Monogamy

Whistle
1

“And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another,
committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.
But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.” - Mathew, 19:9-11

To you, WhOA addicts.


We all have many whistles. Some of us have LOTS of whistles. And almost all of us want more whistles. And that’s wrong.


The reason of that polygamy is simple: tinwhistles are cheap. When you buy guitar, flute, fiddle, harp, whatever, you have to pay a lot. In general, more you pay, better is the instrument, so you may spend your monthly income on an instrument, and be sure it’s worth the money.

That’s not true about whistles.

Whistles are cheap. “Cheapies” cost nothing, “high end” are just cheap. With my non-US/EU salary and high rent, and even with devaluated russian rouble (say ‘hi!’ to world financial crisis!) I still can buy one high-end whistle a month.

And, well, I did.


The wrong thing about that is that all non-electronic instruments are different. ( Yamaha plastic recorders are all the same, but we don’t consider them as an instrument, do we? ) As they are different, you don’t learn to play “guitar” or “tinwhistle” - you actually learn to play this example of Fender Stratocaster, and this example of brass Generation in D. Well, you can change instruments, and changing from Gen to Overton is easier than from Gen to Trevor James Cantabile III Boehm flute, but that’s still a change, that takes some learning and re-learning.

And then look at your whistle jar/box/stand/roll once more. How much instruments do you have? How often do you put one and take another? How much re-learning do you have to perform every day?

When you have 10 whistles and play them all, you’re not learning one instrument, you’re learning 10 instruments. Consequently, you’re not really learning any of them.


So.

Take one whistle, no matter which one (but better the one that you like). Play only that whistle for 3-6 months. No, “only” does not mean “that D one, and that Bb sometimes”, it does mean “only”. After that take any other whistle, and see how good is yours and how bad are all the rest. I bet you’ll be very surprised.

Yes, I finally did that. Played only one whistle for 4 months. And then got a relapse of WhOA and bought a Copeland from ebay. One of the best and costly whistles in the world, it costed 3 times more than mine. You know what? I don’t play it. My whistle is better, as I know how to play it. And that Copeland sits in a box in its nice velvet case, reminding me about all the above.


Amen. :smiley:

2

I think you’re quite right on this one…however, infidelity is so attractive I probably won’t listen to your advice.

3

I’ve been playing the one whistle (Harper Classic tunable d/c set) since I got it last November.

When I picked up my old Susato yesterday in the car (waiting for kids again) I couldn’t believe the difference. I had not noticed the difference when I picked up the new whistle, but I can’t ever go back to the Susato now.

I do think I could do with a couple more whistles about the place but I think I would rather pick up another Harper if I saw one on eBay, because like Breqwas says, it’s not actually an expensive hobby, even when you buy high end whistles.

4

I had not noticed the difference when I picked up the new whistle, but I can’t ever go back to the Susato now.

My point is that you, actually, can. If you put away your harper and play only susato till, say, August, then you have a big chance to be very surprised by the fact that your susato became so “good” and harper so “bad” in these 5 months.

Speaking of “more harpers”: beware. :slight_smile: I own a classic D, and had a chance to try a D/C set - they’re somewhat different. And yes, my whistle is “better” :smiley:


Uh-oh. I didn’t want to mention the brand of my whistle, as it does not matter for what I was speaking about. Enough of “I love my … so much!” threads here (and I’m guilty of making some). Bit I did, so let it be.

5

if i may, i think what tootler was saying was that when he/she first switched to the new whistle, no difference was noted, but after several months of playing the new whistle, he/she could not go back to the susato exactly because of the huge difference in either sound or ability (one of the two.) … at least that is what i got out of the statement.

myself… i have made the conscious decision that i will focus all of my practice on my susato. as much as i love my dixon’s, i feel the susato pushes me/requires me to be a better player. my thought/hope is that by maintaining that “monogamous” relationship with the susato i will, indeed, become a better player… even if only on the susato. to me, it all goes back to consistency. the fewer variables there are, the more constants there are, the better i will be for it as a whistle player.

be well,

6

Monogamy is not as straight forward as we would like it to be.
I have to agree with Breqwas that playing just the one whistle certainly helps your playing
and my whistle of choice is always my Thornton, now I have one or two others,a Hoover white top Bb & narrow bore D,Sindt D,Freeman Feadog D,Shaw D,Thornton Eb & D and a Gen Brass Bb plus a Low F and Overton Low D,
but the whistle I play most of the time is the Gen ‘shush’, not because I want to
but because I have to play a quite whistle (its a lovely sweet whistle BTW)
Our neighbours are moored about 2’ away and every note of a high D whistle can be heard
right through their boat so I have to keep things quite.
Away from home its the Thornton every time :smiley:
Also we’ve just started learning a tune in Gmin so its straight forward on a Bb whistle,
too much half holeing on a D and anyway a tune on a nice mellow Hoover Bb can only be a good thing :smiley:

So Manogomy,yeh great if you can keep away from temptations but there’s just too many great tunes
out there to play just one whistle.

7

I’ve been thinking about this and at this stage maybe I should try a steady relationship out. I keep flirting between a mellow dog and a wee narrow Burke. However, I think I may chuck them both in favour of the Harper. Just spent yesterday playing her again and somehow she has become much more easy maintenance. She’s not a bad looker either - alright, I’m getting engaged! I’ll give it a steady 4 months and see what happens. Thanks for re-igniting that thought Breqwas.

Stephen

8

but the whistle I play most of the time is the Gen ‘shush’,

I also have that one. Surprisingly good whistle with beautiful sound. Alas, I had to put it away one of the first - it kills breath control I need for other whistles, and I always feel out of air when playing some other whsitle after it.

9

I agree about monogamy for learning, and I’ve posted about it before.

Just keep in mind that an experienced player who has, in effect, studied the characteristics of his or her whistles, can switch easily from one whistle to another, and can assess a new whistle pretty quickly. This flexibility is also a useful playing skill.

Also. the family of Generation style whistles - Gens, Feadógs, Waltons, Blackbirds, etc. - are all very similar, and are always the baseline for whistle playing technique.

10

I agree to somewhat degree. I play Feadog for learning or practicing, but that is just too quiet for the sessions. I find a higher end whistle is better for sessions, for they have better volume. But sometimes I want a sweet sounding whistle, and sometimes a good raspy one. It also depends on what tunes you play too.

11

MONOGAMY

My spouse
likes all my whistles
Unless I play when she is driving

:party:

12

Oscar Wilde is proported to have said “Bigamy is having one wife too many; oddly, monogamy is also having one wife too many.” Those who have heard me play say the same about my whistles!

13

Well, Oscar would say that, wouldn’t he? :laughing:

14

Personally, I would be sick of the sound of the same voice if I tried that. I just wouldn’t be able to ignore the sound of a different beautiful voice for that long. They are all wonderful, beautiful creatures, and I love them all.


Mick

15

I believe Oscar was gender confused.
Monogamy means one spouse (either gender).
Monogyny means one wife.
Monandry one husband.

In heterosexual context,
a woman is monogamous if she is monandrous
and a man is monogamous if he is monogynous.

16

Only when Oscar Wilde starts criticising your whistling is it time to nit pick his grammar.

17

I was criticising his semantics, not his grammar.
Anyway the linguistic criticism was only ostensible.
What I was really criticising was the male-centric assumption
in the comment.

18

Any way you dress it up, it still sounds like nit-picking.

19

I really believe that this is true. I found that the more I played my Burke Low D the better I got on it (duh George). I’m not talking subtle things…my whole style (articulation etc) improved as I got to know that whistle better, learning what sounded good on it and what didn’t, learning what stuff to do and what stuff not to do on it. I was fully aware that this was happening and I decided only to play this one whistle- yes it became both my gig whistle and my car whistle. (Yes it’s really big for a car whistle.)

Now for gigs I have to play certain tunes on other whistles due to key, and that’s fine, but all my practicing and session playing is pretty much on the big Burke.

20

So bigyny is two wives?
And is a man who has just married his second (additional) wife a beginner bigyner?
And an actor starring in a film about such a situation would be…

big in a beginner bigyner movie?