Historical Question...

[German Whistler]

THank you Mr. Gumby

[James D]

Bill Ochs however, in the aforementioned entry in the Companion. , clearly states references are found to the tin whistle well before 1843.

Does he give specific details re. these reference sources? it would be interesting to attempt to follow up on them.

OK, so I was 1hz out - it was actually A439 (New Philharmonic Pitch, 1989)

Well, it was 1896, not 1989.

Hah!
Yes, I even went and double-checked the date before posting. Don't know why I wrote 1989 instead of 1896 - probably due to too many junk thoughts going round in my head at the same time.

[Note to self: Remember to read what you've written before hitting the "Submit" button.]

[benhall.1]

[Note to self: Remember to read what you've written before hitting the "Submit" button.]

Yeah. Don't give any ammo to the smart@rses.

... oh ... that would be me, wouldn't it?

[Denny]

yer one o'em

[ytliek]

I'm wondering, is there any documentary evidence as to when precisely the whistle was adopted into the world of "Traditional" Irish Music?

I love the way the words "Traditional" Irish Music gets tossed around, er, ah, mentioned in discussions. As a newbie and trying to figure it all out, whistling, when someone says "ITM" are they meaning exclusively to Irish? What about the Scottish? British? and American interpretations of the Irish Trad. Or is that lumped into "Celtic"? The Companion reading has been a blessing as well as contributing to the confusion. And, if its traditional, how come the names of tunes can vary so many times, as it seems that if someone doesn't know the correct name of the tune they just slap a new title to an old tune? Or is that the tradition... confusion?

[Denny]

I do hope ya don't feel lonely

The word CELTIC

Celtic music

[I.D.10-t]

http://www.nigelgatherer.com/whistle/hist.html

...the Tusculum whistle in the Museum of Scotland made of brass or bronze, found with pottery dating from the 14th and 15th centuries...

[ytliek]

I do hope ya don't feel lonely

The word CELTIC

Celtic music

lonely? just me and my whistle... its a twosome

well, thanks for clearing that up, what about the rest of it? ITM

[I.D.10-t]

This might be a deficiency in my logic or a lack of music history, but while things like the low whistle are relatively new to ITM, it would seem to me that ITM came out of folk music and folk instruments like the fiddle and whistle. The fact that someone wanted to mass produce whistles in the 1840's suggests to me that there might have been a large market before then, and who knows how long people were pounding out brass whistles before then. Kind of the reason why I asked when ITM began.

[German Whistler]

sorry if i am (a little bit) off topic
but cause it was mentioned here
can you people recomend Norman Dannatt`s book about the clarke history?
or is there something else/better about the whistle history, not ITM or other music, just whistles?

as i said a little off topic but related enough i hope

[I.D.10-t]

I love the way the words "Traditional" Irish Music gets tossed around, er, ah, mentioned in discussions. As a newbie and trying to figure it all out, whistling, when someone says "ITM" are they meaning exclusively to Irish? What about the Scottish? British? and American interpretations of the Irish Trad.

To my understanding, different traditions do cross over heavily, but there are some tunes that don't cross over, some ornamentation that is played differently between the four and just different styles. You could play The Moreen as a fifer on the march, a piper at a funeral, or a whistler as an air and have entirely different approaches to the tune.

Of course, one could just call it all folk music...

[JaakkoK]

This might be a deficiency in my logic or a lack of music history, but while things like the low whistle are relatively new to ITM, it would seem to me that ITM came out of folk music and folk instruments like the fiddle and whistle. The fact that someone wanted to mass produce whistles in the 1840's suggests to me that there might have been a large market before then, and who knows how long people were pounding out brass whistles before then. Kind of the reason why I asked when ITM began.

I think there is a good point here. When traditional music was truly in the "folk" mode, people would play mostly anything they could get their hands on, and wildly borrow from any source of material they did find interesting. Violins were introduced from the outside, and the same goes for flutes, concertinas, accordions, mandolins etc. If electric guitars had been around in the 19th century, they would be a traditional Irish instrument by now.

It is only later that "tradition" gets codified, as academic interest develops, often with a nationalist backdrop, and some elements are accepted as belonging to the pure tradition, while others are rejected.

Thus it seems to me that the tin whistle most likely predates any concept of ITM. The more relevant question would be: when did the current tin whistle -- six hole fipple flute -- become popular with the people who would later be viewed as ITM players? Did it start only with the mass production in the mid 1800's -- was it a modern industrialist invention that happened to catch on as a novel, cheap and very playable instrument? Or was there a significant number of whistles produced by hand before that, so many that they might merit the description of a popular instrument of the day -- and consequently a traditional instrument in our view?

[Lars Larry Mór Mott]

A=440 is hardly universal even now, although it seems to pass in most places. But the difference is that A=440 is at least proposed as an agreed universal pitch standard,

Well, 1955 saw the introduction of an ISO norm, a bit stronger than a 'proposal'

I let the issue lie, all I can say that most old whistles are nearly exactly a semitone flat of their indicated pitch.

Wouldn't it be nice to find a nice old C# whistle..

[Mr.Gumby]

First of all, I had that bit about old whistles being a semi tone flat arseways, they're in fact a semitone sharp.

So, a number of old whistles I have stamped 'C' are effectively C# whistles. And they're not particularly difficult to find either.

I had a lovely one during the early eighties, a French one that was a C# as well. Micho Russell got on my case for that one and nagged until I gave it to him. Ah well, so it goes.

[maki]

So as I understand it most ITM started as contemporary/popular music elsewhere and
traveled to Ireland where it was concurently popular.
It really only became Traditional Irish when it stopped being popular in its place or origin?