Whistles of Course, But What Else?

On 2001-07-08 12:18, LKtz wrote:
I played Flute (badly) but wait what could Julie play? (Saxaphone doesn’t work great for celtic music)

Hold the phone! The Saxophone may not be that common these days, but they were fairly common in the golden era of ceili bands. Right now, you could go to http://www.rte.ie/radio/ceolnet and look up the Ardellis Ceili Band under artists:bands. Many of their tunes have some great alto sax. Also, if you want to hear some truely beautiful contemporary traditional music with the Saxophone, try looking for CD’s from a band called “At the Rackett” Their first CD is self titled, their second CD was just released and I have yet to hear it. Their first CD has some great songs (two of which are love songs that follow tunes that you might associate with Republican ballads), a great flute reel duet with no accompanyment (just like old time recordings), and lots of dance music (including more waltz’s than other bands).

It is actually a dream of mine: learning to play my Grandmothers old Conn (a 1929 “Chu”) well enough to play in a ceili band here in the states somewhere. The thing played in one of the big bands with her in the 1940’s; I want that thing in public again. But, thats just me.

I was a bass player to start with, and even managed to scrape a living that way for some years.
The whistle…? Well,I just fancied something PORTABLE! I had it in mind to buy a tinwhistle (had seen them displayed)for a while before I remembered while I was actually AT the shops!
Had thought it would be nice to play melody more than bass players are usually allowed to do, and how right I was. It’s such an easy instrument to make a start on, and I was SERIOUSLY hooked from day one.
Some of you may know what I mean…
Have fun all of you…