), but am originaly from the Maritimes. I am a M'iqmaq from New Brunswick (though my band is based in Newfoundland, don't ask ..). I have played a traditional Lakota Love flute , and Woodland Spirit flute for several years. The native flutes are both end blown, with 5 holes in the Lakota, and 6 in the Woodlands. My wife is Scottish, and has recently taken up the highland bagpipe, and in the process bought me a little Walton's Guiness tinwhistle to play around with, and I have to say, that I'm enjoying it immensely. My biggest problem to start with was learning a whole new scale (European diatonic scale), as all of my flutes are traditionally made, meaning that the length of the flutes, and the placement of wholes are dependent upon the length of my arms, and the spacing of my fingers. For those of you not familiar with this, it means essentially that my flutes will not play a European diatonic scale (I can get sort of close, but not quite). It also means that every tradtitionally made flute is different from every other one, quite substantially. I could have bought native flutes keyed to the European scale, but that didn't seem right, and much of the music of my tribe would then be unplayable.
This little Irish flute though has been so much fun, that I've just purchased a Jerry Freeman tuned Shaw in key of D from the Whistleshop, and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival (unfortunately, out of stock, but expect more by the end of the week, fingers crossed), and Och's book "the Clarke TinWhistle Tutor" (or something like that). Hope these are good choices. I've heard nothing but good things about the Freeman tuned whistles both here and at session.org, and I love the look of the Shaw.
anyway, that's my 2.5 cents worth. Sounds like a nice little place here, and I just wanted to say hi
well, and write a bit of a novel but hey you don't have to read it..lol
so anyway...Hi All.
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin Milner
