I am always fascinated at what first attracted people to their whistles … but I’m equally intrigued by all the other instruments that are so often in the lives of whistle-folk. In other threads, one reads of beginnings with Jazz bass. Then there are whistle-players who are also flautists and guitarists, pipers and fiddlers.
So how did you meet your first whistle? And which other instrumental companions have shared the journey with you?
FE
Just get your heart broken! You’ll soon turn to the cheapest, simplest 9or so I thought!) little instrument you can find to express your feelings! Hey! It beats hunting down the guy you got dumped for and punching his pimply nose in!!! 
Well, it worked for ME anyway!
B~
My first whistle: On the night of my wedding, we went to see the Chieftains and my husband noticed that funny little instrument Paddy was playing. He said I should get one…well, six months later, I did. The rest is history.
I also play flute. I have whistles, traditional and modern flutes and fifes, recorders (embarrassingly), guitars, a piano and a fiddle.
There are also in my house: a mandolin, some bodhrans, more guitars (acoustic and electric), digital piano and recording studio equipment.
Jessie
Fairest Emma,
I am one of those people who just happened,on impulse, to buy one of those funny looking flutey things that was sitting in a box on the counter of my local guitar store. After buying it, it sat in a drawer for probably six of seven months.
I am a fretted instrument player by nature. I play the guitar: six and twelve string, electric and acoustic, slide and flatpicking(sorry, no fingerpicking/fingerstyle)I also play the dobro, mandolin, and now, the Irish Bouzouki. I hope this does not sound like a lot boasting - trust, I am by no means a virtuoso on any of these - in fact I am still grappling with the bouzouki - (I have discovered it is not just a funny shaped guitar.)
About eight months ago, I picked up my penny whistle and started messing around with it. I bought a tutorial (Step One Pennywhistle by Peter Pickow) and began to make progress. I then made the mistake of typing pennywhistle into the seach for box on GOOGLE, and was swept into the Poststructural Tinwhistle Internet Community. I now have a couple of Feadogs, Susatos three piece set (D,C,Bb), a Susato narrow bore A (IT SUCKS!) a Tony Dixon F (IT SINGS), and have a Tony Dixon Low D duo on order, as well as a Clare 2-piece D whistle. I also now own a Tony Dixon tunable high-D piccolo, a XAPHOON!, and am in the process of making my own bamboo flute.
Forgive me for gushing on like this, but you see, I was an incredibly heavy smoker for years and never thought I would be able to do all this. I love my stringed axes, but oh, the joy of breathing and being able to make music doing it.
(BTW, Whoa is so much cheaper and space efficient than Guitar obsessive acquisition disorder.)
Blaine
I was first drawn to the whistle when I heard Mike Oldfield’s version of Portsmouth (Yes,it was THAT long ago!!!). I Thought that mix of whistle, accordions and bodhran was just fantastic. However it was a few years later that I bought a generation D and started attending a session every saturday. There was no whistle players in the area where I lived, so I had to teach myself, and I learned tunes from the playing of the local fiddlers, squeezeboxers, mandolin players, banjo players, and anyone else who could bash out a tune. Eventually a friend gave me a copy of a tuition tape and I was able to learn some ornamentation techniques, and finally I bought a copy of Mary Bergin’s “Feadoga Stain” album - vinyl in those far off days. I learned more about irish whistle playing from that album in in an hour than I had learned in the previous year. I recently bought the CD version, and it is as much a revelation now as it was way back then. I am struggling to learn the flute, and I’m making progress with it, but the whistle is still no.1!
I told this story back on the RIPboard, but I am quite willing to share it again.
First of all, let me say that my first love is the french horn. I started playing that when I was a wee lad of 12 in 7th grade for my music class. I chose that instrument because my brother had played it for a month and switched because he couldn’t play it. So I figured, “hey here’s a chance to show up my bro!” And I did. Anyway, with this ability of mine, I went to a music camp (last summer) for the second time. This camp is run through an organization called the Cadet League of Canada ( I am an Air Cadet). Just before I left for this camp I found my sister’s old plastic recorder (I know, I know, recorders are evil and all… ) and started to learn it with the help of some silly mel bay recorder book. Anyway, while I was at camp one of the instructors started playing this silly all black instrument, really small, and with a beautiful tone. Of course he wouldn’t let me touch it (whistle envy and all), but when I came home later that summer for some leave time, I went to my town’s Scottish Festival and found a booth with a bunch of whistles. I ended up buying the Walton’s Guiness Whistle because of the fingering chart and songs that came with it.
I fell in love. I went home and learned it, and then came back the next day and bought a Generation Bb. I fell in love with that too. I still have both whistles.
Nico
First whistles … first loves. A fair degree of commonality it would seem.
I started out at 8 on a school-issue transverse flute and kept at that lovingly until the orthodontist told me I had to give it up if I wanted a good bite (guess what I felt like giving him!). I moped for months, but turned to recorder, which has been a part of my life ever since (I say this proudly and without the slightest trace of embarrassment ).
I think my parents felt sorry for me, so that Christmas, I found a package under the tree containing a tin whistle with a tiny instruction book. At the pompous, enlightened and well-informed age I was then, I merely laughed at the thought this could ever take the place of my flute! I condescended to try a few tunes, obdurately convinced myself I was unimpressed and summarily dismissed it.
But the whistle has a way of insinuating itself into some part of the human brain (perhaps the cerebral cortex?), and unbeknownst to me then, I actually had been snared. Over the years, my attentions to it waxed and waned, but it was always there, even when I was teaching myself guitar, taking formal piano lessons, learning mandolin.
About two years ago, I did some major Spring cleaning in my heart and shuffled around some priorities. I cordoned off a big chunk for music and gave the whistle a special place of its own. Since then, my preoccupations have been consistent with what whistle-lovers would predict.
Just now I’m also teaching myself fiddle and Renaissance bagpipe.
I don’t have my first whistle, just its memory. But the promise of that first whistle is fulfilled in spades! I’ve learned whistles are always going to make me laugh (and sometimes cry), and I don’t plan on ever parting company.
FE
I was in a guitar store a while ago and saw a display of Waltons “Mello D” whistles, so I bought one. I liked the sound of the whistle, but I the upper register is LOUD for apartment living:) I played with it for a few days, and then it ended up at the bottom of my music book bag. I started looking on the net for whistle related sites, and started listening to some examples of “Slow Airs”. That’s when it clicked that the sound I liked so much from all the “Celtic” style music I’ve heard was actually a low whistle. A couple of weeks ago I bought a Susato Low D, and I have a Dixon “Duo” on order as well. I’m a REALLY bad guitar player (this is not false modesty) I mostly just strum simple chords, and try to sing. I can’t sing to save my life (my singing CAN make others contemplate suicide, though) but the tone of the low whistle (played well) can be like “singing” beautifully. That’s what intrigues me about whistles.
Emma–
For me, it had to do with falling in love, as well.
After fruitless guitar and piano lessons growing up, I started playing the baritone horn (euphonium) in fifth grade. At last, an instrument I could really express myself on, and my trusty Besson 700 is still among my favorite instruments.
Trouble is, I travel, hunt, and back pack a lot, and a euphonium isn’t exactly what you’d call portable. Besides, wonderful as it sounds in a concert hall, it doesn’t really fit to pull out the euph to entertain company in the living room or play around the campfire.
Meanwhile, I was developing a love for Irish and Scottish music, especially fiddle, whistle, and highland pipes. The tunes always made me feel vaguely homesick, like I wanted to go do something heroic…
During my first senior year of college, I fell in love with a lovely girl who, it happened, owned a bamboo whistle which, as it happened, was actually somewhat in tune. She wasn’t musically inclined, so I started messing around with it, picking out a couple Irish tunes. To make a long story short, Karly left, and took her lovely whistle along. But I was hooked. Soon after I bought a bamboo whistle (not realizing that that amazing sound I kept hearing in recordings was a tin whistle). It wasnt’ until a couple years later that I found a Clarke D for sale in a catalog. It is still one of my favorites.
Six years later, I have learned much just by listening to recordings and immitating. I’ve tried books, but learning by ear is much more fun for me. I am the only whistler in my area, and so don’t get a lot of useful feedback on my playing, and this forum has made me realize just how much I don’t know (as well as teaching me much!).
Oh, I also play the guitar, the flute, and the brass (especially fond of trumpet and tuba). I’m a fair hand with hand drums, and I can play the other band instruments all badly. (I’m a music teacher, so it’s kind of like cheating). I can occasionally get a pretty good sound out of a didjeridoo. Highland pipes? Maybe someday…
Thanks for starting an interesting thread, Emma–nice to hear everyone’s stories.
God Bless all.
Tom
On 2001-07-07 16:03, WyoBadger wrote:
The tunes always made me feel vaguely homesick, like I wanted to go do something heroic…
O Tom … what an incredible line this is!!! I know just how it feels.
FE
I began playing the Cornet (Bb and then Eb Soprano version) in the school brass band (and then other brass and concert bands) when I was 12 years old in the 70’s. For those not familiar with the instrument - it’s like a small trumpet mainly used in English brass bands. A little later, having become fixated by the Rock band 'Jethro Tull’and the amazing Flautist Ian Anderson (whom I eventually met) I bought a cheap plastic Fife, as I couldn’t afford a flute. I found the whistle much later in life and my earlier fife playing helped me pick it quicker than I’d hoped.
If anyone is interested in hearing what it sounds like when a tin (and Low) whistle is mixed with the Northern English brass band sound - they should listen to Phil Brown’s samples at his amazingly good website http://www.bigwhistle.co.uk
I stumbled across his site recently, and discovered that not only were we both born in the same English county, and that we both played in brass bands, and that we are now both fascinated by the Irish whistle BUT that we both retail whistles, too. The difference is that Phil has recorded two superb albums and I, on the other hand, only take pleasure from listening to his kind of music.
Take Care
Steve Power
[ This Message was edited by: StevePower on 2001-07-07 18:18 ]
And here is one more former brass-band-cornet player, now converted to the whistle. Let’s make a club!
We could call ourselves the FAPBITWONA–the Former And Present Brass Instrumentalists Turned Whistlests Of North America?
Tom
Oh, but wait, we aren’t all from NA, are we? So how about FAPBITWONOAB? (North America and Brittain)?
Hmmmm…how did I find tinwhistle? Well this summer I attended a teen celtic music camp. Since this was my first year going, I wanted some company and so I talked my friend Julie into coming along. I played Flute (badly) but wait what could Julie play? (Saxaphone doesn’t work great for celtic music) So my techer told me to have Julie get a tin whistle.
At camp I found tin whistle alot easier to get celtic music on than the flute, so when I got home I bought a Sweet-tone and a Walton tin whistle. I found I loved my Sweet-Tone, ended up giving Julie my Walton (I don’t like them) as her’s had died beacuse of bug spray (don’t ask, it’s evil) and I’d been playing ever since. To make along story short my sister is ready to snap my tin whistle and shove the peices up where the sun don’t shine, but still claims she loves hearing me play Irish Flute. Now don’t I just have the nicest and most unerstanding sister in the world? Oh well. Tough cookies for her. Now I really can’t wait to get a low D. Hehehehe…
Tom:FAPBITWOUFP = … of United Federation of Planets! So that’s really for everyone, very “politically correct”.
Claudine–
I ain’t playin’ whistle with any little green space men. That’s where I gotta draw the line.
(:
Tom
On 2001-07-09 11:51, WyoBadger wrote:
I ain’t playin’ whistle with any little green space men. That’s where I gotta draw the line.
Now Tom, me boy… Howdya be callin’ yourself dedicated to da tunes of Erin, an’ n’er be willin’ ta play with da little folks dat be wearin’ da green every day…
I’ve played violin since grade 4; and have sung since grade 6. And in high school I dabbled with recorder (bought one–still have it; parents played all but bass).
A little over a year ago, I was considering an electric violin and/or uillean pipes (always loved the sound). Both were priced much higher than I expected.
A friend of mine told me he bought a “tinwhistle” (he had to explain what that was). He had a Susato set and a Clark. He let me try the Clark. With my limited recorder experience, I actually figured out a scale. Thought “cool,” and was hooked. Figured I could buy a lot of whistles for the cost of a set of pipes or an electric violin. [Oh, and Dale’s site helped a LOT.]
So now I play violin/fiddle, and Irish whistle (I find I don’t need to explain that name). I also play guitar (basic chords), and several percussion instruments.
Now I’m considering (for the future) a set of Irish bagpipes. Recently picked up a CD of “Scottish & Celtic pipes.” I’ve NEVER heard such playing. It’s beautiful. Don’t misunderstand: I love the sound of 50 or more bagpipes and drums. It’s inspiring: you know you’re not dead (you can feel your blood rush). But solo pipes playing jigs and reels? Incredible!
But now I digress…
On 2001-07-10 08:34, fiddling_tenor wrote:
I love the sound of 50 or more bagpipes and drums. It’s inspiring: you know you’re not dead
I love the pipes in small doses, but 50 or more bagpies!?!?!?!?!? At once!?!?!?! At times like that I have wished I was dead.
As a proud member of the soon to be a clan again McArthurs, I have been to a fair number of Scottish highland games, and have the experience of listening to 100 or more pipers piping from sunrise to sunset. It was at one of these gatherings that I discovered another use for my whistle. Removing the head from my susato turns it into an effective bag deflater(peashooter).
Blaine