Scenario: Your house has caught fire. Everyone is accounted for and safe. You have 3 minutes remaining to grab whatever instruments you want. What do you grab?
My answer:
I always keep a whistle in my everyday bag, which always goes out the door with me, so I’m covered for whistles. I’d make a mad grab for my Grenaditte flute, my Wheatstone 64 button English concertina, my Weltmeister 120 button piano accordion, and my performance ukuleles (8-string Kamaka, 4 string tenor Lehua, custom Graziano tenor).
My wife and I have discussed this. Damn the instruments, the insurance will get us better ones. We’re saving the sheet music. We keep meaning to put the sheet music bookcase on wheels for easier escape. We have a boatload of all types of sheet music but the most important is the church music sheet music. Most of it is out of print. Most of it is filled with notes, transpositions, arrangement variations, and when I was learning new instruments, tabulation.
At one point, we were using a version of Silent Night that had one set of guitar chords that came with the music, and three different handwritten transpositions, none of which I was actually using the last time we used that music.
After awhile, I got smart and started dating the notes by year, so that in 2011, we were using that note and just ignore all the other previous notes handwritten on the music. In my younger days, there were penciled circles all over some songs, that was an indication that something tricky was happening there or I needed to maintain and not speed up the tempo.
We would be very happy to have avoided the need to get rid of all the clutter too.
Three minutes would be enough for me to grab the dulcimer, the guitar and the bag of whistles, which contains fifteen whistles, two NAFs, a syrinx, two bullroarers, three harmonicas and two kazoos.
“Three minutes to get out”? That sounds hauntingly familiar for some reason.
Most of them are kept in one place, so with three minutes I could grab a lot.
My mandolin for sure, and my gig bag which already contains my favorite, most played whistles and flute. Next, probably my wife’s and my good recorders.
Forget the instruments, not that I have much in that department, I’m grabbing the case of Guinness and my wife is grabbing her bottle of wine so we can self-medicate whilst we watch our lives go up in smoke from the street
It’s not exactly a hypothetical scenario here, as twice in the last 10 years I’ve had to evacuate at very short notice while wildfires reduced large swaths of my neighborhood to cinders. Thankfully, my home was eventually unscathed both times. But I know exactly which instruments I took. And let’s just say that if you think you know how you will handle the decision-making process under those life-threatening circumstances, you’ll probably surprise yourself. Also, it’s amazing how much stuff you can fit in an evacuation vehicle when you know that whatever you take is all you will have left in the world, and every decision you make is forever.
I use to be a federal firebug, I’ve burned thousands and thousands of acres never once burned my home down. Do have a friend who burned down a US Coast Guard Station, accidentally, that was embarrassing
Bouzouki because it’s a one-of-kind made by my best friend, who is luthier. Also my banjo, because I could sell it and replace my burnt whistles with money to spare. I don’t ever play that banjo, but it’s definitely worth more than any whistle!
I’ve been instructed by my wife to forget the instruments. What she wants more than anything else is her large wooden trunk on wheels of Christmas ornaments that sits in the living room. And, of course, I will do what my wife says. I have a lot of instruments: two violins, a viola, a cello, a guitar and two mandolins, two keyboards, two frame drums, and two of almost everything. Contrary to others on this forum, none of my instruments do I think of as “irreplaceable”.
I know where she’s coming from. Our Christmas ornament collection is without a doubt the most monetarily valuable thing we own. I could tell you where every ornament came from too. However, it’s snuggly packed away in a closet.
That’s a question that requires some thought. if I take the harp, that’s it. If I take the mountain dulcimer, I can also take an armful of flutes and whistles. Or, I can take two armfuls of flutes and whistles. The first is right out. I think the two absolute necessities are the Olwell Rottenburgh, since it’s one of about a half dozen and he has no intention of making more, and my wife’s Muramatsu. Close behind are C and D Thin Weasels, an Olwell Nicholson, and Cameron Grenser. I think I could get all those plus the Blue Lion dulcimer.
Well that makes me feel a whole lot less secure about my online privacy. You’re right though. I am from Poway.
Now let’s see… three minutes away and up a hill. Ramona is more than three minutes away so I’m guessing the hills on the other side. Somewhere in the vicinity of RB or maybe Scripps Ranch? But it’s a hill that caught fire which does sound more like the direction of Ramona.
