How old were you?

hathair_bláth · Post by **hathair_bláth** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 5:45 pm

Just out of curiosity, how old were (or like in my case, are) you when you started playing the whistle?

I was curious if most people got started later in life with the whistle. I know I'd never heard of it (or more accurately, knew what it was...I'd defiantly heard it before!) up until about two years ago.

pipersgrip · Post by **pipersgrip** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:35 pm

i started when i was 18

Key_of_D · Post by **Key_of_D** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:43 pm

I started when I was 17. 3.5 years later I'm loving it even more.

hathair_bláth · Post by **hathair_bláth** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:04 pm

Late teens seems to be a popular time to pick it up. I started at 19.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:40 pm

I started when I was 25.

I'd have started 3 years earlier, but the girl I was dating at the time thought Irish tinwhistles were (gasp) recorders, and that's what I got the year I asked for one for christmas. (sigh)

Crysania · Post by **Crysania** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:51 pm

I started whistle when I was 27. But I had been playing clarinet since I was 8, so I wasn't starting music at the same time.

~Crysania

squidgirl · Post by **squidgirl** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:54 pm

I don't exactly know what to vote on this one...

I bought my first pennywhistle when I was 18 or 19, basically because it was in a basket next to the cash register... Got put off by the breath control required and the shreikiness of the upper end of the upper octave, and kind of forgot all about it for 20+ years... except I guess I musta kinda meant to start playing again, since I picked up a couple of tinwhistle tutorials when they randomly crossed my path.

Then in my early/mid 40's, out of nowhere, I felt the urge to learn to play a musical instrument, pennywhistle in particular. The qualities which had turned me off before suddenly seemed appealing, so I went and found myself a whistle. For a while I thought this would be a lonely quest, but then I googled and found C&F.

Then I moved into an apartment complex, and felt so shy about my lousy whistling that I didn't play for a couple of years... and then, at the end of this winter, I got over my shyness and took out my whistles and started learning to play all over again.

So I started once in my late teens, again in my early-mid 40's, and again in my mid-late 40's...

sbhikes · Post by **sbhikes** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:05 pm

I had no idea a penny whistle was a real instrument.

I recently was given an iPod full of Irish music. I really love it! I decided I would haul out my fiddle and see if I can play it. I used to take a beginner fiddle class where we would play oldtime American fiddle tunes, but the teacher retired or something and they never have the class again. Well, fiddle is too hard and I used to play the flute, so when I learned that flutes are used for Irish music I decided I would get an Irish flute. I've learned to play the whistle while waiting for my flute to be made (still waiting). I'm 42 and had no idea that Irish music was so popular and so good and that that lovely sound came from those silly penny whistles you would see for sale so cheap. I mean, aren't real musical instruments supposed to cost hundreds of dollars??

It's fun, but yeah, it's pretty screechy so I can't wait for my flute to come so I can make some sweeter sounds.

pastorkeith · Post by **pastorkeith** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:58 pm

I used to hang out at Eric the Flutemaker's stand at the Renaissance Faire every year, just listening, until my 41st birthday, when my wife surprised me with one of his wooden high D's.
pastorkeith

crookedtune · Post by **crookedtune** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 9:19 pm

Got a Clarke and an L.E. McCullough book as a gift from my parents when I was about 25, but didn't get serious until I was about 52. Guess I really had to scope this one out!

Flogging Jason · Post by **Flogging Jason** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 9:23 pm

I think I was 10 or 11 when I started. I grew up around Celtic culture and Historical Re-enacting and my Dad playing GHB's. He kept a dirty old Soodlums whistle next to his computer and I just picked it up one day and never put it down. That was 16 years ago and I'm still learning new things!

brianholton · Post by **brianholton** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 9:34 pm

I started recorder at 11, and had heard old guys playing whistles in the pubs around the Scottish Borders (where I come from) but not paid much attention.

Then came the Chieftains! I heard them on a wee transistor radio when John Peel played their music, but when they toured Scotland for the first time in 1973, I was blown away, and went out the next day and bought a couple of Generations. I still have a Bb and a C that I bought that day.

I wasn't the only one, either - although there were so few tickets sold for the gig, we were all crowded into the front stalls to make the place look less empty. That winter in Sandy Bell's Bar in Edinburgh, I helped Tony Cuffe make his first attempts at the whistle, and we both listened entranced to Finbar Furey and Cathal McConnell and Alex Green.

I did let the whistles go a bit in the 90s, when, as a newly single person, I returned to the guitar for a few years, but when I moved to Hong Kong in 2000, and discovered C&F, well, life changed again. I never knew of WHOA until then.

Now, who is making sterling silver tunable low B whistles?

AlonE · Post by **AlonE** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 9:35 pm

I started to 18 years old, always I wanted to play some, but no I am pleased, only my loved whistle full my soul and heart

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:00 pm

I started at about 25, but I started getting serious about it at about 49. I recommend putting real effort in sooner.

jlunt · Post by **jlunt** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 4:18 am

I started at 41. It's easy to remember. It was just three months ago. I've played guitar and keys for about twenty-five years. Then one day in early March, in the middle of the day, I thought, "I want to play the tin whistle." I don't know why I thougt that, but I'm glad I did.

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