So I’ve been struggling with the flute and whistle for 3/4 of a year now, making slow progress. It’s not easy to do, that’s for sure, but I’ve learned a lot of tunes and feel somewhat musical again. (I had not done any music for about 25 years after a childhood filled with music.) Plus I enjoy it immensely.
I don’t know what came over me, but I decided I would buy this silly little thing called a Strumstick. Basically a mountain dulcimer fretboard with a travel-sized guitar-like shape, with 3 strings tuned to DAD. I noodled with it every now and then, and then one day, experimenting with it all of a sudden it’s like something in my brain clicked and all this Irish music started coming out of it. It’s not like I’m any better than on the flute, and with the huge distances between the frets, I’m not fast, but it was quite a trip.
Now I’m all obsessed with it and decided to get a real mountain dulcimer. I want to eventually bring a mountain dulcimer to sessions if they’ll allow it.
It’s weird but in some way I feel like I’m more expressive on this silly stringed thing, more capable of variations, ear-learning is a snap with it and even the modes are starting to make sense to me as I experiment with tuning the drone strings to different notes.
Anyway, I find this to be quite astonishing. Have you had an experience like that, where it all clicked and started making sense, or where you picked up a second instrument on a lark and found your voice?
I took to the tin whistle like a duck to water and bought it on a whim. I found my voice on the whistle. Before that it was only a short stint with guitar lessons in public school, with some bad memories.
At times, I feel a deep spiritual connection thru music. It comes both from finding and improvising new melody lines, or performing in public. The traditional music doesn’t do much for me, and for the most part I stay away from it.
I know I have touched many people with my music, along with finding a sense of peace for myself. Lately, I haven’t been playing much, after many, many years of playing virtually every day. Perhaps your post is message for me to get back to it.
Anyway, I find this to be quite astonishing. Have you had an experience like that, where it all clicked and started making sense, or where you picked up a second instrument on a lark and found your voice?
Yup!!
A couple of years ago I was doing synthesizers, sequencers, MIDI.
Then I went to a local Renn Fest and for some reason I bought a bamboo stick with 6 holes in it…
I still think it’s odd to go from so high-tech to so low-tech.
For some reason I’m much more emotionally connected w/ the flute than I ever was with the keyboards.
It’s weird but in some way I feel like I’m more expressive on this silly stringed thing, more capable of variations, ear-learning is a snap with it and even the modes are starting to make sense to me as I experiment with tuning the drone strings to different notes.
That’s very cool-- I hope you keep checking in with progress reports!
It fulfills a completely different need. On the flute I like playing tunes, lotsa tunes, tunes tunes tunes.
On the harp, it’s much more fun to just play… . whatever. I can noodle forever, barely musically, and it’s still fun. That doesn;t work as well on the flute.
In contrast, actually learning a tune on the harp, using both hands, is really, really tough for me. (No piano background as a kid is part of it.)
I’ve been like that with the harp. It’s like it’s the instrument I was born to play. Not that I’m brilliant at it…I’m not…but making music with it seems to flow so naturally (even when I’m struggling with technique!)
I started playing harp about a year ago (and have already upgraded from a 26 string to a 34 string – must be a case of HAD) – I wouldn’t say that I particularly “clicked” as far as ability, but I am more drawn to it than to my whistles or recorders (enough so that I’m actually taking lessons!).
Actually, I believe the technical name is “SAD” (string acquisition disorder). It also describes your spouse and kids when you announce that the vacation budget is going for another new harp this year.
I haven’t felt the need for a bigger harp yet, even after playing for two years. We’re a team, my Ravenna and I.
I like learning “second” languages, and in the course of such adventures I have learned about a zither-like instrument, known as a kantele, variations of which can be found all over Europe.
It’s a fret-less instrument, and come in a range of sizes, beginning with smaller, 5-string models, and then getting progressively larger, all the way up to “Grand”, 36-string models. The right hand fingers are used to pluck the strings, and the left hand fingers “stop” the strings at various harmonic intervals.
They also have an interesting range of musical applications. Dance music and other popular tunes are quite possible, but perhaps one of the more interesting styles leads more into trance-like qualities, where musical patterns are repeated, often at a slower tempo, while also being layered, one pattern on top of another, approaching hypnotic.
For some reason woodwinds or other mouth blown vaguely similar instruments have come fairly easily to me. I don’t know why, particularly since I am primarily a piano player. Clarinet, now oboe, whistles, pipes, they just make sense to me. I have no problem with remembering the different fingerings.
I’ve also had the opposite experience.
Strings and I just don’t click . I’m not counting piano here. Believe me, I’ve tried. I can play mandolin a bit, and chord a guitar. I have both. In the past I’ve played around on banjo, and dulcimer too. Growing up with a guitar playing dad and a brother who can take any stringed instrument and make it sing I really really did try and he tried to teach me. Nah, we just don’t go together.
I started with a guitar playing rock and roll and Mississippi John Hurt/Rev Gary Davis tunes. When I started playing Irish music, I picked up fiddle and it seemed natural. I then gravitated to uilleann pipes and enjoy my set immensely, and I still play fiddle. My guitar, sad to say hasn’t been touched in a long time.
I keep buying instruments but struggle to give them the time needed. Most of my playing time is taken up with the guitar and always will be, but I’ve managed to get a couple of tunes out of my whistles and I do intend to learn a bit of piano this year.
Piano was my first instrument. I see a lot of similarity between the dulcimer and the piano actually, especially because I play melody/drone style and the diatonic fret board is kinda like the piano keys. But I really don’t remember how to play the piano, sadly.
I want to continue with my flute and whistles and not quit for the dulcimer. I want to do both. It is so nice to have an instrument without that constant embouchure struggle! But playing the flute gives me an endorphin rush or something. I just feel so happy afterwards. And nothing is more fun than whipping a penny whistle out of your pocket – whoosh! Here’s a little tune for ya!
I wish I was good at music so I could teach others. But I’m not. I’m just really happy there are such things as sessions and jams so it can be a social thing. I’m going to my first jam on Sunday.
Whistle is my second instrument. I’d probably be a lot better at it if I actually PRACTICED regularly. I go in waves with the whistle: I hardly play it at all for long stretches, then I play a lot for a short while and make great strides. So far, that has advanced me to the achievement of mediocrity on whistle. I do enjoy it, and it gives me my music fix when I can’t bring my hammered dulcimer along. I also really appreciate the fact that there are no strings to tune.
As someone who started playing well past youth, and who doesn’t have a lot of “natural talent,” I think I really need to focus on one instrument if I want to achieve my goal of playing well before I die, so whistle gets the back seat. I know people who play lots of instruments well, but I also know people who spread themselves too thin and never get good at any of their many instruments.
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I go in waves with the whistle: I hardly play it at all for long stretches, then I play a lot for a short while and make great strides. So far, that has advanced me to the achievement of mediocrity on whistle. I do enjoy it, and it gives me my music fix when I can’t bring my hammered dulcimer along. I also really appreciate the fact that there are no strings to tune. 