I about wet my knickers last night. I had given up on whistle late in December, sure i WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO PLAY IT W/ ANY AT ALL COMPETENCE. I even sold the whistles I had , except a Clark, Mellow & Blackbird. I had bought these think a different whistle might make me less horrible..
Of course , none of that worked.
But immediately after dropping whistle I started playing harmonica . It seemed much easier to me. After 4 months of harp playing , last night I picked up the mellow dog and I can play better than when I was trying.
I dont know if I had no diaphram strength before or what. Of course I am still not good, but I saw a improvement. I can hit the 2octave w/ o a bunch of squeal and stuff.
I was quite happy, I have envied youguys who play whistle, but MAYBE hteres hope for me after all. Im practicing Flannigans Rell, I heard it off a Galway cd hope to do a youtube soon , for critique.
I know this was a long post , please excuse me, but I am just excited about the whole thing.
Steve
Congrats - time away can do wonders to your playing sometimes. Your theory that you’ve built up lung/diaphram power makes sense, and perhaps simply playing the harp has opened some musical/windwoodish neural pathway for you.
Regardless, enjoy. Just relax and stop playing when you’re no longer having fun…since having fun is the most important aspect of playing music overall.
You work on something for a while without much audible progress, then take a break for a while. Then when you come back - Bang! The thing you were working on is there.
Hey Steve, I’ve definitely been there with you – the horribleness of my own whistling has led me to give up on several occasions. That habit, combined with a general lack of talent, helps explain why I’m still such a beginner in spite of having first started in… 2004? In fact, I’ve given up regularly enough that returning to whistling has become something of a springtime ritual for me.
But this year I kept playing music, even though I’d decided my whistling was hopeless. This last fall and winter, I learned alto and tenor rcrd*r, and experimented around with Harmony 101 stuff on the keyboard.
And now this spring I’ve whistling again, and having breakthrough after breakthrough – enough that in my head I’ve been thinking of it as the “UN-Plateau!!!” (exclamation points necessary to convey bubbly excitement).
I think the triggering factors were the continuity of playing some sort of music, combined with the different skills and perspectives I absorbed from learning the other instruments.
the quitting point for me a few months ago , was I sat in my garage. put the recorder on. played all my whistles , close , far & it all sounded like crap. Now I havent recorded since my “discovery” last night. I may still sound as horrible recorded. But Im hoping . Im sure glad I didnt sell the Mellow , it seems more forgiving than the blackbird.
thanks for you folks encouragement.
Good story.. I believe that there is quite a bit of crossover between instruments: get better on one, and another automatically improves too. Certainly, within the family of blown instruments, breath control skill is a common feature.
I learned to play the harmonica first. Keep playing both instruments and even more instruments too. Some songs sound better on one instrument than on another. I learned the whistle because I needed the accidentals that a harmonica couldn’t give me.
Your theory that you’ve built up lung/diaphram power makes sense, and perhaps simply playing the harp has opened some musical/windwoodish neural pathway for you.