Am I the only one or are there others out there in the whistle world that have a hard time getting their spouse to appreciate the whistle hobby/lifestyle?
I have been accused of having WhOA and my spouse can’t understand why the checks are bouncing.
Please help by sending your support in the form of a reply, and possibly some advice on how to get my soulmate to understand my obsession.
I handed mine a whistle and said “Have you ever tried one of these?” Result = 2 whistle players in the house & no complaining during practice time. Somehow, though, I’m the one with the WhOA.
Tery
P.S. If you do this, you also want to have a beginner book of some sort handy, so the spouse can play a couple of tunes and have in hand the promise of more to come!
I have been told in no uncertain terms by my SO that when I play higher notes in proximity to him, he will get cranky. Apparently it gives him a headache. He’s also trying to get me to promise never to take up pipes of any kind, hehehe.
But if I play at a ‘safe distance’ he has no complaints, and when I visited this weekend and was practicing Inion Ni Scannlain in the other room, I caught him peeking his head in. I might EVEN get him to try some irish stuff on his guitar one of these days.
Beth: give him six months. No improvement? DITCH HIM!! Choose from among the fine eligible bachs (no of course not me) at C&F. You know where they;re coming from! They’re fine young lads with impeccable taste.
Just kidding of course. We all want lifelong relationships with people who scrunch their faces at the sound of Monaghan’s Twig played for the 617th time.
No way, I’ve got 52 months invested here. I’ve already told HIM in no uncertain terms that I come with whistles attached! 
Headless…
You are not alone! My wife thinks we’re all geeks. My one consolation is her collection of antique glass taking up several display cabinets. As long as she’s actively collecting I doubt she will say a single word when I say, “I think I need another whistle.”
Yeah V’lock . For all of these years as a musician, I have always been able to point to guys with boats and golf memberships and point out how cheap my “hobby” is. And for all the years I played weddings, i actually deducted a lot by filing self-employment (old Thread about 13 pages ago)..
Now chicken says they’re bouncin checks so I am not sure just how bad the WHoa is there but remember that whistling is prettty cheap, unless you can only whistle while in Ireland!!!
My whistling never bothered my husband, but one day I made the mistake of handing him one of my low whistles to “try”. He was playing away on it for about a 1/2 hour and by the time he was done, he was playing “The South Wind” almost as good as I play it: and I’ve been playing for TWO YEARS! I since then have taken to hiding most of my whistles, except maybe leaving a Gen D laying around (which he won’t touch). It’s not that I’m afraid that he’ll get better than me, or anything; I DON’T have an ego problem. I just don’t want him to catch WHoA. We can’t afford to have two of us in the family!
Well, I did have to promise never to get addicted to something expensive, like a harp. And I notice that when we’re somewhere and I see a new instrument, or one I haven’t tried, and say “What’s that?”, my spouse looks very nervous. 
Tery
I, too, have heard the words, “Why do you need another whistle? You can’t play more than one at a time.”
Then he tried to use my meager low-end Shanna Quay order to evoke sympathy for his first-person shooter/strategy simulation/RPG habit.
How do you get them to understand? You don’t. You just get something on them and remind them of it when they start bugging you. 
On 2002-08-06 17:42, avanutria wrote:
I visited this weekend and was practicing Inion Ni Scannlain in the other room, I caught him peeking his head in.
Hey Beth,
That’s so cool that you’re playing Inion Ni Scannlain. Was that after I asked about it, or independent of my efforts? Maybe because of the notorious RMS dub?
My better half likes this one too, and I finally found a use for my Bb Gen which was serving time as a dust collector till I heard the Lasagna version! She’s even trying to learn it herself (I hope).
Her two cats still run a mile when I start to play, except on my new low F Overton, when they still look disgruntled but don’t flee until I hit the higher notes.
“I suddenly heard in the silence of the night the low whistle…” Miss Helen Stoner, The Adventure of the Speckled Band (circa 1892) to Gary
[ This Message was edited by: Martin Milner on 2002-08-07 07:12 ]
Because of the RMS dub. You asked about Roisin Dubh, though. Did you ask about Inion Ni Scannlain too?
I found out “Inion” means daughter, and “O’Scannlain” is a name, so maybe it means daughter of a place (or person) called Scannlain.
That doesn’t mean I can pronounce it, though…
The wife is pretty good about the playing – says she enjoys it. And she is into stamping and spends way more on supplies then I do on whistles. So I have little guilt.
But the kids HATE my whistling. They have taken to hiding them.
Hey, the kids will at least move out some day.
On 2002-08-07 09:56, avanutria wrote:
Because of the RMS dub. >I found out “Inion” means daughter, and “O’Scannlain” is a name, so maybe it means daughter of a place (or person) called Scannlain.
That doesn’t mean I can pronounce it, though…
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?topic=5068&forum=1&14
Ahh. To be honest, I skipped that thread. I didn’t recognize the name and was involved in getting ready for Salt Lake. I have the CD but haven’t listened to it for a while. I learned it by listening to the Salt Lake recording.
Unfortunately that thread confirms that it is a copyrighted piece. 
All the cool ones I can play seem to be copyrighted!
My EX couldn’t stand whistle playing ( or just about anything else I did) which is a great part of why she is now EX.
My brand new wife is also an avid whistle player, and she actually bought me the lathe I use to make wooden whistles for my 50th birthday! Last weekend, I played flute and whistle at her daughter’s ( my stepdaughter!) wedding. No whistle/spouse problems here…
That’s the way to do it brewer! I’ve discovered several ways (besides divorce in this case) of feeding my WHoa without complaint from the Missus.
She collects unicorns. She has hundreds. Most of which are far more expensive then my whistles.
She collects cross-stitch paraphenalia (which at leasts results in inexpensive Christmas gifts). Still more then my whistles.
It’s cheaper than my old habit of collecting computer games at $40-$50 a pop.
It’s a lot cheaper than my desire to aquire more hammered dulcimers. Even I can’t justify that one.
I can’t get her to try one though. She insists she can’t play without written music so I showed her my O’Niell’s but still no interest.
She has also had the audacity to point out that the money I spend on CD’s full of whistle/Irish/Folk/Bluegrass… makes up for the low cost of the whistles.
Do you think I can convince her a Bose CD player is absolutely essential?
Just this morning my darling-dear said to me: “Honestly, I think you’d be just as happy without me; you could just work and come home and whistle all you want.”
“No!” I replied, my voice full of shock and reproach, “I’d miss you terribly on the nights on which there aren’t any sessions, honey.”
I mistakenly agreed to a practice session with my group on the night of my guy’s birthday. When I vocalized my shock at my mistake, he said, “it’s no big deal, it’s okay if you practice then, we can celebrate the next day.” I said no way, that it was no big deal for me to skip a practice with them, that it wouldn’t be right for me to go to practice and leave him alone on his b’day. Later when I told him I changed the practice time to the next night, which was complicated because we all don’t live in the same town, he really looked relieved.
The fiddler in our group has an equally understanding and supportive wife. He made the same initial mistake I did, and she told him the same thing my guy told me. He got us to change the practice time.
We consider ourselves blessed with mates who if they won’t play music with us, at least they will encourage us to play with others.
Lisa
My husband is blessedly tolerant of my various musical obsessions (including the whistles), even though our tastes in music are somewhat different. In fact, when he noticed a brand new Feadog peeking out from under the armrest in my car the other day, his only comment was “That’s a great idea to keep one in the car. That way you can play whenever the mood strikes you” (yes, the man is a total gem!).
My daughter generally ignores my playing (except, for some reason, when I play “Si Beg, Si Mor,” which she really dislikes and refers to as the “whee whoo” song!), so I was pleasantly surprised last week when I was playing “South Wind” and she called down to me “That’s really pretty music, Mom!” Not sure if it’s just that my playing has improved, or if she just likes “South Wind,” or if it’s the whistle (I was playing the O’ Briain improved, which is noticibly gentler on the ear in the upper octave than my other whistles), but it was nice to hear!
Redwolf