A Challenge for the Newbies & Lurkers

Whistle
1

Tell us what you’re up to.

  1. What instrument(s) have you been playing?
  2. How long have you been playing?
  3. Where are you playing? (inside/outside/underground/in spaceships)
  4. What are you working on?
  5. What’s the best fun you had with a whistle?
  6. Have you inspired anyone else?
2

Hi all

New to the forum so this looks like a good place to start. I currently own a chieftain V3 low D and a generation nickel D wich is horrible imo, its very shrill. I have been learning for a couple of months now and very pleased with my progress. Im currently learning a tune called king of the fairys and the kesh jig. I just play at the house and have definitely not inspired anyone.

Thanks for reading

3
  1. Lately I’ve been sticking to the whistle and the bouzouki (a back injury and a pinched nerve has made holding a guitar uncomfortable for months).
  2. Guitar for 35+ years, piano for 30 years but off and on with great stretches of no piano in there, and then there’s a smattering of mountain dulcimer, banjo, bouzouki, and whistle …all taken up within the past 10 years.
  3. Mostly at home these days. I was an active performer up until about 5 years ago and my first cd actually got some radio play on some folk music shows around the country. I’ll get back to it again, but not until the new cd I’m working on gets finished.
  4. The new cd …but it’s not something I’m rushing to finish. I’ve been working on drum tracks for a few songs as of late and once that’s done, and once I can get a buddy of mine to come give me a hand on the controls and a critical ear, I’ll be laying down vocal tracks. Chances are that won’t happen until this winter sometime as he’s states away and dealing with some serious medical issues with his dad.
  5. I think the looks I get when I’m playing whistle in the car at red lights is pretty funny.
  6. Not on the whistle. I’d like to think I’ve inspired a person or two with the guitar along the way.

If anyone is curious and would like to hear the kind of music I write and play, there are a few songs to be heard on my website, one plays on the front page of the site, and 3 others can be found on the mp3 page: www.jimcaputo.com

That’s me in a nutshell …just where I belong.

4

Hello to everybody,
I have been reading in the forum quietly for some time, but I guess it’s a good time to introduce myself. My name is Georg and currently I live in Berlin, Germany.
Some 25+ years ago my parents bought me a soprano recorder and aranged weekly lessons for me … that’s how it all started. Then … alto & tenor recorders, playing trombone in the school band and starting to whistle after I had heard an Irish slow air performed live on stage - must have been around 13 years old back then. I used to play my Generation, Clarke and Shaw whistles whenever possible - at home, with friends who brought their guitars, fiddles and the like, at the campfire boyscouting … anywhere.
A few years ago I started playing the Oboe - really a wonderful instrument, unfortunately hardly heard in folk music (maybe that has something to do with Oboes costing the price of approximately 500 - 1000 Generation whistles?). I really love my Oboe and spend considerable time playing it every day - as much as work, my wife and my kids permit.
Some time ago I also took up the Armenian Duduk - amazing instrument with a very touching, haunting sound.
Anyway, while my whistles have been silent for some time, I am definitely back to whistling now. I keep practicing slow airs (as my fingers do somehow have a problem with too much speed I do not get along well with fast dance tunes…) and I hope to get the chance to play Irish music together with others again soon - both with my Oboe and on the tin whistle. At the moment I am about to afford myself my first high-end whistle; possibly a Le Coant?
OK that’s It from me - it always interesting to read what you guys write… keep on tooting
Georg

5

It would be interesting to hear an oboe (or an English horn) in a traditional folk music context.

6

Gordon Mooney used to include an oboe (played by his wife Barbara) alongside his Scottish Smallpipes and Border Pipes in concert. I think there are recordings of this combination on his “O’er the Border”.

Best wishes.

Steve

7

back up a bit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPTT1oFRErg


heck, back up too far!!
http://www.youtube.com/user/Jemtheflute#p/u/21/LIr080IMK6c

8
  1. I play ukulele and whistle.
  2. Ukulele about 2 1/2 years and whistle 1 year this month.
  3. I play in my home office typically. Usually after the kids go to sleep, with a muted whistle. Sometimes I play outside in the backyard.
  4. I was fortunate to get an MK D a couple of months ago and I’m learning a lot about the instrument and my abilities as I practice with it. I tend to work on scales first, then a tune from a list I’ve put together and the most popular session tunes. Haven’t been to a session yet, but hope to go this winter.
  5. I was on a business trip to Florida and stayed by the water. I carry a mutable hi d in my briefcase and got up one morning to stand on the beach and play. There was something about playing with the waves coming in, a soft ocean breeze, and the warm sun shining down that I won’t ever forget. I don’t know quite how to put it into words, but I felt connected to everything for just a few brief, important moments.
  6. My niece was visiting from college and inquired about the small whistle collection in my office. I played a few tunes for her and she looked at me in amazement (the first time that’s happened with me and the whistle btw). Because she was so interested, I gave her my Freeman tweaked Sweetone, a note chart, and the url for Chiff and Fipple. She just took it to Hawaii for a volunteer program she had enrolled in and I feel like I sent something back for the ukulele I bought there 2 1/2 years ago. Funny how things work out.
9

Newbies take note: Denny has provided something of value to you.
Play these clips assertively and often, and your family will soon consider your little whistle to be only so very slightly annoying.

10

Well… most folk traditions have their “folk oboes” many of which are admittedly not as sweet in tone as a whistle or modern oboe - the Surna, probably of Persian origin but distributed over most of Asia is another example of this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhNH-qfCbM4

Variations:
Armenian Zurna
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq5l0Yjm2Ug

Chinese Suona
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrK1Gck-Kb4&feature=related

Indian Shenai
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPovbKPDa3E

Crusaders brought the instrument to Europe, leading to the evolution of the Shawm with its many regional variations including the Breton Bombardes shown to us by Denny above.
Here another shawm version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egifq8lEEu0

So far so unpleasant… However, the family also has members with a totally different sound.
I really love this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hLECem3rg4&feature=related

At the moment I am playing some tunes by O’Carolan on the classical Oboe and they sound wonderful - wish I had somebody to accompany me on a harp…

Cheers,
Georg

11

thank yew Georg

12

Hi everyone! I’ve been doing a little lurking around C&F and was going to join once my first tin whistle, a Freeman-tweaked Sweetone, came in the mail (which it did today). And I saw this thread and figured it would be a good place for a first post since I guess I’m both a newbie and a lurker.

1-2. I’ve played the piano for several years now, and two months ago I got my first ocarina. Just today, I got some more ocarinas in the mail as well as the aforementioned tin whistle.
3. I’ve played out on the piano (or keyboard) sometimes and I’ve taken my ocarina (not the ones I got today, just my first one) with me a few places for fun. But most of my playing is done at home.
4. On the ocarina, I’m trying to go from piddling around to actually mastering my instrument. On the tin whistle, I’m trying to figure out how to play second octave notes higher than E consistently and so that they sound decent (instead of all air and maybe the first octave tone). Gotta start somewhere I guess!
5. I’ll tell you once I’ve been playing for more than a few hours.
6. I might be inspiring some of my family members negatively…but I’m guessing that’s not what the OP meant.

13

breath control: long tones, support, focus, whatever


hard ta tell…he’s been know to relish negative inspiration :smiling_imp:

14

esprit wrote:
4. On the ocarina, I’m trying to go from piddling around to actually mastering my instrument. On the tin whistle, I’m trying to figure out how to play second octave notes higher than E consistently and so that they sound decent (instead of all air and maybe the first octave tone). Gotta start somewhere I guess!

breath control: long tones, support, focus, whatever

Upon further experimentation I think my high notes not sounding were just a case of me having to blow harder. My first ocarina required an extraordinarily little amount of breath, so I hadn’t fully adjusted to the greater breath requirements of my whistle. Man do those high 2nd octave notes shriek!

15

with any luck they will quit shrieking as you get better :smiley:

16
  1. I’m classically trained on the silver flute, but I play piano, piano accordion, various whistles, wooden flute, mandolin, and ukulele by ear.
  2. In approximate order of obsession: piano (about 30 years, since I expect I was about five when I began), uke (26ish years), flute (24 years), whistle (20ish years), accordion (15 years), mandolin (8 years), wooden flute and low whistle (started this summer).
  3. I occasionally play in spaceships, but also in my apartment, which has unusually thick walls. I have a very amateur folk band, and we tend to practise in the dining hall of a graduate college at a university we all once attended.
  4. I’ve been learning some tunes this summer, plus trying to beat the need to add vibrato to every note out of myself. Vibrato was a hard-won achievement when I played the flute as a teenager, so now it’s pretty well automatic on any wind instrument. I cannot make it go away. It haunts me.
  5. I just spent five minutes thinking about that one. I don’t know! I always have fun playing the whistle, though I think I have occasionally caused pain to the people playing beside me.
  6. I occasionally get people coming up to me and asking what that little thingy is. I have given several of the little thingies away to friends (there’s a toy store near where I live that sells Clarke Woodstocks, and I can’t resist). I’m also preparing to indoctrinate my niece, who is two and a half and probably not quite ready yet.

I’ve been lurking here for a while. I keep reading about all the pretty whistles offered for sale and forcing myself not to buy them. I’ve bought way too many whistles this summer as it is. Maybe it’s a good thing that there seems to be no ready source of high-end whistles in Toronto, but the Internet is still way too handy.

17

Good on you - but here is a fair warning -

Much to his delight, I gave my 4.5 year old nephew his first whistle last week - A beat up generation whistle. With my whistle in hand I asked him if he wanted to learn a tune with me. Looking insulted, he put the whistle up to his mouth and confidently said “Uncle, I already know lotsa tunes!”

He then put the whistle in his mouth and hummed (Think like a Kazoo) several songs while moving his fingers wildly on the whistle.

It was a good laugh.

That being said - He loves the whistle and takes it everywhere he goes. It did no harm in giving him the whistle, although I now fear revenge from his mother.

18

My son (5) and daughter (3) LOVE playing their whistles too! My son can play the iconic “Hot cross buns” and some simple accompaniment parts i’ve made up for him, but he’ll be doing his school work and starts humming “Swallowtail Jig”, “Come thou Fount”, “Flowers of Edinburg” or whatever else i’ve been working on. My daughter will supply the air, and I get to be the fingers when she’s “practicing”.

19

I’m really happy that all you lurkers came out of the woodwork.

20

It was getting cramped, and there were termites.