.

What will I do with the prototypes?

A great thing about this approach is, when I've completed a design, I can print any number of variations on a single design and send them to people I've worked with in the past. That allows me to fine tune the design until I'm satisfied it's the best it can be. Continual field testing and feedback are a key part of creating a really great whistle.

Will there be perks for contributors to the crowd funding campaign?

I thought long and hard about perks, did a lot of reading about the pros and cons, how a campaign works with or without perks.

The conclusion I came to is, this project simply doesn't fit with the perks approach.

For one thing, it will be a long time before I have a finished product to offer. It won't be available soon enough that I could treat the contributions as orders for the product, which is one of the main ways crowd funding campaigns structure their perks.

Since I can't offer the product itself as a perk, I would have to improvise items people might like to receive. That would sidetrack the project. I might be able to raise a little more money, but it would create an extra workload and bog down the process of getting affordable GREAT whistles to as many people as possible as soon as possible.

There are also tax implications. If I offer perks, for tax purposes, that is considered a sale of merchandise. Then a percentage of the contributions would have to be paid out in taxes. However, without perks, the contributions may be considered gifts that are not taxed.

I appreciate your understanding here. I've struggled to find a way to approach this, and finally came to the conclusion that it just doesn't fit with what we're trying to accomplish.

What about a newsletter?

Absolutely. I'll keep everyone up to date as the work progresses, and of course, I'll announce whenever there's important news.

What does it mean to "tweak" a whistle?

“Tweaking” a penny whistle is much like setting up a guitar or fiddle; it is the process of making fine adjustments and modifications to get the best possible performance from the instrument.

I take mass produced whistles and adjust the soundblade position, windway exit geometry, voicing chamber and tonebody to clean up squeaks and squawks, improve the playability and intonation, balance and sweeten the voicing.

How did I become the world's only full time, professional penny whistle tweaker?

I started tweaking whistles in 2003. Our oldest daughter was learning to play flute in sixth grade music class, and I worried I would get left out if the family got more involved with music. Arleen, my better half, is quite musical, plays guitar and piano. I had sung in choir (badly) but never taken up an instrument. I was vaguely aware of whistles and thought penny whistle might be a good instrument to learn. I found out more about them, got a few cheap whistles and started learning to play.

One of the things I found out was, players have always taken these cheap whistles, which are considered an important voice of Irish traditional music, and “tweaked” them to make them play better. I became fascinated with this and began experimenting. After some months, I became known among an online community of whistle enthusiasts as someone who had a knack for tweaking whistles.

At the time, no one had worked out the best way to tweak a Generation whistle (the most popular brand of the mass produced whistles). An excellent tweaked Generation whistle was considered the “holy grail” of inexpensive whistles. Someone among the online group offered to buy me as many new Generations as it would take for me to work out how to do it.

He sent seventeen new Generation whistles and I went to work. I don’t know how many I wrecked before I made “the breakthrough,” a reliable way to make an important adjustment to the internal geometry of the mouthpiece, but after an intensive week or two of experimentation, I had whistles good enough to sell.

At the time, I had another business, reconditioning and selling mobile homes, but I needed the extra income from the whistle work, which eventually developed into a modest business. In 2008, we moved from rural upstate New York to Connecticut. I couldn’t move the mobile home business, so I shut it down and became the world’s only full time, professional penny whistle tweaker. The rest, as they say, is history.

What's with the mouse on the Freemanwhistles logo?

Long ago in a farmhouse far away ...

There was a crunching sound in the pantry.

After a day or two of this, Arleen beckoned me into the pantry and said, "Do you hear that?"

I knew I was in trouble.

I flew into action. Jumped in the car and rushed out to get mouse proof food containers. Got back home and packed all the pantry contents neatly in the mouse proof containers. Proudly showed Arleen I'd solved the problem. I was a hero. I had saved the pantry from the mouse.

Well ...

Mouse gotta eat, mouse proof containers or no mouse proof containers.

The next morning, Arleen showed me where, during the night, the mouse had chewed a hole in her purse and eaten her chocolate.

Now I was in SERIOUS trouble.

The only solution, I determined, would be to train the mouse.

My workroom was on the same floor as the pantry, so I figured if I fed the mouse in my workroom, he'd stay out of the pantry and out of Arleen's purse. I set a tray on the floor a few feet away from my chair. On the tray, I put an empty, but not washed, peanut butter jar. Soon, the mouse discovered the jar and set about cleaning up the remaining bits of peanut butter. This was a big job for a mouse, and it took several days.

The children named him Ralph.

He was a vole, or meadow mouse. Ralph would keep me company every night, working on his peanut butter jar. The children ate a lot of peanut butter, so there was always a jar for Ralph to work on. From time to time, he would emerge from the jar, stand on his hind legs and make eye contact. Ralph was good company.

One day, after several weeks of this, I heard a familiar crunching sound in the pantry.

I thought, "Ralph! We talked about this. I thought we had an understanding!"

The crunching seemed to be coming from some flattened boxes that were going to be recycled. I picked up the top box, expecting to see a mouse scurry away. No mouse. The crunching continued, only interrupted for a few seconds by my rustling the boxes.

I picked up all the boxes. The crunching stopped, but no mouse scurried away.

All that was left was an empty Cheerios box that had been at the bottom of the pile. I thought, "He couldn't be in there."

I picked up the Cheerios box and looked inside. There was a wax paper bag inside that had held the cereal. I thought, "He couldn't be in that bag."

I pulled the bag out of the box, and there, standing on his hind legs with his forepaws against the side of the bag, was Ralph, gazing calmly at me from inside the bag.

I drove Ralph to the park and let him go in the woods.

I left the tray in place to lure any new mice away from the pantry and Arleen's chocolates.

Only a few days passed and another mouse showed up, this time a deer mouse.

That was Ralph II, the greatest mouse I ever knew. Ralph II kept me company as I worked into the night for several months until I began to see signs of another mouse and had to catch both of them. I was heartbroken when I let Ralph II go in the woods. (It's Ralph II whose picture is on every Freeman whistle.)

After Ralph II, there was Gus, another vole. Gus was only with us for a week or two, but he was the hardest working mouse of all. He would show up, not just at night, but in the middle of the day, working two shifts at the Global Pennywhistle Tweaking Research and Production Consortium Headquarters. Gus was so tame, the children could creep close to him, and he wouldn't scurry. He'd stand on his hind legs and make eye contact, to their delight.

And then there was Mouse, the last rodent on the GPTR&PC Headquarters staff.

By the time Mouse came around, the arrangement had lost its novelty, and I didn't pay much attention to him. He was a very shy animal, and I rarely saw him. An online friend had sent a supply of sunflower seeds for Mouse, which I left for him on the tray.

But Mouse wouldn't stay and eat. All night long, he would haul sunflower seeds, from the tray to his secret cache somewhere. Back and forth, back and forth, over and over again, while I worked on whistles.

My online friends and I wrote a song for Mouse:

Gotta haul dem seeds,
Gotta haul dem seeds.
I'm a working MOUSE,
Gotta haul dem seeds.

One day, in the spring, I was looking for something in my workroom closet. I noticed a pair of shoes I hadn't worn much and wouldn't likely wear again. I thought, "I'll give these to the thrift store." I picked up one of the shoes, and out popped Mouse! As he scurried away, I looked inside the shoe.

There, inside the shoe was a cozy (and warm) little mouse nest, made of about 50% dryer lint and 50% ...

my whiskers!

All winter long, as he was hauling seeds back and forth, whenever Mouse encountered a whisker that had fallen from my beard, he picked it up and tucked it into his shoe nest.

(I've wondered about this. Why would a mouse make his nest in a shoe and insulate it with human whiskers? Well, to cover his own scent. "No mouse in here! I'm a big scary human, so you'd better not come near!")

Best wishes,
Jerry

(Note to self: Gotta get a phone that records better quality video.)

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