We see colonial things with Fife’s, but I never see Whistles. Why didn’t the Irish
bring their Penny’s with them when they
migrated to America? We could have all
been playing them since we were tiny children
like kids play any other musical instrument…why did we have to “discover”
them ourselves?
Now who said they didn’t? 78 rpms of tinwhistle playing were recorded in the US back in the 40s and 50s. A dear friend of mine, the late Chris Langan who emigrated over to Toronto during the 50s made an lp of tin whistle playing in Canada with a Cape Breton fiddleplayer during the early 60s. [I knew Chris during the 1980s and 90s on his visits to the Willie Clancy week, just to make sure you don’t think I am pushing on to pensionable age myself]
My guess would be that that would be early enough for most of us to pick them up as a kid. Maybe you guys just weren’t looking??
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2001-11-03 06:51 ]
I suppose it also depends on when they came over, too.
The first commercial whistle (the Clarke) wasn’t made until 1843, and was made and sold primarily, in England, not in Ireland. Although the tin whistle is accepted as a ‘traditional Irish’ instrument, my understanding is that it didn’t have its origins here - and has only been more recently (comparatively speaking) integrated in the Irish musical culture.
As I have mentioned before, the most popular tin whistle for Irish school children is the Generation (again, English) and the Feadog has only been around for 30 years or so.
Take care
Steve Power
Depending on when they came, well maybe. There is plenty of evidence the whistle was being played widely during the 1920s. Micko Russell came to the whistle at eleven years of age after hearing a man (later joined by two brothers) play at a house dance. He was enchanted and his father bought him one soon afterwards ‘in the town of Ennistymon’. He distinctly remembered these whistles as ‘Clarke’s tinwhistles’. They were generally on sale in hardware stores and with general merchants in Ireland.
In the same area John Killourhy was (and still is) active, playing a highly unusual wooden (for Irish standards) whistle. Martin Talty once told me how he first met Willie Clancy while still in primary school, they both played the whistle then (when the teacher was not looking , the whistle was not at all respectable). Clancy extensively played the whistle around the house dances in Clare during the late 1930s, Martin Rochford described him to me as a ‘powerful player’ unmatched before or after.
What I am saying is: the whistle was there and the generation of the people above went through the worst times of emigration, a lot left and they would have taken their music with them.
Piper Tom Ennis by the way, ran a music store specialised in Irish music and musical instruments in New York again during the 1920s, it’s likely he would have had whistles for sale.
Oh, thanks for all the info. I was talking about the migrants of the 1700’s even, and
why Whistles aren’t in the Southern roots
with the banjos and fiddles…it sounds
like you are telling me they just weren’t
a respected “main-stream” instrument in
Ireland to even migrate with!!! That is
a surprise.
Irish music was not respectable at all, that’s an only recent development. Many of the older musicians will tell that well into the 1960s you would be kicked out of a pub for playing music or singing.
I haven’t a clue how far the whistles go back, whistle music as we know it was probably introduced with the Clarkes, they were/are cheap and easy to play.
Peter
Will you be at the Comhaltas 50th anniversary concert in Limerick tonight (3rd Nov)? I’ve left this a bit too late, but it would be good to meet up if you are going.
Take care
Steve Power
I am not a Comhaltas person.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2001-11-03 14:47 ]
Hi Peter
Strange that, they speak very highly of you! 
Steve
Weird. While I know individuals who are members I never had any dealings with that organisation or attended or taken part in any of their activities.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2001-11-04 07:50 ]
I know of two resources that might be of value.
The first is a great book “A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music” can be found here NEW](http://www.celticcrossings.com/book.html%22%3ENEW) BOOK by GEAROID.
I found it to be very enjoyable. It devotes a considerable portion of the book to traditional Irish music before recording. It would give some insight into what happened that caused (what I think was) Peter’s reference to the lack of popularity/respectability/acceptablity of the music to have happened (from the 1920’s and into the 1960’s as Peter has shared).
The other is a link is right on the C&F mother ship. It is by L.E. McCullough from his tutor; History](http://www.chiffandfipple.com/lehistory.html%22%3EHistory) of the Tin whistle.
Cheers
[ This Message was edited by: Mark_J on 2001-11-05 08:57 ]
In case anyone is interested the fiddler Chris recorded with from Cape Breton was Johnny Wilmot. Wilmot was a fluently bilingual musician (Cape Breton/Irish) who spent 1959-1975 living in Toronto during which time he befriended and recorded with Chris. Cape Breton’s Magazine has a CD release of Wilmot’s music which has been re-mastered and features two tracks with whistle (quite uncommon in Cape Breton).
In case anyone is interested the CD can be ordered via the link below. I make no $ or nothing just a good CD.
I sometimes wonder how American music,
blue grass, and so on might have been
different if whistles had been around.
this post made me think of when I was growing up here in the Appalachian Mts (a bonafied hillbilly ya’ll) of Virginia.(60’s) Every Saturday night the older folks"made music" at someones house in “Back Valley” where we lived. Now, of course there were no whistles played but we did have a fiddler, banjo player(claw hammer style), guitarists, mandolins, and spoons.and lots of dancers. As the evening wore on, and after a few trips outside there were more and more dancers.
This was NOT bluegrass, but what I guess would be termed old time mountain music.Pre-bluegrass. None of these guys could read music, all were in their 70’s at least, and had learned the tunes handed down over the years. Tunes like Soldier’s Joy, Red Haired Boy, etc.My Dad taped one of these sessions on a reel to reel recorder and we created a CD for ourselves from it! My brother was a good enough player, even as a kid, to be taught by them and play with them(the fiddler even gave him his fiddle when he could no longer play).
Now, the point to this rambling tale IS- when I got my first whistle book, more than a few years ago, imagine my suprise when there were a lot of the tunes that I’d listened to the old folks play!!! And while they are not exactly the same, I can play the music from a book on whistle, my brother can play the tunes on fiddle as he learned them from the old guys, AND THEY FIT PERFECTLY TOGETHER!!!So, there may not have been pennywhistles to influence bluegrass, BUT, the tunes themselves were there, and are still here.
To continue the sideways drift of this topic, I just watched a new video called Song Catcher, which I highly recommend. It’s about a musicologist who travels to Appalachia around the turn of the century to record on phonograph cylinders and print, the music of the area. There is a lot of beautiful singing and a bit of banjo and fiddle music. Taj Mahal makes a brief appearance on banjo.
Tony
Sorry about the duplicate (quadruplicate posts. I couldn’t find them after I posted, not realizing they were on page 2!!. How embarrassing. Disregard the next two or so.
Tony
[ This Message was edited by: TonyHiggins on 2001-11-05 22:48 ]
To continue the sideways drift of this topic, I just watched a new video called Song Catcher, which I highly recommend. It’s about a musicologist who travels to Appalachia around the turn of the century to record on phonograph cylinders and print, the music of the area. There is a lot of beautiful singing and a bit of banjo and fiddle music. Taj Mahal makes a brief appearance on banjo.
Tony
To continue the sideways drift of this topic, I just watched a new video called Song Catcher, which I highly recommend. It’s about a musicologist who travels to Appalachia around the turn of the century to record on phonograph cylinders and print, the music of the area. There is a lot of beautiful singing and a bit of banjo and fiddle music. Taj Mahal makes a brief appearance on banjo.
Exploring all the above issues RTE broadcast a five part documentary series in 1991 about the travels of Irish music to America and how it came back to haunt the place here as popmusic. The series was called Bringing it all back home and if you haven’t seen it try to locate a video or the CD box that went with it. The accompanying book written by Nuala O Connor was re-issued recently and is a worthwhile read full of lovely pics.