What's your story?

Whistle
1

First I have to say after browsing this forum you all are a hoot. (no pun intended) I just love a witty group of people and only hope I can contribute my share of hilarity as well. :smiley:

I am a newbie here and I have two questions. One is what does Whoa stand for? I get the impression it has to do with whistle aquisition. I certainly understand whistle lust as I found a site with one I MUST HAVE that is sadly out of my price range. ($400+ smackaroos) Especially as I am a rank beginner.

My second question is, how did all of you come into the land of whistle? What prompted you to want to learn to play? (Was is a gateway recorder? You can tell me, I wonā€™t tattle.) And a second part of the question is what was your first whistle?

Also, is there a recommended book on Penny whistle history? I am a little bit of a geek like that.

My short answer to my own question is ā€œEnter the Haggisā€, a love of the sound, and a Meg by Clarke in high D because that is what my local music store carried. (but I have my eye on a Susato next) Thanks for your time!!

2

Whistle Obsessive Acquisition.

I took it up as a gateway to the pipes. But I discovered the wooden flute, which I will stick with, no pipes in my future.

Whereabouts in Maine are you? Song of the Sea in Bar Harbor is a wonderful shop with a pretty good selection of whistles. I make an annual or biennial trip up to Acadia and always stop by SotS. I almost went up to Bar Harbor for Kristen Britainā€™s book release in February, but realized I moved down here to get away from February in Maine. :wink:

3

what does Whoa stand for?

We Have Oily Asparagus.
Westward, Horizontally or Asymptotically.
Well, Hereā€™s an Original Ape.
Was He the Only Aristocrat?
Wasnā€™t Herb an Original Aardvark?
Weasleys Have Orange Armpits.
Witty? Ha! Ostensibly Asinine.

4

Welcome.

While I prefer WHOA, some call it WOAD (Whistle Obsessive Acquisition Disorder).

I was cruising around on Youtube one day and there was this video of Matt Cunningham playing Roisin Dubh on a Bb Generation and it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard. Iā€™ve sung in choir, street corner harmony groups and played guitar, kalimba, didgeridoo and drums for most of my life. I started playing recorder when I turned 52 years old as a way to learn how to finally read music. After hearing Matt, I told my wife that, as the ripe old age of 57, I was going to start playing whistle since it was so much more versatile and accessed a much broader scope of music.

She cried a little since I was just starting to get good on my nice blackwood tenor recorder with itā€™s luscious deep round tone and the thought of a screechy high D whistle just made her sick. So, she said, get a good one right from the start. I stumbled upon C&F when referred by Doc at the Irish Whistle Shop and lurked around asking questions and doing research for a couple of months, then decided to order both a Freeman Mellow Dog and a Burke Composite Session on the same day. The Mellow Dog arrived from Doc two days before the Burke from..well Burke, so I guess itā€™s my first whistle.

Now, at almost 59, I have lost count of how many I have, but I love playing and collecting all kinds and sizes of whistles. The first two still get played more than all the others (which should tell me something :poke:), but I get to them all every couple of weeks. I keep one or two whistles in our cars, friends homes, work, etc. so I can play whenever I feel like it.

I canā€™t help you with the the history book but C&F is about the best archive of information you could want. Use the search function.

Please have fun with this. Itā€™s just the best way to have music around you all the time. I have a blast playing.

ecohawk (michael)

5

Hi & welcome!
I played recorder for 10 years or so in my childhood, and during that time had all my musical ambitions squashed by the horrid old spinster who taught meā€¦ Bought a Generation Bb while travelling Ireland in 1980, but couldnā€™t figure out the fingering. Got back into folk music two years ago & bought an accordion. Last May, we saw a brilliant young Kentish folk band called Wheeler Street, who had a little elfin girl called Sophy on vocals & whistles. After the concert, I dug out my ancient Bb, found a fingering chart on the interweb and took to it like the proverbial duck to water!

Since then, Woad has gripped me. I now have a dozen whistles or so, a keyless wooden flute, a band flute (not yet usable) and am on the waiting list for an economy piccoloā€¦ I play my High D for a Morris side, but get to use the full range of whistles & flutes in the ā€œSquirrelsā€ ensemble, playing old English music and Paul Hutchinson tunes. We have several recorder players in the group, but Iā€™m the only whistler, which is quite satisfying.

Well, you askedā€¦

6

Another Haggis Head is always welcome!
Iā€™m a recorder player and back in the early days of Saturday Night Live I heard The Chieftains and was instantly hooked on Irish music. The whistle was the obvious instrument for me to take up. In our home, BTW, whistle and recorder coexist quite happily. I love to play Classical music on the whistle, but rarely go the other way.

7

I played piano when I was a kid but never really got very far with it. Picked up the recorder a couple of years ago and instantly found it was the perfect instrument for me. Then got interested in whistle - I think due to coming across the Tony Hinnigan video reviews - but found it initially unsatisfying until I picked up a Fred Rose whistle which completely hooked me. Now I play both - perform in a baroque trio on recorder, but also play a lot of whistle.

8

I got hooked on ITM (Irish Traditional Music) as a teen back in the 1970s. I first heard The Cheiftans on TV then went out and bought a buch of Cheiftans, Planxty, Bothy Band, and solo ITM albums (yes huge vinyl things).

I was already playing GHB (Great Highland Bagpipesā€¦ donā€™t you just love all these acronyms?) and just had to get a set of uilleann pipes, an Irish flute, a bodhran, and a bunch of Irish whistles. I learned all of those things more or less simultaneouslyā€¦ not a learning method I would recommend.

Still playing the same uilleann chanter and several whistles I got back in the 70s.

9

Iā€™ve always like music and Iā€™ve played or tried to play many instruments ove the years.
-Clarinet in short summer camp, 6 weeks?
-Oboe through 9th grade, I actually got fair. But those double reeds were fragile, expensive, and I couldnā€™t keep up.
-Guitar, owned a couple but before electronic tuners I couldnā€™t keep them in tune by myself.
-Recorder, Iā€™ve got a good one by Mollenhauer, but itā€™s too good to leave the house, and the wife has a low tolerance of newbie practice.
(Letā€™s be honest and call beginners practice noise is a form of torture.)
Practice Chanter for the great pipes. Same story as the recorder.
-Ocarinas, love these. Cheap, portable, play anywhere. I even got a couple of decent ones from Mountain Ocarinas. And through M.O. I got hooked on Irish Traditional Music. Whatā€™s not perfect about Ocarinas?
They donā€™t have the two octave range of the whistle, so improtant for ITM. Ocarinas are a gateway drug!
-Whistles. WhOA is me!
Since Christmas I have got as much music playing time on my whistles as I have on all my previous instruments put together. And the itch just gets itchier. Excuse me now, I have to go and scratch it.

10

I was playing guitar and harmonica in our folk group at church. I had just learned the harmonica a couple of years earlier as a way to build up my lungs after heart surgery. Our keyboard playerā€™s son-in-law was visiting from out of town and joined us at Mass. He played a brass whistle with a green top. I decided to learn that instrument right then. I searched the internet, somehow missing this forum, found that pretty fingering chart and by accident learned to play left handed. I now also play simple flute, silver flute, fife, yamaha not-really-a-fife, ocarina, and concertina. I donā€™t like ITM, I donā€™t play ITM, I just like the sound of the instruments played to other music.

I wish I was a street corner harmony group singer.

Welcome.

11

I have played guitar for over 40 years, but the whistle is new. It all started 5 or 6 years ago as my son and I were looking at guitars in a music store. There was a cream colored Yamaha recorder hanging on the wall, and my son picked it up, and as a joke, said, ā€œHere, Dad, this is what you need.ā€ I took him up on it. I had once CD of the Chieftains, and was soon playing ā€œThe Foggy Dew.ā€ I started listening to more Celtic music, though I might want to call it Celtic pop or Celtic-American pop or something else . . . not really Irish Traditional. Found Cherish the Ladies. Then I realized that what I heard was not a recorder. I stumbled across a Clarke Original in a music store, and realized that not only was this instrument easier than a recorder, it was much more expressive, lots more fun, and had a sound all its own. (I still have recorders, and play them from time to time . . . but not much).

Iā€™ve made a few myself, but donā€™t plan on being a whistle maker. I have Clarks Sweetones, tweaked Sweetones (Jerry Freeman), a Feadog, a Feadog pro D, Waltonā€™s Mellow D, Waltonā€™s Little Black, Susato (non-tunable) and a Dixon polymer pro D.

I play for my enjoyment, and have rarely played for others (though it would be fun). I have tried to decide ā€œwhat is my favorite whistle?ā€ I have come down to three: Feadog Pro D, Susato, and the Dixon polymer. They each very different. The Dixon is quiet and sweet sounding. Cross fingering works very well for accidentals. The Susato is strong and reedy sounding. The Feadog Pro D sounds Traditional.

One other thing . . . if a whistle has a cavity under the windway, it can be improved by filling the cavity. Iā€™ve used candle wax and then sticky tac. If you canā€™t get the head off the whistle, roll the stuff up in a small ball, drop it through the sound window, and tamp it back with a pocket sized screwdriver, being careful not to touch the blade. Every whistle has benefited from this . . . even the Dixon (this cured a somewhat ā€œedgyā€ sound in the second D note).

Some people think my interest is rather strange, but . . . I do not really care. I have fun.

12

My great grandfather came to America in 1849. He continually told his children to never forget that they were Irish. My grandfather told his children to never forget that they were Irish. My father continued this but most of the ā€œIrishā€ music I heard was American composed music to sell to the Irish. When I went to Ireland I absolutely loved the south and west of the country. However I realized that I was not Irish. I was an American with Irish heritage. I heard ITM and loved it. Shortly after I returned home I had a heart attack and required bypass surgery. I was told I needed to do some exercises to build up my lung power. I had a whistle I bought 10 years earlier which I never attempted to play. I figured that playing the whistle was the easiest way to build my lung power. I pulled out my Feadan, not Feadog, and began to learn some music. I donā€™t ever expect to learn to play ITM properly because I wasnā€™t born and raised in west Clare. It is kind of like learning a foreign language. I had to have my Spanish checked by a native speaker for a job I was doing. He said I was very good. So I asked is there anything that I donā€™t pronounce properly. He said yes. I said well what is it. He said donā€™t worry about it you are quite good but there are some things you donā€™t quite say like we do. So it is with ITM. There are some things I donā€™t quite play like they do.

13

Chas, I am on the coast near Rockland and Camden. Thanks for the tip on Bar Harbor! I will have to make a trip as I am only 2 hours from there.

Maki, I prefer to think of it as payback for my kids as I had to listen to them learn their instruments, now itā€™s their turn! :stuck_out_tongue:

Actually my daugher is very supportive of my new interest. She plays the flute (8 years) and offered to help me as needed. Music is one thing I did sort of guide my kids to when they were young. (and reading was the other) My son plays the bari sax and I played the tenor sax back in middle and high school. I also dabbled in regular flute but not seriously.

I am excited to find this whole new music world where I can get back to doing something I love regularly. And this online community is amazing! Who knew??? I am so excited that I donā€™t need to only rely just on the how to books I bought but there are online lessons as well.

Keep the stories coming!

14

Sadly, Song of the Sea closed the doors of its store front in Bar Harbor in 2009. They do still sell whistles through the Internet although the selection is reduced from what was once available in the store. I certainly enjoy our trips to Acadia but the prospect of a new whistle from SotS was always icing on the cake.

Feadoggie

15

Long story short - Mid-life crisis; and a whistle is both cheaper and less dangerous than a powerful motorbike.

16

I am Scottish and the whistle was always around. I had one but played badly. At school we had Wednesday afternoon clubs and one of them was run by a biology teacher who taught whistle so thatā€™s where I really started properly. He is still around and still playing in a band! I do enjoy playing the whistle. I like the cheapness and the portability of it, but I do treat it as music. Its not really part of any cultural identity for me. Its an English instrument after all and we Scots have a troubled relationship with our neighbours!

17

Careful what you say there.

Ahem.

18

Iā€™ll start with your second question first! My first, and currently only whistle is a Feadog D tin whistle I bought in Ireland back in 2002 (at the gift shop at Blarney Castle of all places). I bought it planning to learn but not much happened at the time and I soon lost it in the cupboards of my bedroom.

Rolling back - I have always been fairly musical, but have rarely put the time in to get really good at an instrument. I taught myself piano and can plan reasonably (though canā€™t sight read). In my teens and early 20ā€™s I spent a lot of time composing and sequencing with computers and synths. About the same time I started to develop I taste for Irish music (Enya, Clannad, Bill Whelan). Then came the Titanic score and I have long been a fan of James Hornerā€™s musicā€¦ I started to use Irish whistle and flute sounds in my music more and more. Learning to play the tin whistle seemed a great idea and a good way of developing this, but 2002 was the latter stages of this time. I fell in love, got married, had kids, and soon much of my free time was gone, no more composing, and the whistle gathering dust in a drawer.

Over the following years I kept up with the piano on and off, and started pootling with the guitar (again, not to a great level). Rolling forward, I found the whistle a couple of weeks ago along with one of the books I had (Selections from Riverdance on Tin Whistle). I was reminded again just how beautiful the sounds and music are and I want to give this instrument a proper go this time - with my longer term ambition being able to play well enough to have go with the Low Whistle or flute.

I am really enjoying it. I have learned to play a few songs already, such as ā€˜Down by the Sally Gardensā€™, ā€˜Home and the Heartlandā€™, plus some of the themes from Titanic, Braveheart, LotR etc. I am starting to find that my playing, at least in the low octave, sounds sweeter and more consistent as well.

Still have loads to learn though!

Wayne

19

I come from a deeply ethnic Slovak family. I call this the pennywhistle when Iā€™m around them. Iā€™d never call it the irish whistle. I also play a ā€œsimple fluteā€. My in-laws are Irish, I play an irish whistle and irish flute when I visit them.

20

I hate to be pedantic but the whistle has been around longer than England has.
The English simply mastered the art of mass production and marketing.

BTW, and off topic even more, I just watched Stone of Destiny, great movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037156/