Maybe you’ll cross paths with one in an elevator, or maybe your niece’s high school graduation. Who knows? You meet whistlers everywhere, but it’s the funny occurences that are the most memorable to me. I met my first on a boat. Good stuff. Any other stories to tell?
there was a man playing a (very, very nice) left-handed flute in the lychgate of the church where I take my son to karate in the hall last week. He had at least one other flute arranged next to him on the seat.
ok, not a whistle, and I didn’t actually meet him, as such (due to my son muttering “he’s better than you but I think he’s a BIT ODD”) at me, but it was a fairly weird place.
I didn’t meet, but heard somebody (I’ll say “he”) playing a whistle at night down by the banks of the Mississippi river. He was frankly terrible; kept playing the same notes over and over, sort of a melody fragment, but at least he could do that much. Of course I had an urge to go check it out, but that might have been the idea, for the sounds came from a wooded, shrubby area used by homeless people, partiers, and anyone else who wants cover for whatever it is they’re up to. It all sounded very much like a lure gambit. But, who knows. I wasn’t about to give him lessons, anyway.
I live in San Francisco but work in Oakland so I take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train to work every day. Buskers are often lurking in the terminals but they usually play guitars or the occasional silver flute. About six months ago, I’m getting off the train in downtown Oakland and I hear a familiar tune and what sounds like a really loud D whistle. So I follow the sound and find a youngish guy playing a black whistle while his girlfriend was singing Mna na Heireann. She was really good, he was marginal and having trouble with the high notes.
When they finished, I dropped a dollar in their hat and asked them where they were from. He says, in the strongest cockney accent I’ve heard before, that they were working their way across the US starting in Berkeley this morning. I asked him how long he’d been playing and he said his uncle gave him the whistle when he died two years ago but until now he had never tried to play it. He learned a couple of songs before they left England, this was one of them. I showed him the Sindt Bb and Mellow Dog D that were in my pocket and asked him if I could see his whistle. I almost passed out when he handed me his Lon Dubh! I asked if he knew much about the whistle and he said that his uncle loved it and played everyday, but he was having a hard time playing it. Sensing the devil in me coming out and considering how I was going to avoid taking advantage of his ignorance, I caught myself and explained to him how he had one of the worlds finest whistles in his hand and that he should guard it like it was solid gold.
The next day I saw him in the same place playing, badly still, the same song but on a Generation blue top. He smiled at me and told me he got nervous after talking to me so he locked up the Lon Dubh at his girlfriends mothers house in Berkeley and went down to the music store and bought the Gen. Funny thing was, he didn’t sound any different to me. I taught them Foggy Dew then went to work.
Haven’t seem them or any other whistler on the street since.
I keep meeting whistlers on the internet, which I think is a little strange.
Don’t believe it. A lot of them are really trombonists posing as whistlers. You have to be careful about these things.
Last whistler I met was on Saturday, at an all-day tango workshop, which is very much not an obvious kind of music for whistle (I was playing accordion). She showed me her Copeland high D (bloody gorgeous!!!) and her collection of Alba low whistles, and I got longings…
Admittedly, she had a concertina with her as well.
After the funeral was over. She wanted to see my flute.
Back when I worked in Center City Philadelphia, 2004-2005, I happened across a homeless man several different times playing fife and whistle on the streets. He appeared self taught, and didn’t seem to know any traditional tunes, but ad libbed some very nice jazzy rifs. Enjoyable to listen to.
In a subway …
I busk/practice my Low D in a subway two or three days a week, was originally ‘practice’ only but people kept offering coins so ‘busking’ crept in, nice thing about subways:
- Shelter
- I sound better than I am due to echo/reverb
- You can get away with playing same tune for hours (if you are outside a shop it soon grates on them playing one tune all day)
Old chap got chatting last week and said he was a ‘bit of a player’ but had never played a Low, I offered the old Gen Bb I also had with me
‘Bit of a player’ was a HUGE understatement he was AWESOME, bit more ITM than me, I’m more Jazz/Blues but I was massively impressed at every aspect of his playing, my own toots seemed pitifully inadequate after he left
Whenever you hear that, you should be ready to get your ass handed to you on a platter.
I carry a whistle with me everywhere I go, and it’s usually visible… and I have heard that enough times to know it’s true.
Roadside truckstop restroom. Pretty decent whistler playing in one of the stalls, albeit a tad loud for the uh, 'environment." Somehow, I just didn’t have any desire to stick around and introduce myself.
Yeah I know, call me a prude.
A whistler in a stall? What an opportunity: “Hey buddy! Your playing stinks.” Then, of course, you exit.
My counselor’s husband plays. I have never met him but its fun to talk to her about whistling - because she is the aggrieved spouse of a whistler who listens to it all day every day. 
So, essentially you’re counseling her.
Haha, yep. Apparently he plays the pipes too. Poor lady.