New here and to the whistle

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Crawforde
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Tell us something.: I am interested in Scottish and ITM.
My main instrument is the harmonica, but I just ordered a whistle to start that too.

New here and to the whistle

Post by Crawforde »

Hi everyone.
Actually I’m so new to the whistle I don’t even have one yet.
I do have some books on hold at the library, and there is a book and whistle on route to me from the whistle shop.
Once it arrives I am sure to annoy with all the typical new guy questions. :wink:
I apologize
afl2277
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Tell us something.: Just starting out on the tin whistle journey and loving learning to play. Now at an advanced age, I still remember my recorder days from school and so, remembering where the notes are has given me a head start.

Re: New here and to the whistle

Post by afl2277 »

Crawforde wrote:Hi everyone.
Actually I’m so new to the whistle I don’t even have one yet.
I do have some books on hold at the library, and there is a book and whistle on route to me from the whistle shop.
Once it arrives I am sure to annoy with all the typical new guy questions. :wink:
I apologize

Hi there :D

Im new too, although I've had my Sweetone whistle a couple of weeks and my Feadog a few days. Everyone here is really helpful, and if you need help they are great.

Take a look on You Tube, there are a couple of good online tutors that make learning quite easy. One is OAIM and the other is Cutiepie.

Hope your whistle arrives soon so you can start to enjoy playing it :thumbsup:
fatmac
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Re: New here and to the whistle

Post by fatmac »

Welcome aboard. :)

I sort of fell into whistle playing when I came here looking for flute info, they are very collectable, so I doubt that will be your only one. ;)

Edit: I did wonder if it was you from on the harmonica forums, & have just seen your other post. :thumbsup:
Keith.
Trying to do justice to my various musical instruments.
Crawforde
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2018 10:55 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: I am interested in Scottish and ITM.
My main instrument is the harmonica, but I just ordered a whistle to start that too.

Re: New here and to the whistle

Post by Crawforde »

Thanks for the welcome.
I will have to check the YouTube tutorials.
I am afraid of the collectible aspect of the whistle. If they multiply like harmonicas do I could be in trouble.
PB+J
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Tell us something.: I'm a historian and the author of "The Beat Cop:Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music," published by the University of Chicago in 2022. I live in Arlington VA and play the flute sincerely but not well

Re: New here and to the whistle

Post by PB+J »

I've been playing the whistle very intently since March. Not quite six months. It's fascinating and fun. It's a simple, limited instrument that people have found all sorts of ways to do cool things with. I love how expressive it's made to be in the hands of a good player. It speaks to human creativity and resourcefulness in the face of hard limits.

The practice for me is very meditative. I've got a very small repertoire of jigs and reels I can play "at speed" reasonably well. Each new tune I learn seems to make the next one a little easier to learn. Before that I taught myself the basic of playing the Bodhran and can acquit myself reasonably well.

The culture of irish traditional music is foreign to me--I'm very well versed in other musical cultures, but the ITM world is new to me. I may never do more than play for myself.

the internet is great, but I did attend an irish music workshop week recently, and learning with a teacher is far and away the best way. A youtube video can't really explain to you where you are messing up the phrasing.
PB+J
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Tell us something.: I'm a historian and the author of "The Beat Cop:Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music," published by the University of Chicago in 2022. I live in Arlington VA and play the flute sincerely but not well

Re: New here and to the whistle

Post by PB+J »

Also in my experience the inexpensive whistles out there are very uneven in quality and frustrating to play. I tried a lot of whistles, ranging from brand new to vintage whistles that were lying around the house.

I had very good luck buying one of Jerry Freeman's "tweaked" whistles on ebay and also I love the Killarney whistles. They just eliminated a lot of newbie frustrations because they played much more consistently. I find I always end up back at the Killarney whistle. I think whistles are cheap enough that it's worth it to get one that had some attention paid to it.
Tor
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Location: Europe and Japan

Re: New here and to the whistle

Post by Tor »

PB+J wrote: I had very good luck buying one of Jerry Freeman's "tweaked" whistles on ebay and also I love the Killarney whistles. They just eliminated a lot of newbie frustrations because they played much more consistently.
Will have to agree.. I recently got the chance to test a Killarney D whistle (thanks to a member's shop that I could visit), and if I didn't have a Freeman Bluebird already I would have bought the Killarney. I've got the usual set of (mostly) cheapie whistles from when I went through the 'test everything' phase, but I'm sticking with only the Bluebird now (with one exception, for special occasions and tunes).
Crawforde
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2018 10:55 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: I am interested in Scottish and ITM.
My main instrument is the harmonica, but I just ordered a whistle to start that too.

Re: New here and to the whistle

Post by Crawforde »

Thanks for the advice.
And it’s good news to hear.
I ordered a tweaked Clarke.
The price difference wasn’t much, and with harmonicas a little bit of attention can make a world of difference in playability.
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