What inspired you to play the whistle?

Mack.Hoover · Post by **Mack.Hoover** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 8:34 pm

James Galway playing Baby Elephant walk on a red topped whistle during a Mancini concert on PBS.

Oh, there were others, but that's the one that tipped me past center.

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:14 pm

I'd always kind of wanted to play a wind instrument. When I was a teenager, I fell head over heels for the Irish Rovers, and when I saw a Generation penny whistle in a music store and recognized it as the same kind of "flute" that Will Millar was playing, I bought it with my babysitting money. I learned some of my first tunes off those old Irish Rovers albums too

Redwolf

spittin_in_the_wind · Post by **spittin_in_the_wind** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:29 pm

I was very heavily into music through junior high, high school, and college, playing piano as a child and then saxophone, and entering every form of band I could find (you know the type....) but especially jazz bands and wind symphony. After college, I basically never touched my sax again for lack of practice space (read: loud instrument) and compatriots with whom to play. The last time I picked it up, the wind shot out the sides of my mouth and I could play for only about 10 minutes, and regretted it for a couple of days; a very disheartening experience for someone who used to play for a few hours a day. Last Thanksgiving, with the angst of the New England winter bearing down upon me and feeling extremely musically deprived, I decided maybe I would try one of those "Irish flute things, the kind that you blow into not across"; I must have seen one somewhere, probably Riverdance or something. It couldn't really be that hard, and certainly couldn't cause as much pain as my saxophone. After determining that what I was after was actually a whistle, I was extremely pleasantly surprised to find that most cost less than $20--I had expected to pay around $200 for one! I went to The Whistleshop to order one, found a link somewhere to Chiff and Fipple, and the rest is history...

Robin

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:32 pm

It's all Tom Dahill's fault. He opened the door to ITM for me, and I played sax in the past and adjusted to the whistle easily.

Eric

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:32 pm

I was extremely pleasantly surprised to find that most cost less than $20--I had expected to pay around $200 for one!

So what did you do with the $180 left over??

spittin_in_the_wind · Post by **spittin_in_the_wind** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:42 pm

Tony wrote:
I was extremely pleasantly surprised to find that most cost less than $20--I had expected to pay around $200 for one!
So what did you do with the $180 left over??

I bought a Busman...

Robin

Bretton · Post by **Bretton** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:46 pm

The first instrument I played was recorder in 1st through 5th grades...then I played saxophone in 6th through 12th grades. Then I didn't play anything for about 4 years.

I decided I needed to be playing some kind of musical instrument and went into a music store intending to buy a 'nice' wooden recorder. I came out with a $6 brass Generation C. I played around with it for a couple of years before I even found out it was mainly used in trad. Irish music...and that I needed a D whistle (got a Susato which was my 2nd whistle).

-brett

serpent · Post by **serpent** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 10:03 pm

... need I say more...
serpent

Tom Dowling · Post by **Tom Dowling** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 10:27 pm

I dabbled and diddled for years to no good effect. The film "Waking Ned Devine" pushed me over the edge. I'm still falling. I found a teacher within 36 hours of walking out of the theater and have been at it ever since.

Tom D.

skh · Post by **skh** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 12:26 am

I started playing whistle because I couldn't (and still can't) afford a flute, so that I at least can learn the tunes and the style and the ornaments.

Sonja

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 1:45 am

Two things really. First, through my late teens and 20s I played semi-professionally in a number of bands and styles but mainly blues, jazz and folk-rock and combinations of these. I played guitar, and saxophones mainly, but also harmonica, keyboards and vocals. In my late 20s I had to decide between a musical and an academic career and the latter won. I never stopped playing for fun but I always intended to get semi-serious again one day, and a few years back I decided it was now or never. I no longer wanted to play saxophone and I'd always wanted to play a flute-like melody instrument. It just had to be whistle didn't it?

The other reason was that, although aware of having a Gaelic Celtic background, and simply taking the music, food, humour and literature for granted, I finally decided to systematically explore Scottish and Irish culture. As for teh musical side of this, I just woke up one day and asked myself why I played blues as though born to it but not celtic music when I spent about equal amounts of time listening to each and had a celtic heritage. Well, best to learn a melody instrument first I thought and that led me inevitably to ... whistle.

Martin Milner · Post by **Martin Milner** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 2:45 am

JeffC wrote: Just think about the poor pianist, they've only 10 digits to cover 88 keys, that just seems terribly hard.

Later,

Monster

And that's an even temperament piano, think about a just tempered piano!

I just found the whistle to be so portable it's ideal for when you can't lug that double bass up to the top of a mountain for a quick tune.

PhilO · Post by **PhilO** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 6:15 am

The birth of my daughter. When I worked in Manhattan, my favorite toy store for special things for her was the Enchanted Forest, where I espied the Bill Ochs package (tapes, Clarke C whistle and tune book) and decided to learn this while hanging out. Taught myself to read the music and the rest is history, a gazillion whistles later and still counting...

Philo

burnsbyrne · Post by **burnsbyrne** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 6:44 am

I played guitar starting when I was 21 (I'm 52 now). In 1993 I broke my left wrist...bad. I tried to continue with the guitar but after a few more years I had to give it up. I was looking around for another more wrist-friendly instrument when I remembered the tin whistles I'd had in a cupboard for years. I called the local Irish American club for a list of teachers and hooked up with a guy from county Mayo. A little over one year later now and I can play lots of tunes. My left wrist still bugs me but I keep going. The music's gotta come out somehow!
Mike

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 8:03 am

Poverty and portability. I promised myself when in art school that one day I would learn to play an musical instrument and make my own music; instead of being just a consumer of it.

In every student studio music was being played not necessarily for listening to but as back ground noise, something to occupy the conscious mind while we played or painted in a deeper conscious. One day, when one classical music tape had played itself out and my stream of conscious was broken, I walked over to the tape player and selected another long symphony to play. And that is when I balked and said to myself Beethoven isn't back ground noise, I'm not giving him or the musicians courtesy of actually listening to them.

That is when I decided to learn a musical instrument. It was the Irish harp that I settled on but with a condition --- I had to make it myself.

Well years passed, graduate school came and went and ended up in Ottawa a librarian looking for work. I was poor and living out of a suitcase, so the instrument had to be cheap and portable. First it was the recorder, but I couldn't find a teacher. One day out walking in another end of Ottawa I came across the Ottawa Folklore Centre. I wandered in and saw a neat row of Generation whistles, so I bought a C and D -- that's all they had. At the cashier the clerk told me that they also provide lessons for the whistles. Naw I said I will try it on my own for a while, poverty has way of making one resourceful or cheap.

Since I have always had the ability to whistle a tune with my lips and picking up a tune was easy, I started my long journey in playing a whistle by ear.

So it was poverty and portability that got me into whistle playing.

MarkB

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What inspired you to play the whistle?

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