New Instrument OR I'm in trouble (partially-OT)

Whistle
1

I have always wanted to learn to play some instrument I could sing with, like the guitar, but when I tried years ago, it was so impossible, I gave up. Well, after almost two years with the whistle and finding out how GREAT music is and how ADDICTED I am to it, I finally decided to try the guitar again.

I picked up a used $30 Harmony steel-string on Friday (luckily my roommate liked it enough to temporarily switch with me and let me learn on his more finger-friendly nylon-stringed guitar) and oh, how heavenly it is! I was crazy all weekend, and I can play about 7 chords and some 4 or 5 songs. I can’t believe how wonderful it is to play AND I can’t believe how much easier it was to “get,” after now knowing something about music–reading music, scales, etc.

Now, I’m worried. I am just one person with a busy life already and I fear music is going to eat me up. First the whistle, and I just started working on learning the flute–played a Casey Burnes Beginner flute at a C&F gathering and am bent on getting one. Now the guitar! I mean, when will it all end?

I made an informal list of my instruments, and I was frightened with what I saw:
A couple of dozen whistles
Three flutes (cheapies but still…)
Quena
Bowed psaltry
Ocarina
Two doumbeks
Bamboo sax
Bamboo clarinet
Two Native American Flutes
Big PVC tube (used as digeridoo)
Recorder
Bass guitar
Variety of shakers, rattles, gongs & a Tibetian singing bowl

I used to talk to musicians–back when I was in awe of them and desperately wanted to play SOMETHING but had never been successful in my life at doing so, until I learned the whistle–and I was always amazed that most musicians seemed to play MANY instruments. How is that possible, I would think? Now I understand–once you know one, you think, why not learn more? Now, I’m becoming one of those people!

I am so happy to have music in my life, but I do worry about it taking over. I mean, starting so late (I’m 34), I don’t think I will ever be much good, and certainly not professional, so how do I balance everything? Does anyone else have this problem?

Thanks for listening! I don’t have anyone else to discuss this with because other people I know who casually play instruments (just for fun) aren’t nearly as CRAZY about it as I am!

2

Yield. Music always gives back more than it takes.

If you don’t plan to be a star on a particular instrument (which would mean that you’d have to really work on technique and practise a lot), it doesn’t hurt to play several instruments.

Sonja (eying guitars again, too, and still trying not to try out these Xaphoon thingies…)

3

Kar, I am the same way. Clarinet always…er…was not good for me in school but after learning whistle, clarinet is not nearly as scarey or confusing (or as appealing, really)…

Since whistle, I’ve tried playing a bunch of instruments and I’m too thinly spread, but I’m having fun, being immersed in it all, and I think that’s what it’s all about.

I also started playing whistle relatively late (18 ), considering most people who are “really” good at their instrument have been playing since age 3 or 4, but oh well. There’s not much point in dwelling on it, but when you get to be really good you will be able to say “I didn’t have to start when I was 3”. :stuck_out_tongue:

P.S. I don’t think you look a day over 25.

4

If you look at your list though, the vast majority are very similar: whistle-like instruments (including the recorder :slight_smile: )

So it isn’t that bad.

For comparison:
I play (fluently) whistles, trumpet, alto horn (not sax), and used to play french horn and baritone. (I think that given one of the last two, I would be as fluent as on the alto… but the french horn would take a bit to get back to)

I also play (not quite so fluently) Mandolin, recorders,

Lastly I try to play (more unsuccessful but oh well) uillean pipes, guitar, accordian…

I also could play a flute in a couple days almost as well as whistle if I ever got one…

5

I always wanted to play an instrument just like you and many others on this board, some young, some older but time and life got in the way until a while back. Now it’s work schedules that interferes with music. You might say “WMCD” Whistle Music Consumption Disorder.

I to am happy to have music in my life and great friends to play with here in this city and Detroit, plus good many that I have met on this board.

I started playing at 43 and have been consumed by it ever since(now 57), totally voluntary on my part. But learning to play well and with other like minded people, it becomes an addiction of always the next tune and the beaming smiles at the end of the night session that makes you just want to float home.

Pick an instrument ---- any instrument and make it your own, then you will want another whistle, high or low, a new flute, also maybe a keyed flute later, and then a bodhran and guitar…
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST IT NEVER ENDS :boggle:

MarkB

6

Kar, didn’t you know that you’re supposed to quit your job, live in a tent and eat bark and twigs, and all for the sake of the Muse? :wink:

I agree with Sonja: yield.

There’s never enough live music in the world. It’s a noble affliction, and to the blazes with the begrudgers.

7

Kar, did you really expect us to tell you music is bad for you? :wink:

8

Cran, sorry, but 18 isn’t late. The “I’m too old”-syndrome kept me from making music several years, and I wish I could go back in time and hit myself hard for being so silly. I lost about 8 years I could have very well spent practising and getting better.

Just get it out of your head, and play what you want.

Sonja

9

I started on violin 35+ years ago.

My current inventory?

Violin/fiddles (2, fluent)
Mandolin (new, but getting there wuickly)
[~ahem] Recorder (I was in high school when I picked it up)
Acoustic/electric guitar (proficient)
Assortment of whistles
Ocarina
Slide whislte
Nose flute (mind that spit valve :smiley: )
Cabasa
Frame drum (it’s NOT a bohdran!)

I’ve contemplated:
Viola (similar to fiddle, only mellower)
Cello (learned in college)
Soprano or alto saxaphone
Electric guitar (currently my next move)
Bagpipes
Uillean pipes (LE McCulloch’s post was ill-timed for me)

Every once in a while I pop out to Lark in the Morning to see if anything there interests me. :smiley:

-Tom

10

More preaching to the choir:
I ask myself why I’m working, why I went to school (to work), etc, and the answer is so I can have a life. For me, having a life is having time to play music. The more time I do that, the more life I have.

I agree that if you aren’t commited to being a great player, play as many instruments as you can afford to acquire. For me, I realized I had to settle on one if I wanted to progress at an acceptable pace. Otherwise, I could name off a list like yours. In the house, we have a bodhran, 5-string banjo, nylon string guitar, harmonica, wooden flute, appalachian dulcimer, electronic keyboard. (I’ve probably overlooked something.)

I took piano lessons in junior high (under coercion), bough a harmonica in high school, then discovered the dulcimer, and shortly after, banjo while I was in the Air Force. Then came the whistle around the time I was commited to learning Irish music. I had learned bluegrass fingerpicking from tutorials and found I could pick out some jigs and reels more easily than others, unknowingly played in unconventional keys, and found ornamentation was very difficult in some passages. The whistle was secondary and used to memorize tunes from Chieftains albums so I could work them out on the banjo. After a short time with the whistle, I knew I could build a much larger repetoire of Irish music on that, so I shifted focus to the whistle. I stuck with the banjo for a few years anyway. Then, real life (school, marriage, job, kids) diverted me and I didn’t play anything for years. About 9yrs ago, I decided I had frittered away too much time and I was overdue to get serious. I made the choice for the whistle because the repetoire was the priority.

From time to time, I’ve picked up the banjo and worked out some tunes I’ve learned since. It’s so much easier to learn a new tune on the whistle and get up to speed. (I had originally intended to learn the tenor banjo style, but had no idea what was going on. Never got back to it.) After I retire, I’ll see if there’s enough time to branch out to other instruments.
Tony

11

Renee and I started with Piano. I then did cello and trumpet until high shcool. Renee went with clarinet. We have had a small keyboard around for a few years, but it was whistles last fall that reignited our desire for more LIVE music in our lives.

We are currently looking at Xylophones to expand our musical base with.

12

A lust for musical instruments is the one vice that my wife and I share, so it’s virtually unchecked. When Loren made a comment to Phil a few weeks ago about obsessive flute acquisition, I was going to post a retort that it’s not nearly as tempting. Then I realized that I’d bought four wooden flutes in the past year, and I’m on the waiting list for two and my wife for one. We already had several, too.

Other than whistles and flutes, we have recorders from sopranino down to bass; a half dozen ocarinas, four lap dulcimers, three harps, four guitars, and one or two of a dozen or so other things, including a cello. The only instrument that I’d say I wish we hadn’t purchased is a Portuguese guitarra. It’s a lovely instrument, and wonderful sounding, but I don’t think we’ll ever know the music well enough to learn it.

Like some of the other posters, I did become focussed on the whistle a few years ago, and not the wooden flute. It feels great to be progressing much more quickly than I ever had on another instrument. OTOH, I was rather a good dulcimer player, and I think I’ve lost way too much proficiency on it.

13

While you’re learning, be sure to use light-gauge strings. Also, if you have access to anyone with a little experience, see if you can get the action checked, both for ease of playing and correct intonation.

That’s a nice collection of instruments. Here’s what I have lying about the house at themoment:

3 high D whistles
3 recorders
pentatonic D whistle (cedar)
Chinese wooden 6-hole whistle
ocarina
two nylon-string guitars
two steel-string acoustic guitars
two electric guitars (one disassembled)
mandolin
fiddle
banjolin (homemade, mandolin neck grafted onto banjo body)
mountain dulcimer (homemade)
string bass
miniature koto (Japanese)
Taishou-goto (Japanese cross between a dulcimer and a typewriter)
erhu (Chinese two-string fiddle w/ coconut shell body)
yueqin (Chinese “moon guitar”)
3 Hohner Blues Harps
slide whistle
kazoo
piano
keyboard

I had a silver Boehm flute for a while that I got in trade for my 5-string banjo, but I finally traded it for an electric guitar amp and some repair work on one of the electric guitars.

I’m strongly considering replacing the mandolin neck on the banjolin with the neck from one of the electric guitars. (A friend once built a banjo-guitar using a snare drum for the body and a genuine Fender neck. Wasn’t someone here selling a snare drum recently?)

I’ve been fighting the desire to get a concertina, a button accordian, and an open-back 5-string banjo. I may wait for those until after my whistle count reaches 20.

14

Quote @ skh

Cran, sorry, but 18 isn’t late. The “I’m too old”-syndrome kept me from making music several years, and I wish I could go back in time and hit myself hard for being so silly. I lost about 8 years I could have very well spent practising and getting better.

Just get it out of your head, and play what you want.

Sonja

That’s why I said relatively old. Compared to people who start when toddlers. I’m almost 20 now, though so I’m close to elderly and everything compared to them.

I used to have the “I’m too old” syndrome really bad with regards to voice lessons, but now that I’m over it and found somebody who can and would give them to me, I can’t afford them. So that will probably have to wait a few years older at least, lol.

15

As an adult, I love all of the abovementioned folk instuments and drool with excitment when in a room of them. Nothings better than getting to visit a particular folk music shop in Buck’s county . . . but it’s really out of the way and I’ve only been there twice. :cry:
But, as an adult, I find I have only so much time and energy. On the other hand, I have more “pocket money” than I did as a kid. I find I’m too easily fustrated if I indulge all my whims, but then lack time or patience to master the instument. Example - a lovely guitar sits in its case because I don’t have as much energy as I’d like. I also spend too much time on the net.
I know I’d be bored with a tin whistle only . . . but I want to learn that guitar before moving onto anything else. If I move onto anything else.

Except a kazoo. Kazoos don’t count, do they?

16

I recently posted this list on a dulcimer board - hense more descriptions given to the dulcimers than whistles…

Disclaimer: there are two of us playing in this household

1 Folkroots (all walnut, made in 1984 before they were sold to Folkcraft)
1 Folkroots (1999 cherry and spruce)
1 Homer Ledford (“traditional” style walnut with staples and rosewood tuners)
1 wallhanger (I won’t name the company, but they used to sell at Ren Fests thru the Midwest)
1 Blue Lion bass (2000)
1 Bill Todd Banjomer (2000)
1 harpmaker baritone (1st he made - 2001)
1 harpmaker bass (1st he made - custom - 2003)
1 harpmaker low G -called Gandalf (1st he made - custom - 2003)
4 harpmaker student models (for teaching)
1 Cherry McSpadden (with a cracked soundboard)
1 Jerry Rockwell (butternut soundboard - 1996?)
1 Tom Fellenbaum (curly maple and rosewood, I think - 2003)

so - That’s 16 Mountain dulcimers!


Plus:
2 hammered dulcimers
2 bodhrans
1 dumbek
1 ocean drum
assorted keys of pennywhistles and harmonicas
assorted ranges of recorders
an “apartment” piano (made by Wurlitzer in the 1950’s - it has 72 instead of 88 keys)
a student sized guitar
my dad’s last mandolin
one of harpmaker’s cookie can dulcimers
numerous tamborines, shakey - shiney things, spoons, a Cajun rubboard, balalika, nose flute, jew’s harp… I think that’s it

17

Hey, we could be vegging out in front of the TV-box, filling our brains with mush from all this new reality TV! Which is worse!? :smiley:

18

“Wallhanger” is terrific brand name. They seem to make a lot of different instruments (no pianos, though).

:wink:

Sonja (6 playable recorders, 1 wallhanger recorder, wallhanger bodhran, about 20 cheapo whistles, 2 flutes, 3 harps)

19

I started out on trumpet but quickly branched out to all of the brass and then to guitar, whistle and flute in high school.

since lots of people are posting their collections I’ll post mine:

Whistles
Copeland nickel D
Copland Low D brass
Sweetone D
Sweetone C
Susato high D
alba tunable low D
howard Low D
indian low D nickel
dixon low D combo
Chieftain D, C, B, Bb, A, G, F
generation D, Eb
waltons D brass
feadog D brass

Flutes
Casey burns erg pratten boxwood
mollenhauer 13 key, blackwood
dixon 3pc polymer
gemeinhardt 53SB, solid silver open hole, inline G, J1 headhoint
yamaha student flute, silver plated, closed hole, offset G
selmer signet, solid silver closed hole, offset G
hall crystal F
quena, not sure who made it

strings
martin DM-12
Gibson hummingbird copy (12 string)
johnson guitar
harmony guitar
yamaha classical guitar
'89 american fender strat
epiphone les paul
fender stagemaster 7-string
peavey predator
custom raven, EMG electronics
musikalia mandolin
el degas archtop mandolin
ashbury long scale bouzouki
hora short scale bouzouki
ashbury tenor banjo

percussion
waltons bodhran
mid-east tunable bodhran
pakistani 18" and 16" bodhrans
13" cedar djembe
7" cedar djembe
cast alum 10" dumbek
spun alum 6" dumbek
brass 10" dumbek
a pair of bones in cocuswood
tambourine with goatskin head

brass
holton Bb trumpet, silver
King Bb trumpet with a crunched bell
yamaha tenor trombone
holton french horn, silver Bb/F

no shakey eggs or spoons (aside from the ones in the kitchen)

20

Hey, wait, are you in the Philly area Mamakash? I live in Montgomery County myself. I just fairly recently heard about that store in Doylestown, but I haven’t actually gotten there yet. Can you tell me more about it (what it’s called, where exactly it is, what sorts of things they have there)?

:slight_smile:
Steven