I’m new to the board but have been lurking in the corners for a couple of months now, soaking up knowledge and convincing myself that I wasn’t delusional for wanting to learn to whistle! I heard Joanie Madden’s music a year or so ago in a local new age shop and was hooked. Last month I invested in Susato high D and low D whistles and can’t leave them alone for a day. I even take them to work with me for break time! C & F is the best of whistling information sites and I can assure everyone that I will pester you with questions in the near future.
Well done! You started with some nice whistles. Welcome.
Welcome!
You got a couple of good whistles to start out right. You’ll be whistling in no time.
What learning materials are you using?
Thanks for the welcomes! As for learning materials I’m using this board, whistlethis.com, my cd player, an assorted stack of itm music and a lot of determination. Being in the mountains here there is little chance of attending sessions so the net will be my schooling provider. Since so much bluegrass music (heavily played around here by local musicians) and its basis was the Irish I may get to play in the future with others in the area. (That is, when I can play without making an *** of myself 
)
I’m also a West Virginian who has been lurking on the board. In December and January there was a lot of discussions about the new Dixon Trads. I jumped in and got one from Big Whistle last February, got Mel Bay’s introductory method & song book and was off and running. After downloading some hymns from Whistle and Squeak, jigs and reels from Tunes at Ceolas, and buying an Irish songbook from the local music store, I was hooked. Last month, I bought a Alba Low D off this board from Cyril and now I’m completely consumed with it.
I’ve yet to play my whistles for anyone but family members…they smile and pretend that the squeaks and wrong notes aren’t noticeable. Maybe we can start a West Virginia whistle session when our comfort level rises!
Sounds great! Pleasure to meet you. Where is St. Albans? I’m east of Romney in Hampshire County.
WV whistlers really ought to consider coming to Augusta Festival’s Irish Week. They have whistle classes with very good professionals, including Joanie Madden!
Thanks for the invite, AZW. Could you elaborate a bit further? Where is Augusta? I’m 30 minutes out of Cumberland, Md. and Winchester, Va. We have an Augusta in my county here but I don’t really think that’s what you’re referring to.
St. Albans is west of Charleston. I’m a bridge engineer for the state. We’ve designed a few of the structures being built on the new corridor up your way. Beautiful country!
Augusta Festival is held at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins WV. There are a number of different week-long events during the summer and others during the year, too.
Here’s a link for the Irish week:
http://www.augustaheritage.com/irish.html
For whistle classes, the teachers are John Skelton and Joanie Madden. I’ve heard good things about Joanie’s classes, and a class I had with John was very good.
There will be a group of us going from C&F, so it’d be great to meet up with you there.
There’s more discussion of the Irish week in this thread on the flute forum:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=46842
Looks like a great time but I will have to wait until next year. I’ve a long anticipated trip to London the first 10 days of August and the boss (both at home and work) aren’t going to allow me an additional week off. 
However, I may make a stab at ambling down for at least a day and try to catch one of the nightly conerts and nose around a bit.
That sounds good. I hope to see you there!