And, You Started to Play the Whistle because...

Whistle
21

I started because I wanted to.

Here it is ten years later and I haven’t got anywhere. Maybe I should give these Clarkes away.

As for finding Chiff and Fipple, I visited the site quite a long while before I visited the Forums. My sister’s back went out a few years back, and she was bed and wheelchair-bound for a few months, as Indian Health didn’t have the money to pay for her MRI, and neither did we. Anyway, her birthday came, and I recalled she’d shown interest a few years earlier in playing whistle by tabs, so I decided to get her one… would give her something to do, till her back operation. That drew me back to the C&F site for a second time… looking at the pages that told about the different makes of whistle.

Some time later I first visited the Board, and posted.

22

Are you talking about the cylindrical or conical bore dulcimer? :smiley:

23

I heard Eoin Duignan play the low whistle in an Irish pub in Dingle in 1998. He made a kind of magic I didn’t know existed until then. I was hooked but couldn’t find a teacher til two years ago and then he recommended I start on tinwhistle because…well because it’s a good place to start. I have no regrets about that, but now I spend most of my time on low whistles making a small kind of magic.

24

For me it was a toss-up between whistle and guitar. I figured chicks really dig guys who play whistle and flute, so my choice was easy.
Chris

25

Having been listening to the Chieftains, The Boys of the Loch, and the like back in the mid to late 70’s, I spent the then ‘much more than a penny’, $3.98 or so for my first penny whistle and proceeded to learn a few tunes. I loved the sound, the ease of playing (fingered like the flute I had played in school) and had plenty of opportunity at that time to play.

Unfortunately, I’ve never been much for actually paracticing, so those few tunes are still most of my repetoire, LOL, though I’ve finally figured that out, and am adding new ones regularly.

26

I play both whistle and guitar. I started out playing guitar, then I met “the Ladies”! :smiley:

27

-After hearing a stirring medley about 1978 on a David Bromberg
album with a medley featuring a well-played high whistle on the finale.
-Its still the best lively piece I’ve heard, but not for the fainthearted.

28

About 24 years now. I liked the GHB, happened to hear some SSP and Northumbrian pipes and someone said get started on a whistle before getting bagpipes.

Then I got some Chieftains and Planxty albums and heard the uilleann pipes.

If you think WhOA disorder is bad, try UpOA disorder. :boggle:

You better give that whistle to someone before you happen to find a pipemaker :smiling_imp:

29

1991 was the first year I went to Scotland, and the first folk-cd I then bought was “the compact collection” by the corries.

still, a very enjoyable album, if you like that sort of music. It was my first encounter to folk music. Some years later i bought myself a genD and tried to play along to some bagpipe music I liked, of course it didn’t work and I thought it had only to do with my inadequacy…
After a few more years (that is about 3 years ago) I found out about various keys and stuff, I bought myself the whole generation range and found out using a Bb worked well to Mike Katz’s (Battelfield Band) bagpipes…
Well…the rest is, as they say, history…
:slight_smile:

30

In the summer of 1973 (I think), the Chieftains came to Scotland for the first time. We’d heard the odd track on the radio (John Peel played them from time to time), but when they played the Edinburgh Festival so few people came that the hall was almost empty. We had bought the cheapest student tickets, but were ushered onto the front stalls.

Now, you must understand that at that time in much of Scotland, pipers didn’t speak to accordion players, fiddlers mostly didn’t speak to folk revivalists who played guitars and mandolins and other such new-fanged imports. So apart from the club-footed fiddle and accordion bands (deeply uncool), you either heard Highland pipes and drums playing together, or solo fiddle and piano, or - very rarely, and only if you knew where to look - older tradition bearers breaking all the rules of polite performance. The Incredible String Band was a notable exception.

So hearing an ensemble like the Chieftains was an absolute revelation. I was in tears of joy most of the time.

I’d been a rcre player, into renaissance and baroque music, but increasingly starting to explore my own Scottish tradition, and learning bluegrass guitar too.

Well, I went right out and bought a brass Gen in d’, and in a year or so had close to a full set. Somewhere around '74 I bought an Overton A (which I still have). And I’ve been playing ever since.

In the late '80s I got hold of a Shaw low D, which I never really took to: I got cramp in my hands holding it for any length of time. Arond the same time I bought an Overton G, but never managed to stop it clogging.

About 4 years ago I discovered C&F, which has unclogged my Overtons, and launched me on big-time WhoA. Thank you Dale.

For many years I would be the only whistle player in the session - there were good players around Scotland, but not where I was living. So I lsitened to RTE (the Irish Radio Station), which influenced my style a little.Mostly, though, I play Scottish style, much influenced by highland pipe ornaments, and also by Northumbrian piping - lots of tonguing and a fair bit of staccato, and even flutter tonguing occasionally (where an Irish piper would do a cran, for instance, or a Highland piper do a pinky birl.)

So that’s my story.

all the best

brian

31

music has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember.

I played the “flute-o-phone” as a child, then clarinet.

I sang in the church choir.

I taught myself guitar.

I taught myself the silver flute.

Then I hurt my right hand. So I had to give the flute a rest.

I found C&F on a computer surf ~ can’t remember what I was looking for.
Anyway, in my area there happened to be a great Folk Music Store (Ashland OR at the time) with any number of cheapies available, so I bought a bunch, and it’s been wonderful ever since.

And since my hand has healed, I can now play flute again
But I’ve switched to keyless wooden flute!!! But that’s another story!

Mary :slight_smile:

32

I can’t remember.

33

I used to be heavily into jazz,and played Alto sax (self taught)- badly- in a couple of local amateur bands- Dixieland,Rock and even ‘Free-improv’.
I hadn’t played any instrument for about 15 years,and thought about dusting down the old Sax.,but I fancied playing a less ‘mechanical’ instrument,covered in keywork,springs,pads that leak etc etc,not to mention mucking about with reeds.
I had a few Generation whistles,got them out of the cupboard,did a 'net 'search,and found ‘Chiff’.
My fate was sealed.This was in 2001.I lurked for a long time,and at first thought it was incredible that anyone could be obsessed enough by these instruments to pay hundreds of £’s/$'s on them-were these people mad or what?
My answer now to that last question is ;Yes, WE probably are!!
I must say that I’ve leared more about playing music in the last 3 years than the previous 25.

34

So that’s why you eventually started learning the pipes :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :roll:

35

About 9 months ago I actually wanted to learn to play the simple system flute. So I bought an “Acoustica” (which is, imho, the tool of the devil). Couldn’t get a note out of the bloody thing and after two weeks of agony I came up with a Cunning Plan: buy a tin whistle, learn the tunes on that, and then, mwa-ha-ha, when I finally figured out how to make that “Acoustica” work I’d be halfway there.

I still can’t a worthwhile noise out of that alleged flute. But I don’t care, for I have subsequently acquired other flutes which actually work. And about two dozen whistles (including the Low F Dixon that Amar forced me to buy).

I still keep the “Acoustica” in the corner of my living room. Whenever I begin to feel the slightest bit clever or important, I look at it… it reminds me that I am eminently capable of gross stupidity. And I enjoy playing my Bleazey flute right in front of it, so the spiteful little b*&^t&rd can hear what a real flute sounds like :smiling_imp:

36
37

I played guitar for 20-some years until I broke my left wrist leaving me with permanent nerve damage. When I break things I like to do the job right. :frowning: Eventually I had to give up guitar and while I was going through the grieving process I pulled out those old whistles that had been gathering dust for years and I decided to learn how to play them. That was about two years ago and while my left hand still cramps up occasionally I’m making steady progress and having fun as well.

38

Heard Pipes, Seen Pipes

Not a problem with this whistler. I must be imune…



Or smart!!! :devil:

39

After paying $7,200 for my wife’s cello, $600 for my wife’s cello bow, and $400 for my wife’s cello case, tin whistle is all I can afford! :boggle:

Even with my severe case of WhOA, I still have not reached the cost of a cello bow. (My WhOA is limited to Clarke and Generation whistles, all keys, tweeked and untweeked. Soon to include a Mack Hoover Whitecap brass D Generation! :party: :party: )

40

because I am a pagan and all the lovely songs that I got to know seemed to come from a celtic background and wanted to learn to play that kind of music…last summer.

berti