Non-Newbie 2009 Summer Challenge

Whistle
1

I only started this challenge to keep non-newbies from trying to weasel in on the newbie challenge.

Please let us know:

  1. The best place you whistled this summer. (Country, State, County, City, Landmark (e.g. Cave, Cathedral, Lake)
  2. How good were the acoustics.
  3. Did you play by yourself or with other people.
  4. What song/s you played.
  5. If people were present, the approximate number.
  6. How did the people respond? (e.g. clap, no response, verbal comments, throw money, bleed, jump to their death.)
  7. Was this a special occasion? (Wedding, baptism, annual camping trip)

Southern Hemisphere people can consider this the Non-Newbie 2009 Winter Challenge.

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  1. The best place you whistled this summer (Winter for me). (Country, State, County, City, Landmark (e.g. Cave, Cathedral, Lake)
    My neighbours dining room of all places.

  2. How good were the acoustics.
    Bloody amazing, which is why it was the best place as well

  3. Did you play by yourself or with other people.
    Played for said neighbours

  4. What song/s you played.
    Scarborough fair, The Yew Tree, Foggy Dew and Wild Rover

  5. If people were present, the approximate number.
    Four

  6. How did the people respond? (e.g. clap, no response, verbal comments, throw money, bleed, jump to their death.)
    Comments were made on how beautiful the music sounded. They already knew it was a Tin whistle so I didn’t get any recorder comments.

  7. Was this a special occasion? (Wedding, baptism, annual camping trip)
    No special occassion, just having some fun. Got a week long ride and camping trip coming up soon and will be covering some miles. I will be packing a whistle or two for that as well

I only responded here because I didn’t want to experience the effects of that Bamboo whistle. I still consider myself a newbie as I need a larger repotoire.

Mick

3

Our local Feis ceilidh was the venue, last week, where myself and three other fellow whistle class folks played Lady Mary Ramsay, including a strathspey version, Leaving Lismore and John Stephen of Chants Inn. People (about 100 of them) clapped, quite genuinely I felt. I found myself keeping my eyes closed throughout most of it as there were too many distractions and I don’t read music. I may have looked slightly strange on reflection… :boggle:

cheers
Stephen

4

Not until folks mentioned it on this forum did I ever give it a thought that musicians who played with their eyes closed might be doing that for any reason other than they were too cool. I don’t know if I would be so brave as to play with my eyes closed, I hear there is an escapee running amok wanting to whack people with a bamboo whistle.

Check out the Newbie stories. This is definitely a class with star quality this year.

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1. The best place you whistled this summer.
If I have to limit myself to Summer (which
is about week old now), I guess I’d have to
say the ceilidh my band played for a local
Irish dance school. We thought we’d only
be playing tunes so I left behind the banjo,
mando, and A whistle I usually bring to gigs
for playing along with songs and brought
only a Sindt D. Then it turned out we could
do songs for the dinner portion of the night
and then tunes for the dance portion. Oops.
I realized I could still play all our songs,
barring a couple in weird keys on a D whistle.
So it turned out quite well. I found a song I
should be playing on the D instead of the A
because the fiddler said he got “chills” that
time. That was pretty cool.

2. How good were the acoustics.
Surprisingly good for a little church basketball
court/meeting hall with a carpet floor. We
almost didn’t need the sound system, though
we used it anyway. I’ve got my mic issues
pretty well worked out, so the whistle came
out well.

3. Did you play by yourself or with other people.
With 3 other guys in the band: a fiddler, a
guitarist and another fiddle/mando player.

4. What song/s you played.
I’m not going to post the set list, but it was
a sampling of Irish, Scottish, and American
folk songs for the first half (“Biker Hill”, “Wild
Rover”, etc.) Then we played a bunch of
tune sets for dancers. (Munster Buttermilk,
Haste to the Wedding, etc.) That was fun.
Fast, but fun.

5. If people were present, the approximate number.
Oh, I think it was about 50 people.

6. How did the people respond?
We had some smattering of applause after
each song (people were eating at that time).
I saw a few people tapping their hands on
the table to the beat. A lady came up and
requested “Fields of Athenry”, which we
sang to some accolades. When we moved
to the dancing we got a lot of applause,
because people were exhilarated from the
dancing. Though, when we played a long
set of reels for, like, 15 minutes during the
Waves of Tory (I think) we got a big ovation.

7. Was this a special occasion?
It was a ceilidh that was held on Father’s Day.

6

7

What’s the group, Richard? And where?

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I second MTGuru’s questions. Cool-looking venue!

9

I’ve been practicing in a meditation garden. There is a small fountain, a bird feeder, a couple of feral orange cats that sometimes appear. The birds sometimes seem to like certain tunes more than others.

As far as playing in public I did five minutes at my church coffee house night. I recorded the live performance of one of my new tunes here:
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7743217

The acoustics are very good. The sound man does an exceptional job. I received many compliments from the 30 people in attendance. The church has the coffee house about once a month. I play there maybe once a year, sometimes less.

10

That was the Battlestar Galactica concert at the California Plaza in downtown Los Angeles. Nightmarish for the whistles as it was getting colder and my whistles were going flatter and flatter and in addition a strong breeze was blowing in playing havoc with the whistles, particularly the Burke Low D. The uilleann pipes went better as they aren’t affected by the wind.

11

Neat! And someone posted a vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KolccUy3fQw

Are you going to play the House of Blues gigs here in San Diego later this month?

12

Oh please forgive me for this. I see music stands in those photos. Is that evil or good sheet music?

13

With the composer conducting from the piano behind pancelt and peeking over his shoulder … I imagine it’s “you’re getting paid to play what’s on the page” sheet music. :wink:

14

Exactly so!

Though the tune itself is simple enough, it’s in three different keys, each playing is slightly different, and the first bit (played on the Burke Low D) changes metre from 3/4 to 4/4 and back again. I would never remember all that stuff.

The tune’s keys, along with the whistles used:

G : Burke Pro Viper Low D in aluminum
A : old c1980 Feadog D, somewhat tweaked
D : uilleann pipes (1978 Quinn chanter)

The bee-atch was hitting the high C#'s in tune on the old Feadog. That and playing the Burke Low D in tune on a coldish night in the wind.

Thanks for posting that video! (I had hoped that no such video existed, actually… it wasn’t a good night for whistling.)

I’m not likely to do any more of these concerts: I was just a sub, subbing for Eric Rigler, the actual guy who plays on the BSG TV show soundtrack.

15

Maybe the non-newbies don’t have any cool whistle experiences. Maybe pancelticpiper blew everyone out of the water and they all went home with their tails between their legs. Way cool by the way. Most of us just had a holiday weekend, surely something happened.