I’ve been reading a few posts here lately, and thought it was about time I registered.
A few months ago I bought my first whistle, a Gen. in C.
(Well, I suppose technically, that should be “my second whistle”. I did have a whistle as a small child back in the 1960’s – all I remember about it was it was black, so probably a Clarke – I think that was all there would have been available back then. )
A week or so after I got the Gen C, I got a Gen D; then a Clarke C, and …
Well I think you can guess where this is leading
Over the past few months I have also acquired the following:
Feadog D
Dixon, tuneable polymer, D
Schlegel, Wooden, D
another Gen C (well it was just sitting there in a second-hand shop looking lonely)
Alba Low D
and, moving out into the wider “World of Fipple”:
Hungarian Furulya C,
Bulgarian Duduk Bb,
Moldovan Kaval D
Regular Descant Recorders – 2 plastic, 1 wooden
Hungarian Recorder (metal, looks like a tin whistle)
Chinese 6-hole Recorder (plastic, looks like a recorder, but with whistle fingering)
“My name is James, and I’m a Fippleaholic. It’s been more than three weeks since I last purchased…”
I recommend for your addiction to fipples to read everything Dale wrote on the Chiff and Fipple website. The WhOA disorder has subsided for me, but I study tin whistle and flute every day.
Oh, good. I’m not the only one who “rescues” whistles (that’s why I have a Gen E-flat. I’ve never actually used it for anything, but it was at a flea market and it needed a home and it was only three bucks…).
One good thing about acquiring whistles, is that if you buy one you don’t like, you can always sell it in the Used Instrument Exchange for free. I’ve never tried the Wider World, but next time I see one on the Used Instrument Exchange…
I rescued some used Generations being offered for $3 each at a flea market as well. There was a set of 6 (Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G) and I offered $15 for the lot. I kept the D, and when I visited Mexico, I donated the other 5 to a Christian orphanage.
Hmm, d’you know if there is perhaps some kind of International Whistle Rescue Society, that those of us with a desire to help ‘homeless whistles’ can join?
Only this week, another little lost soul (some kind of tourist-piece Fluier-like whistle in the key of ‘not quite sure’) followed me home from a local Charity Shop…
