COLIN'S HOMEPAGE

Thank you for stopping by and welcome to Colin's homepage.

Throughout this site I will provide an informative service on the craft Colin Goldie lives and breathes.  I will try to do my best to tell you parts out of his life which might interest you. If you want to contact him personally please feel free to send him an email

Colin is sometimes a posessed musician, what I can understand completly. He plays beside the Overton whistles, all kind of percussion instruments, didgeridoo and "a bit of guitar, side flute and bouzouki". Beside his multi-instrumental life he is a multicultural person even in his roots.

   "Family home in Ireland"

WHERE DOES HE COME FROM?

When you look back you will start in Watford just North of London. Here he grew up as the youngest of six children. His mother came from county Donegal, Eire and his father came from Edinburgh, Scotland. During his childhood the long summer holidays would be spent in Ireland which he loved climbing mountains (big hills), fishing and cycling.

At five years old while visiting Santas Grotto one christmas he was given a recorder and had a few lessons on it. He used to cheat in the music lesson by playing by ear rather than reading music. This was fine on simple tunes but when they got more complex he gave up learning the recorder. It was always around the house and was always picked up and played. Mainly playing tunes by ear.

When about 14 he was given a Generation D this along with getting into Irish Music mainly Horslips, Bothy Band and Planxty, these bands had him hooked. He had dozens of cheaper makes throughout the years which he always gave away to introduce friends to the instrument. (I was also given a high D)

Quite a few years later he decided to build his own whistle. The first self-made whistle he called  "Frankenstein"    because of having nuts and bolts through the head. You would never expect this good sound by its look. (See also the picture below) He made this from a bathroom towel rail, I found this a funny idea.

The second whistle he made was out of brass. This one is sounding good he says but much too heavy.

WHEN HE MET BERNARD

During this time in 1993 he met Bernard Overton. He started learning to build whistles from Bernard. He told me "I got the chance to build the best quality whistle available "The Overton". I can tell you he likes the work he does. Its sometimes funny for me how he is always working and tweeking the instruments and tools forever striving for perfection. His aim is to make high quality handcrafted whistles you won't be able to put down.

WHERE DOES HE LIVE AND WORK?

Since 1999 he has been living in Germany right at the border to the Netherlands and Belgium. We are quite lucky and live outside the town close to woods and fields. Why Germany? Because of a cat and of course myself :-), but the cat is the reason for the country.

....and this is "Jacques", having his 19th birthday in October 2006

WHERE DOES THE MUSIC COME FROM?

Where does the music come from in his roots? As far as he knew his parents were not particularly musical, his father could sing though and played harmonica. This he only found out recently as his father died when he was only 4 years old. His older brothers were into music and a couple played guitar and had a great appreciation of music be it rock or folk. On the Irish side not too much was known as most of the uncles and aunts never married or died early. When reading the ChiffandFipple's message board in mid 2000 a message was about a whistle player originally from County Donegal called Packie Manus Byrne. The name rang bells and Colin got hold of his telephone number. It turned out that Packie's grand parents are Colin's great grand parents, this was exciting news to him. Also Packie told him, he used to play Overtons and on an album cover called "From Donegal and back" you can see Packie playing an Overton whistle. Packie recently has had a book published by  Roger Millington Publishing   with a CD of some of the 85 tunes from the book. The collection of tunes gathered together are compositions by Packie himself and tunes he learned in the 20s and 30s. On the CD Steven Jones and Jean Duval play Packie's tunes. LPs of Packie can still be found but may need hunting.

WHAT IS HE UP TO WITH HIS WHISTLE MAKING?

Here you will find news of his developments and ideas. Information about his whistles and the occasional "specials" and "one off's" you will find via the  Overton Pricelist Page. Get an idea and have a look in the  Overton Picture Gallery .

If you have any desires on how you like a whistle to play and sound as this varies from player to player Colin is very happy to help out where he can. He likes having contact to people and appreciates comments and suggestions on what you want from a whistle. What he has found out is that a perfect whistle in every way for one person is not necessarily the same for the next, depending on the style and sound that is required. Therefore he is happy to custom make a whistle to whatever specifications a whistle player may have, if physics allow it.

From some of these strange requests that sometimes happens, new developments were born. Together with Steafan Hannigan a whistle called Modal-8 was developed. Colin has made Soprano D/C whistles and Alto G/F whistles. The D/C whistle is a whistle primarily in the Soprano D key but with an F natural played by the thumb and a bottom C played by the "pinkie". Likewise with the Alto G/F which is primarily a G whistle which can also play in the key of F.

  Modal D/C Whistle

He has also made Soprano (high) D whistles with a bottom C which can come in handy for that odd tune. All these are available now and if you have any special-whistle-key-notation-combination request, let him know and if it is possible he will build it.

COLIN FOR "RENT"

"At the Fiddler's Recording Session in Berlin"

In May 2000 Colin was asked to play whistles on an album by the German Independent Speed Folk Band "Fiddler's Green" . He flew over for a day to Berlin and recorded on a few songs. It turned out being a lot of fun as he did not quite know what to expect when he got there to begin with. The album "Another Sky" was released and made it to number two in the German web charts only stopped by the Beatles album No. 1 which apparently was. Since then he has played with the band guesting around our area in Cologne, Bonn, Wuppertal and also in Erlangen when their last home gig for the year 2000 and the drummer's fairwell party took place.

In May 2001 he was near Würzburg, doing a recording session for the debut album of Alexander Lien "Momentary Magic", the album came out later in the year. It was fun recording it, he has used whistle keys he had to develop and build first, as they were not made til then.

In September 2002 another German Folk Rock Band "Cromdale" asked for playing on their new album. There will be three whistle tracks and one playing the "Mittelalter Dudelsack" (German bagpipe). The CD ist called "Forgotten Tales". This was also a new experience, wrestling with the brown animal under his arm, fighting for control.

In March 2005 again he was in the studio with Cromdale for the new CD. Like last time he took along his "Mittelalterdudelsack" to play it on one tune, 4 more whistle tunes were recorded and he can be heard as one of the backing singers on some more tunes.

For a few years now he occasionally plays with them at their concerts or festivals inside Germany. He was one of the guest musicians at the 1000th Fiddler's Green oncert in summer 2004, which is available on DVD since March 2005. This year he will play the second time since 2004 at the festival Folk im Schlosshof and also will teach a whistle workshop.

He is interested in getting more session experience and is open for requests. His interest is in different musical styles not only the Irish Folk music and if you are looking for a whistle player just let him know.

.... and last but not least, here is my little Gallery (click here)  where you can find photographs I have taken in the last few years.....

If you have any questions regarding the whistles or others, please do not hesitate to send him an email.

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last update 05/05