Top 10 ways you know you are a (whistle) musician…
10.You drill holes in your #2 pencil to practice fingering while doing your homework.
9.You build an 18" addition onto the back of your mailbox to accommodate Low Whistle arrivals.
8.You call the dog home using your high F whistle so as not to miss an important playing opportunity.
7.The neighbor has chained your dog to your porch post so you no longer need to call it home.
6.You keep your child home from school the day they play Recorders in music class to conduct a full day of whistle “Home School”.
5.You wired your doorbell buzzer to trigger random selections from L.E. McCullough’s 121 Session Tunes to help increase your repertoire.
4.You call the Jehovah’s Witness Headquarters to request additional visits just to increase the usage of the doorbell buzzer.
3.They refuse to come because you always insist on showing off the latest tune you have not quite learned.
2.Your entire Christmas wish list consists of a list of capital letters - the keys that are not yet in your collection.
And the #1 way you know you are a (whistle) musician…
1.You have each of Dale Wisely’s C&F newsletters laminated and framed because you’re convinced they will be valuable collector’s items when you retire.
adrianh - got any sick leave to use up before year end? That could give you a whole day of extra practice.
I work at home and still don’t find enough time - those darned clients keep getting in the way.
OK, one more way…
You call in sick but the boss doesn’t believe you because she hears the piper in the background warming up for the session.
Unfortunately I work in one of those small places where they actually ring you back later in the day with the excuse that they need to ask you a question, but really just to check up that you are still there and haven’t gone fishing or golfing or to an all day whistle session.
Otherwise I would be there, at home, whistlin’ away.
One more to add to the list: You can take any childrens song (Twinkle twinkle, happy birthday, itsy bitsy spider, Barney theme) and make it sound like they were all composed somewhere in Connemara.
Your problem has such a simple solution. Lots of folks are kissing off Ma Bell’s little kiddies and replacing their landlines with cell phones. If you do that, all you have to remember is to keep your cell phone with you. From practical experience, I know they work just fine in fishing boats and on bicycles - a golf course is a no-brainer. The session is a bit tougher, but you can solve it with a little preparation. Just start playing a lot of Irish music at work. Then when they hear the session in the background, just step into the necessary after first telling your nosey-Nellie boss/co-worker that you need to “go turn down the stereo” .
Just remember, “Old and devious” beats ‘young and smart’ just about every time.
You wired your doorbell buzzer to trigger random selections from L.E. McCullough’s 121 Session Tunes to help increase your repertoire. >>
Always good to know a product has multiple uses. Hope this doesn’t put any butlers out of work.
Seriously, when I first started learning, I would tape a tune from a recording onto a cassette about 20 times so it ran continuously for several minutes, then play it as I went to sleep at night, figuring the repetition would cause the tune to enter more quickly and deeply into my subconscious and be easier to learn and remember when I awoke. Learned a lot of tunes, lost a lot of girlfriends.
LE, I use to do that, tape your slow version about 20 times and kept on hitting the rewind, thank heaven for the amazing slow downer.
I walk to and from work every day, so I guess you know that you are whistler when you lip whistle the current tune you are working on. Cheaper than a walkman and you can hear emergency vehicles coming at you.
(Although of course, I don’t know the exact tune-to-girlfriend ratio).