Do you still whistle?

I play off and on all day. A tune here, and a tune there. I don’t get enough time to PRACTICE, though. But I couldn’t imagine NOT playing at least a few tunes a day.

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t play music on something. Piano has always been my primary instrument and always will be. Whistle is second.
The others fall in various order depending on my mood. I can’t imagine not playing.

I rarely play whistle these days - most often while waiting in line at Taco Bell late nights. I do play flute 1-2 hours daily. I still like whistle, but my family likes flute better (and we live in a small house and it’s cold outside…). Personally, I like flute better myself, but that doesn’t mean some tunes are just plain better on the whistle.

Eric

Yes.

I whistle every day, with the exception of maybe once a month when something prevents me from doing so. Right now, I’ve been nursing a cold, so I find I don’t enjoy whistling, partly 'cause of my congestion and the effect on breathing. But normally, I’d probably walk around with a whistle if I could play it without bothering people wherever I am :slight_smile:

I love it, and play piano. But I only play piano at worship practice at church. I also hope to pick up flute at some point, and even bodhran, but I want to get settled in whistle before getting into something else.

matt

I’m whistling more than ever, but also listening to CDs about equal to the amount of time I play.

I rarely touch my whistles except when a gig calls for them. Mostly I play the violin and mandolin on a daily basis, even if it’s only 25 minutes on the fiddle in the morning before work. My best instruments are piano, flute, and trumpet. I only play piano on Sundays at church (because they pay me to) and flute whenever the church music calls for it. The trumpet is from a past life, and oh what a life it was!

JP

I’m not really a serious whistler, but I have one or two on my desk in case I feel like playing them or if I see a piece of music online and want to hear how it sounds. My concentration is on bassoon, because I perform it in ensembles and it’s my instrument of choice, but I’m not whistling any less than before. If anything, definitely more since I started lurking these boards.

I whistle for a few minutes most days,usually on the antique brass Bb which permanently resides on my computer desk (now joined by the Hohner Bb that I found last week).
My other whistles(high and low) are played occassionally.I played ten minutes of Recorder last week,haven’t played my Flutes in quite a while,and have more or less given up on my U. Pipe practice set .
I don’t even listen to much music these days(maybe one C.D. a week).
However,I DO consider myself primarily to be a Whistleplayer of sorts - a rather infrequent one (!) :smiley:

now I’m into Mandolin (actually a guitar-tuning)…rarely pick whistles up these days…and I started playing guitar again.

I touch my whistles so rarely they are dusty.

I play fiddle every lunch hour at work (I have my special practise area set up at the bottom of the fire stairs) and the time flies.

In the evenings I fiddle less, only when the mood is on me. Music is often an escape, and I have less to escape from at home. I also got a viola recently, for playing fiddle tunes on when those high notes are a bit too shrill.

I’ve also started a bodhran class once a week, to gain a better appreciation of the instrument, so I’m trying to make sure I practise enough to keep up with the lessons. Bodhran is great for diddling along to a CD.

I also play the concertina and my son is trying to teach me the fiddle but I shall always consider myself to be a whistler. Morris dancing and whistling - it’s what I do, it’s who I am.

I switched to flute last April, and they get most of my wind these days (every day). But I still play whistle, great for picking up tricksty tunes before transferring them to flute. The Busman is of course gorgeous, it gets a good blast at weekends, and the Laughing Whistle goes with me everywhere.

The whistle that gets played the most often though is the Gen.D in the bathroom, very handy for those long contemplative moments where the seated position (and position of the seat in question) is quite inappropriate for a Bb flute! Nice acoustics in there too… :slight_smile:

Which reminds me, I really must learn “The hut in the bog”

I still play my flute and whistles at least weekly but I’ve been concentrating on harmonica since Christmas. I’m selling most of the whistles I never used because I’d rather play my bamboo flutes for a lot of things.

As for you bassoon players, have you heard of Paul MacCandless? He played some great jazz bassoon with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones on their Live at the Quick DVD.

I play whistle practically every day, still after all this time. I end up practicing probably 3-4 hours a week total.

I went through a long period of time after my son was born where I had really no time at all to play. When he was up, there was no time for whistles. When he was sleeping, we were sleeping.

I find that being around other musicians in session help keep me inspired to learn new tunes and improve myself. When I go for a long time just playing by myself, I get in a rut and my enthusiasm wanes. While I don’t really stop playing, my practice time diminishes greatly, and I learn a lot less each week.

I keep thinking I’d like to play another instrument…recently, I got some bones, and before that I had a fiddle, and before that I took a couple of years of piano lessons. But every time I make time to practice the new instrument, I always end up thinking to myself “You know, you could be practicing the whistle”…eventually the new instrument ends up on Ebay. :wink:

ever since i play the button accordion, i can’t play straight bore whistles anymore.
i only play conical bores, about 1 hour every day.
but i practice on the accordion for 2 hours.

Whistle most days for 10 minutes to and hour. First flute is on the way and I’m curious how that will change my whistle time. I suspect there’s a concertina in my future somewhere too. Gave my wife a bodhran for Chistmas because she’s always been intrigued by them, but claims absolutely no musical ability. We’ll see… That could change my whistle time too.

I’m just starting out on whistle but I try to play a few minutes a day when I’m least likely to disturb the whole house. I’m still playing bass in a rock band though so do I get some solid time in musically each week. I do try to listen to as much ITM as possible during my long work commute though. I think that helps me alot at this point to hear how certain phrasings, note choices and tempos sound.

This will all change dramatically for me in a few weeks when I’m done finishing my basement studio/office. It will not be a whistle free zone!

Jeff

I play whistle every day. I ocassionally try a few toots on the flute but it seems beyond my air power. I love my whistles they are a great source of stress relief and one of the few things I can actually play. Since I bought the Humphrey set I play it whenever I can. When I need a quieter whistle I play my Alba Q1. Others are played depending on mood. But I play whistle every day.

Ron

Play whistle for probably about an hour a day, on average. My session attendence has been a bit off lately – only three or four since the start of Decemeber – but I made up for it with a nice paying gig two weeks ago. My long dry spell of not learning new tunes seems to be over, and I wrote a new reel this week.

I need to start practicing my bassoon more, since as of last night I’m in two orchestras, playing a bunch of fun but relatively challenging music.

I also should be practicing the old 4-stop more – it’s been a couple of months since I pulled it out to have a blast of tunes.