On a Yahoo group devoted to busking the dicussion is about good places to busk. The writer is describing good spots and makes the following comment:
“There are many beggars with tin whisltes but people really appreciate someone playing decent music, like Bob Dylan and Oasis the most requested here.”
Beggers with tinwhistles? decent music?
The snobbery of this is just unbelievable to me. I would dearly love to shove a low D where the sun don’t shine on this guy.
Go get 'em Tiger!
I’m just glad when you were out we shared some pints, and not our fists! 
The way it SHOULD be! …unless you play box! Brian ducks quickly!
B~
On 2001-08-29 13:43, Ron Rowe wrote:
On a Yahoo group devoted to busking the dicussion is about good places to busk. The writer is describing good spots and makes the following comment:
“There are many beggars with tin whisltes but people really appreciate someone playing decent music, like Bob Dylan and Oasis the most requested here.”Beggers with tinwhistles? decent music?
There’s a sizeable number of homeless people in Montreal that have picked up tinwhistles or recorders from somewhere and play very poorly on the street instead of plain old panhandling. So there is always the possibility that he actually meant that there are many beggars with tinwhistles.
I guess I just don’t see anything particularly nasty there; wherever he is, one good spot has beggars playing tinwhistles (always badly. Always badly) but he goes, presumably with his guitar, and makes a good buck.
I could be that he is actually talking about homeless people playing the whistle AND playing it poorly but it seems to me better than them just begging, at least they are attempting to provide a bit of entertainment for whatever coins are tossed their way. Instead of condemming them perhaps he ought to offer to teach them a tune or 3.
And then there is the decent music crack.
What do you think of this?
I have a video entitled “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”, that I show to my students, and in it, when it shows the woodwind family, the narrator says that the woodwind instruments are superior versions of the penny whistle. JP
I think the narator needs to be beaten soundly about the head and shoulders with a basoon
On 2001-08-29 15:24, JohnPalmer wrote:
What do you think of this?I have a video entitled “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”, that I show to my students, and in it, when it shows the woodwind family, the narrator says that the woodwind instruments are superior versions of the penny whistle. JP
Defending Whistledom, tell your students that the narrator is not yet a master of the wind.
He has failed to see that the rest of the woodwinds are not superior, the rest of the woodwind family just wanted to reachout to all the folks that fail to see the beauty in simplicity. It is this simplicity that proves mastery.
The woodwind family are the in between instruments played by those approaching mastery. Start simple, then play on complex variations, and then return to the simple; this is a predominant mode of growth in many intellectual or artistic pursuits. They probably recognize the pattern.
With the whistle you simply …
Amen, Brother Lee!
1 panhandler playing whistle badly =
1 panhandler not chasing you up and down the street screaming threats
Sarah
(Washington, DC)
Maybe you should ask this guy if he’s ever considered professional couseling!
seriously though… each to his/her own. Everyones got their opinions, but irregardless… one who considers the whistle inferior, has obviously never seriously tried to play one. Not as easy as it looks once you get down and start trying out the different ornamentations.
‘Whatever floats your boat’ I guess.
[ This Message was edited by: McHaffie on 2001-08-30 12:55 ]
As with most of the arts, snobbery abounds amongst musicians and music affionados alike.
IMO snobbery is one of the most difficult forms of human behaviour to change. I think snobbish attitudes are founded on arrogance, ignorance, or fear rather than on logic. So, as a result a snob has (emotionally) a lot at stake in his snobbish opinion so the probability of changing his mind with a logical argument are pretty low. IMO trying to convince a musical snob that his opinion is narrow and flawed is probably a waste of oxygen.
Perhaps Dr. Dale can provide some insight into the physochology of musical snobbery.
Seems to me one of our more famous whistling history figures was a beggar, “Whistling Billy” at least that is what my Clarke Whistle book tells me! A durable, versitile, low cost instrument is just what the homless musician needs.
You can look down your nose at anything you care to, but it does not make you right!A violenist can look down at a fiddler. The housed at the homeless.
Nick
There’s a lot of reverse snobbery against classical musicians, too. How many of us have made the following comments:
classical musicians are stiff/don’t have rhythm/can’t swing/can’t play by ear/can’t adlib ?