I’m no medical doctor but I’ve been playing the whistle for nine months now, (just a novice :roll: ) and my health has definitely improved!
I had my annual physical this morning and lo and behold, my blood pressure was down 20 points!
Lower than it’s been since college (over 20 years ago)!
Is that amazing or what?! And I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary this year except pick up the whistle. (More than one actually; )
Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing? Is this something we should share with the rest of the world?
I’ve not noted any drop in my BP… but then I haven’t been practicing enough lately. No matter. This is a splendid opportunity. What we do is, set up an ostensibly controlled, double-blind, blah blah blah clinical trial of the antihypertensive properties of the fipple flute: the “CHAFF trial.” Should have a nice large sample… the entire C&F memberlist should do nicely. With generous govt funding (we’ll need a really slick grant writer) we all get free whistles. Recor***s are the placebo. Discard all unhelpful data, naturally, while producing superb, grossly biased news releases. Before you can say “bad science,” health insurance companies will be paying for our whistles. At this time I’d like to open the floor for nominations for Research Director.
Whistling may be good for blood pressure and lung capacity - but the trauma when someone who just can’t take any more of that %#$@#$% whistling buries it fipple-first in your ear has to make it an overall negative.
Let’s just say I’m really cautious if my wife gets too close when I’m playing a high whistle. She likes low whistle, fortunately - I’d hate to think of the damage my skull might do to the whistle if she used it as a bludgeon.
In the interest of marital harmony, I try not to play high whistle in the same room with her unless she walks in and sits down while I’m playing.
She thinks I play pretty well, actually, but the repetition gets to her. Between my whistling and our daughters practicing piano, she gets to listen to the same few tunes over, and over, and over . . .
Sure, it’s true. Anything that makes this many people happy is going to have a positive effect on your health. Music is definitely a health tonic!
Yes, I’ll second the notion-as long as we practice alone!
For me, playing whistles is a form of meditation. Focusing on one’s breathing is a time-honored meditation technique. Well, what is whistle playing but focusing on breath. I play mostly original tunes, so the conscious mind is usually given time off, and the subconscious and/or the greater consciousness bring the music to me. Many other songwriters describe their creative process in similar terms.
I remember the time I spent playing for my grandmother while she was in the hospital. It had a powerful effect, not only for her, but the entire wing. A friend of mine gets paid for similar music therapy, bringing her harp to play for patients.
Would travel expenses be included? And there are quite a few whistlers who’d make fine subjects in locations such as Fiji, are there not? I would of course, happily cover the European territories as well.
Oh, dear … gonna have to tighten the pursestrings a bit… there’s heavy competition for the absurd research dollar: I.e., http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=22401 So sorry folks, looks like we can’t afford any travel expenses… except for, well, me. The Research Director will have to be an unpaid–but very prestigous-- position. You get to, you know, direct stuff. Like who gets the good whistles and who gets the placebo/record**s. You could, of course, do meticulous quality control on the whistles, and keep all that don’t pass…for the sake of science.
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