I am currently very impatient waiting for my first whistle, so in the mean time an introduction and then the explanation for this post.
I am a self-taught guitarist, hoping to learn the whistle. Since I found this site I must say I think I have come across a lot of great information and a lot of things I want to try when the whistle arrives.
Now for the explanation. I have been talking about learning to play the tin whistle for a couple months but have not taken the plunge. Last week, while driving around, I started a conversation with my girlfriend about wanting to play the whistle and I jokingly said to her “you should buy me a tin whistle” to which she replied “I will never buy you a tin whistle”, so here I am now knowing I need to do it myself, and that she probably wont want anywhere near me whilst I’m making noise with this thing. So I tell her that I’m taking her to get one of her Christmas presents, when in actuality I am taking myself to the Folk Music shop in town.
She states that I don’t need a whistle and tries to keep me from going in the store. We go in and I look around (I spent a lot of time eye-ing a banjo), then made my way around to the sheet music. In the sheet music section they have that Clarke Original package including the book and cd, I pick it up and head to the register with it.
It is at this point she screams at me and tells me a present she got me was the same exact thing I have in my hands.. Boy I felt like a jerk.
Now I can’t have a whistle until Christmas day, that is of course if it shows up on time, she ordered it from the Clarke website and it still hasn’t shown up, I am going practically insane with anticipation and I don’t know what to do!
Sorry for the long windedness, nice to meet you all!
I promised I’d learn something before buying more whistles, but I already know I want a Freeman Tweaked Shaw, the Guinness Label whistle (Walton I think?? and mostly just because I love guinness), and a sweetone.
it gets sooo much worse the more whistles you buy. I have about 10, half cheapies half not. And even though I’m buying my 11th one right now (a GFM low F) i still feel that need to “play it now”. But i got more shopping to do for others before xmas so i guess that’ll distract me.
one of my very first whistles was a clarke sweetone. nickle with a black plastic fipple. i think i bought 3 in one clip and fell in love with one of them… gave the other two to my brothers kids. every once in a while i will pick up the sweetone and play it for a few minutes and think “man i love this whistle”
My goodness…before I got to the part where she said she had ordered one for you, I thought she didn’t want to be around the sound of a whistle. I was about to suggest that you get a new girlfriend! I’m glad she redeemed herself.
Nice to meet you! A couple of important lessons: By the time the (or any) girlfriend is a wife, you should learn the important lesson of never buying anything for yourself in November and December. The second lesson is “I will never buy you a tin whistle” means “I got you this for Christmas”.
Congrats, I hope you enjoy your foray into playing whistles as much as I have when I got my first Clarke for Christmas in 1995!
I had a girlfriend buy me a recorder, and that same year, a friend (who happened to be a girl) bought me a whistle for Christmas. I ended up dumping the girlfriend and marrying the whistle-giving friend.
Try a Clarke C, too…love it. And if you think you’re in trouble with whistles…avoid starting up the uilleann pipes, you’ll save yourself some heartache.
I would agree with the others – of far more importance than the whistles themselves is the lesson you have learned about women. And here’s an important corolary –
If you ever have a conversation such as “Let’s not give each other Christmas presents this year. Let’s just (a) donate the money to African orphans, (b) buy a new television, or maybe (c) go to Cancun,” you better by damn come up with a present, because you can bet your sweet hiney you she will.
I got my whistle the day after Christmas and I can play 2 songs already! Granted they aren’t hard ones but compared to when I was teaching myself the guitar this is so much easier.
Also I thought I’d share that my classically trained clarinet playing girlfriend couldn’t play a clean note on my whistle if it were life or death. heh heh.
